Canada Day shout-out to our friends north of the border

July 1, 2012 8:49 AM

Happy Canada Day, Canadians!
posted by jason's_planet to MetaFilter-Related at 8:49 AM (76 comments total)

Here's to you Canada, thanks for being a good sport about that whole War of 1812 thing. Cheers!
posted by The Whelk at 9:06 AM on July 1, 2012

I'm either half or a quarter Canadian, depending on how you look at it,* and Canada Day always makes me feel a bit tingly and nice.

*My grandmother was Canadian, and my dad was retroactively granted citizenship a few years ago.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:22 AM on July 1, 2012

So this is where us Usians' jealousy of the Canadianers' Health Care system can be tempered by the fact that OUR big holiday gives us Wednesday off, while you have to celebrate it on a Sunday?
posted by oneswellfoop at 9:26 AM on July 1, 2012

One of my dogs is a rescue from Kentucky. She emigrated to a better life in the GWN a couple of months ago so this is her first Canada day. We are having fun dressing her in Canadian flags and generally embarrassing her.

(Everyone has monday off, onefellswoop).
posted by jamesonandwater at 9:30 AM on July 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

We get Monday off as well. Happy Canada Day everyone! Free Tim Hortons for everyone!


I was joking about the Tim Hortons alas.
posted by arcticseal at 9:36 AM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

dang, you really had my hopes up with that Tim Hortons thing.....

oh well: Happy Canada Day anyway!
posted by easily confused at 9:40 AM on July 1, 2012

Hey, it's Canada Day AND the day of the Toronto Pride Parade, which guarantees that Rob Ford leaves town for the weekend.

Anyway, Joey found this handy infographic to help you understand us better.
posted by maudlin at 9:50 AM on July 1, 2012 [4 favorites]

As if the CAian's on Metafilter need more attention, every damn link on this site caters to their pseudo-Scottish tastes. Won't someone think of the Brobdignagians?

Congratulations on your country's independence, brave Candahoovians!
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 9:53 AM on July 1, 2012

Tim Hortons used to be a great donut shop. But starting about ten years ago, they stopped baking everything fresh on site, switched to a half-baked-then-frozen-then-reheated process. This led to a decline in quality that was noticeable to anyone who had sufficiently evolved taste buds to also realize that the coffee sucked. Not that this hurt shareholder profits.

Sadly, Canada, like Tim Hortons, is over-rated of late. Great if you're a shareholder. Sucks if you're just an everyday citizen.
posted by philip-random at 9:58 AM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

oneswellfoop, we get the Monday off because July 1 is on a Sunday this year. Sorry to bring you down.
posted by Dipsomaniac at 10:03 AM on July 1, 2012

also realize that the coffee sucked.

Gasp! Beaver duel at dawn, sir! I like Tim Horton's coffee, although I agree about the baked goods. Not too bitter, nice and creamy.. mmm.

Also, Happy Canada Day, my fellow canoeheads. :)
posted by jess at 10:05 AM on July 1, 2012

Hey, "Here Today Guano Tomorrow" by Dayglo Abortions is available on Spotify!

Canada Day: MADE
posted by BitterOldPunk at 10:07 AM on July 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I know, it was just a joke, we get Monday off when July 4th falls on a Sunday too. But when Monday holidays are routine, it's kinda special to get WEDNESDAY off, right?
posted by oneswellfoop at 10:07 AM on July 1, 2012

also realize that the coffee sucked

How would anyone know what the coffee tastes like, they drown it in so much sugar and cream it's basically a caffeine-tinged milkshake. (Seven years in Canuckistan, still don't get the Timmy's thing).
posted by jamesonandwater at 10:09 AM on July 1, 2012

Or, as it's known in Quebec, Fête du déménagement (moving day).
posted by googly at 10:20 AM on July 1, 2012

Also, Canada joke ...

How many assholes does it take to screw in a light bulb?

Stephen Harper.
posted by philip-random at 10:21 AM on July 1, 2012 [14 favorites]

Would you pass the Canadian citizenship test? [via flex who lives there and got one fewer right than I did]

I got 19 of 20 right and the wrong one was because of sneaky Canadian questions designed to trick you out.
posted by dhartung at 10:26 AM on July 1, 2012

(Everyone has monday off, onefellswoop)

Except for the place Mr hippybear works in Montreal, which had Friday off.

