Over the last couple of days, I have spent an inordinate amount of time talking about Canada and being Canadian. This is partly due to my presence in America but I'd like to go on record saying that it's mostly my doing 'cause I like to talk about this shit. Seriously, even I find it a bit annoying after a while.
The differences between and Canada and the United State can't easily be summed up, even if beer commercials, politicians and Michael Moore try to do exactly that. It's a lot of little things that if you weren't really paying attention you'd hardly notice. Mostly it's small group of Canadians trying very hard to avoid being engulfed by American cultural machine. When I lived in Windsor, which is just across the river from Detroit, many of the people who grew up in Windsor said they felt more American than Canadian because all their news and sports teams resided on the other side of the border. It's difficult to assess what is Canadian and what isn't. Knowledge of history and politics makes someone a citizen of their country but not fully socialized member of the cultural group.
So what's the differences I've noticed? Well, aside from a fundamental knowledge of how the different bureaucratic institutions work, there's really nothing. I don't think anyone wants to know in detail how Canadians elect their government anymore than how Americans do it [ASIDE: although, from watching and reading a lot about the presidential primaries, I have to say it seems that the Canadian system is a little easier to follow].
So, I apologize to all the people who have had to listen to me go on about Canada over the last couple of days. If you want to know the honest truth, as an out of work teacher this is the only time I get to truly inform people about something new to them. If I had a job I'd probably want to be talking about about Phoenix's acquisition of Shaq last week or something else... like beer... or cola... or blogs. Who knows?
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