How could anybody hate a country that has given us Rush, William Shatner and poutine?
Rush?
God save the Queen-sized bed sheet.
The band, not the drug-addicted radio jackass.
Not to mention Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and
and
er
Burton Cummings?
Shania Twain?
Shit! they were doing so well there for a minute!
More seriously, and with no offense intended to my brethren north of the border, I think many people in other parts of the world don’t see that much difference. :ducks and runs for cover:
When they do that to me, I whip out the credit card. Let 'em pay the $0.29 transaction fee plus 2% to 3%. That’ll teach 'em to bitch about a Canadian quarter. And I’m not kidding. I’m on the Ontario border. Most places take Canadian change less than a loonie on par.
Tell me about it.
Is that thing supposed to be a carribou or an elk? The engraving is so bad I just can’t tell. It doesn’t help that The High Priestess Of Whatever-The-Hell-It-Is on the front of the thing looks exactly like a heavily worn Washington.
For the record, it seems that Rush Limbaugh is from Missouri, so it looks like we’re stuck with the jerk.
Canada does piss off other countries, whether you think they do things or not.
We just pissed off China by meeting with the Dalai Lama. We pissed off our beloved Amerikan neighbours by not supporting their war more fully. Mad cow, well, everybody was pissed off about that.
We’re really more like the nation no one can stay mad at. 
Incidentally, I remember a riot in downtown Toronto maybe six years ago. The mayor, the buffonish Mel Lastman, appeared before the unruly crowd so he could read them the riot act. I was surprised to learn such old laws were still on the books, but the Toronto mayor does still have the authority to tell a crowd to disperse to their homes are face civil charges, providing “he” greets the mob in person and tells them that “he” is reading them the riot act.
Can’t see this happening in the States.
“You must return to your… BANG!”
As the blind man said, please God give me cite!
Anyway, every country has its enemies. Anyone who hates the Western world in general would hate Canada, but the US is the Symbol of the West right now. Thus, it was the Twin Towers and not the CN Tower that was attacked. Canada still has internal enemies, I think, such as Quebecers who want Francophone independence in the worst way. A small contingent, but you could validly say they hate Canada.
Does Canada have the same level of military readiness as the US? Well, no, but you’d need a continent to match up to the US these days. Canada doesn’t see it as a problem that the US is the Big Dog in the region, hemisphere, and planet, and I don’t blame them. They kick in what they have when they feel it’s justified.
Yeah? Well what about Brian Adams? They did give us Brian Adams. (Bastards.)
You know, a little penicillin will clear that up in a jiffy.
Naw, they’re at West Edmonton Mall.
Bryan Adams… We’ve apologized for that one, can we just let it go? Besides, he’s from the Lower Mainland of BC - that’s practically Washington!
(Ow! Larry, knock it off!)
It might be prudent for an intelligence service to act as if it has the biggest problem but I doubt very much that it is the case. I’m thinking Turkey would knock it into a cocked hat as far as this measure is concerned. Where did you hear this anyway?
I haven’t heard of this either. There was one in March that questioned whether it would next be the turn of Japan, Italy, Britain, Saudi Arab, Pakistan or Australia but no mention of Canada. There was also the infamous one last year that inexplicably mentions Norway which they’d confused with Denmark.
You mean Bali (a very long way away) and the attack was carried out by Jemaah Islamiyah. They have only loose links to al-Qaeda and it was in aid of a very indigenous Indonesian agenda with East Timor rather than any MENA issues as the motivation.
Nothing. No country is immune from terrorism. New Zealand, Papua New Guinea and Singapore have all experienced it but I’m sure you don’t think of any of them as hotbeds of extremism. Canada is a target because it exists. It only seems worse because it’s where you live.
Hopefully a vigilant intelligence service and a continuation of the policy of not making (large numbers of) enemies will continue the trend. Falling in with the Coalition of the Willing anymore than you have won’t help.
I’ve seen it several times (most recently in TIME a couple of weeks ago), but it’s usually given that Canada has the second-largest number of terrorist groups within its boundaries - after the U.S. itself.
Well, it made the news up here when it happened, but I believe it was a year ago, not last month. The alleged basis for the threat was that Canadian troops were in Afghanistan. For the past year, Canada has been the commanding nation for the NATO contingent, other than the US troops. I believe the tape came out around the time that Canada took over command from Germany.
Here’s a link to a news article that mentions the CSIS claim:
Information on terrorism in Canada can be found at:
http://www.csis-scrs.gc.ca/eng/operat/ct_e.html
The CSIS quote came from the Globe. I cannot vouch for its accuracy. Al-Qaeda made the Canada statement in an internal April communique.
I did mean Bali and not Fiji. I agree calling this an attack on Australia is a big stretch, but tourists were clearly targeted.
Until recently it was legal for terrorist groups to fund raise in Canada. No more. Canada has also finally got around to freezing funds of terrorist groups and making a few changes to its terrorism policies. Canadians generally support their military, but I think most Canadian civilians (as well as soldiers) are glad that our troops are in Kabul and not Iraq.
It certainly makes sense to me the US has more terrorist groups than Canada. However, I guess you could argue there are known knowns, etc. Presumably Canada has been (until recently) much less zealous in looking for terrorist activities.
And here are links to a couple of news items about al-Qaeda threatening Canada. Both of them are from March/April of this year - are they what you’re thinking of, Dr. P? I’m pretty sure that we were first named in an audio tape in 2002/2003, but can’t find any links to it. Will keep looking.
And a third: CSIS Chief Warns of Al Qaeda Attack: