The Canadoper Café 2024 is now open!

Golfing with snow on the ground, and chasing (carefully) Canada Geese away from my ball.

How about this? Walking my dog when it was cold enough to see my dog’s farts.

The judges have ruled that this qualifies.

Whew!

I think you mean, “pee yew”.

To add a few more:
Digging snow forts out of the snow bank beside the driveway that I could stand up in (admittedly, I was only 5).
Having all the albums by Buddy Wasisname & the Other Fellers - and knowing what all the words mean.
Knowing where a Bluenoser, a Spud Islander, and a Herring Choker are from.
Watching Corner Gas reruns whenever they are on.
Leaving the snow tires on in April because you can bet you’ll need them if you take them off!

After a big Atlantic snowstorm in the early 90’s, cross-country skiing to the grocery store to stock up on essentials in a small town in New Brunswick. I was on top of the snow banks on the main street. looking down at the top of a transport truck slowly passing by.

Also cross country skiing related back in Southern Ontario, for 5 years in a row I volunteered to help out with prepping the course for ski races run by the local ski club. Getting up an hour before sunrise, driving for 45 minutes, then skiing the course just as the sun was starting to come up to check that the direction signs were correctly placed, and clearing any obstacles with a group of friends was more fun than it might sound like.

These links are more complete.

Definitely qualifies.

So cold (-40C) that the cold defeated my car’s block heater. I couldn’t get to the supermarket, so no fresh produce, but the staples I needed (bread, coffee) were at the corner store three blocks away. So I could walk it.

Pretty sure that when they go into space, astronauts wear less than I did for that errand that day.

I once went to a New Year’s party in Edmonton, but the bottles of amaretto and rye I had in the trunk of my car froze solid.

Facebook is reminding me that "In 1972, the CBC had a contest to complete the phrase “As Canadian as _______” (as in “American as apple pie.”)

The winner was, “As Canadian as possible, under the circumstances”

That is still the best answer, years later.

Played road hockey while drinking beer.

The PCs are well ahead and would win a majority again if an election were held now.

The reason Ford is likely to call an early election, I am told, is that by all accounts he’d like to take advantage of that before the federal election - which the CPC is 98% likely to win - on the assumption that if he waits until after the bloom is off the Conservative rose at the federal level, it’ll hurt them at the provincial level. Which is likely true.

Agree with Dr Paprika: that’s the winner. It might pair with this:
“Years ago in the New Republic, Michael Kinsley ran a competition to find the most boring newspaper headline. The winner was “Worthwhile Canadian initiative”. “Worthwhile Canadian initiative” was real – it lives online in the New York Times archive from 10 April 1986.”

Born and raised near Vancouver, none of the winter stuff resonates at all with me and “Canuckness.” I can, however, trace one of my hands to make a quick map of Canada.

I can list the “4 rocks that threatened the ship of John A. Macdonald’s Conservative Party in the 1880s,” according to JAM himself.

And my heart swells with pride at this scene in The Devil’s Brigade: https://youtu.be/ND2E24ZO-8U?si=U9HNrZYkdXPt210M

The Beaverton has Doug Ford’s number - Doug Ford reveals how he will destroy 5 more Toronto landmarks - The Beaverton

Speaking for myself, I just don’t understand. I mean, I get that not everyone thinks the way I do (though it would be a far better world if they did! :smiley: ), but in my opinion, the Ford government is doing very poorly.

Health care - how many Ontarians are without a family doctor? How many emergency rooms have had to close for a time during the past year? Why don’t we have enough nurses and doctors? Why do the for-profit long term care facilities show a worse record for health care outcomes than the not-for-profit facilities, and why is nothing being done to close the gap? (This is the point where lefties like me point out that former Premier Mike Harris is on the board of Chartwell, leading me to suspect that nothing will ever be done about it while the Conservatives are in power.)

And yet, with these problems in the health care system, Mr. Ford prioritized breaking the agreement with the LCBO/Beer Store a year early in order to provide beer and wine at convenience stores. The cost will be at least $250,000,000.00, but estimates from the other political parties put the cost at anywhere between $750,000,000.00 to $1,000,000,000.00. And not surprisingly, drinking and driving rates are going up, because ‘convenience stores’ apparently includes gas stations.

The environment - the Ford government wants to reduce environmental assessments of new projects. Opening the Greenbelt to development has been put on hold, largely due to the apparent corruption of developers being guests at Ford’s daughter’s wedding and miraculously buying land in the Greenbelt when there was no indication they’d ever be allowed to develop it.

Throw in the giveaway of Ontario Place to an Austrian based private spa company (with links to the purchase of some of Ford’s company Deco Labels), while putting us on the hook for an underground parking garage, the environmental destruction of trees at the former Ontario Place site, the lack of consultation and transparency on the project, the revelation that the business model for the private spa is crap (leading me to wonder if this is all subterfuge for forcing the casino that Toronto said “No!” to years ago on the city.), the overnight shuttering of the Ontario Science Centre based on a report that recommended fixing the roof (with a developer building across the street who just happens to be another one of Mr. Ford’s contributors) - if this is the way businesses are run these days, I’m very happy if government is not run like a business!

Add in the resistance to evidence-based policy - the shutting down of the basic income pilot project before the evidence was in because it’s just not something the Ford government would ever support, the resistance to carbon pricing, the shuttering of the Rob Ford Safe Injection Sites (I know they were never named that - when people talk about an appropriate place or thing to be named after Rob Ford, I think something to help people who struggle with substance abuse is perfect. I honestly mean it respectfully, out of sympathy to a man who fought his demons. I also realize that it pisses off a lot of Conservatives when I suggest that - sorry, but I’m not sorry.), the threats to build the 401 tunnel despite whatever the feasibility studies show…

Like I say - I’m not Conservative and I never will be. But with all that I’ve just listed above, I especially can’t support the Doug Ford Conservatives.

Heard through the legal grapevine

There was a fire alarm at the Supreme Court of Canada this morning, during argument on an appeal. Courthouse evacuated.

There are apparently selfies circulating of a buncha lawyers on the front lawn, in robes, under a bright Ottawa fall sky.

I wonder what the tourists, especially foreign tourists, thought if they were passing by. “Look, dear, the penguins must have escaped from the Ottawa Zoo.”

Seriously, it’s better to be safe than sorry. If proceedings have to be halted at the SCC in order to address an emergency, or even a false or accidental alarm, it’s best to halt them. They can resume later.

I hate what Doug Ford is doing to Ontario.
And I hate what Francois Legault is doing here in Quebec. Screwing over Montreal in many ways.