(Or maybe all of Quebec does it on Friday just to be, you know... different.)
posted by hippybear at 10:51 AM on July 1, 2012

Damn that was catchy. I spent the whole thing trying to decide if he is a horrible dancer or just a bit tired. Cause he's got rhythm, but he seemed to half-ass a bit of it. Or maybe it's an "understated" kind of a thing. (Appreciated it more from that angle the second time.)
posted by Glinn at 11:05 AM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Having a Wednesday off would just make Thursday and Friday that much more interminable, wouldn't it?
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 11:16 AM on July 1, 2012

Here's to you Canada, thanks for being a good sport about that whole War of 1812 thing.

Why wouldn't they be good sports? They burned the US capitol! Americans should watch it with the Canadian jokes, lest the Snowy Menace descend again!
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:20 AM on July 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

Seven years in Canuckistan, still don't get the Timmy's thing

Forty seven years here, since birth actually, and I don't get the Timmy's thing either.
As my dear father used to say 'Horse piss with the foam farted off'
Of course he was describing bad corporate beer but I think it's applicable in this case.

Happy Petro State Day everyone and raise a drink for what our country once was and one day will hopefully be again.
posted by Phlegmco(tm) at 11:21 AM on July 1, 2012 [5 favorites]

Why wouldn't they be good sports? They burned the US capitol!

That's why your White House is white, because you had to paint it to hide the scorch marks from when we set fire to it. Thanks for learning from that and not attacking us again over the last 200 years.
posted by orange swan at 11:33 AM on July 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

Thanks for learning from that and not attacking us again over the last 200 years.

All those imported fast food chains could be considered a kind of attack. And we seem to have exported insane "conservative" politics, for which I am sorry (although we were abetted by Murdoch, for whom I feel no responsibility).
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:39 AM on July 1, 2012

The Commonwealth can be partially thanked for Murdoch. Not that it's anything to be proud of.
posted by arcticseal at 11:55 AM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Thanks for learning from that and not attacking us again over the last 200 years.

Mike Myers films could be considered provocation. Or at least taunting.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 12:07 PM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Why wouldn't they be good sports? They burned the US capitol!

That would be the British. Saying it was Canadians is as silly as saying Queen Victoria was Canadian.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 12:42 PM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
Uh...something...something...something
mumblemumblemumble

(repeat)

Those are the actual lyrics, honest.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 1:15 PM on July 1, 2012

That would be the British.

But we were British back then, ROU_Xenophobe. It was our army!

Seriously though, I read somewhere (probably here on Mefi) that the War of 1812 made Canada. Until then the colonists thought of themselves as being essentially the same as the new Americans, cut from the same cloth, raised in the same woods and all that, except they were the ones who chose to retain their loyalty to the Crown. Then the war happened and the Americans were suddenly up in their faces, burning their houses and shooting at them, and the Canadians decided that, no, they weren't anything like these violent crazy people. Whatever they were it was something different. And a grand tradition of defining Canadians as "not Americans" was born!
posted by Kevin Street at 1:37 PM on July 1, 2012

Kevin, I think it was this article in The Walrus. Previously.
posted by arcticseal at 2:23 PM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Here's to you Canada, thanks for being a good sport about that whole War of 1812 thing. Cheers!

The one where we burned down the White House? While the President ran and cried? Best commemorated in song by Three Dead Trolls In A Baggie.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 2:42 PM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Seven years in Canuckistan, still don't get the Timmy's thing

You're too late, I'm afraid.

The only reason for the initial success of Tim Hortons was that a) they were open 24 hours, b) it was indoors, c) you could smoke there, and c) everything they sold was dirt cheap. It was the perfect late night hangout for bored teenagers. (Which is why a donut shop named after a hockey player features so prominently in Wayne's World.)

It isn't like that anymore. Whatever cultural cachet the place still holds is entirely residual.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:49 PM on July 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

But we were British back then, ROU_Xenophobe. It was our army!

Only in the same way that it was your army beating the shit out of India for daring to want their country back a little while later or your army keeping Ireland enserfed and starving.

I shouldn't be stroppy about it, and I know it's mostly just good-fun patriotism, but it still rubs me the wrong way for the same reasons that dumbfuck Americans going on about how we saved Europe from the Nazis do. If you want to celebrate the burning of Washington, take a minute to remember that it was real, actual people that did it, and real actual people that died trying to do it, and those people were not Canadian any more than it was Americans who were dying in Stalingrad or Kursk.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 2:50 PM on July 1, 2012

If you want to celebrate the burning of Washington, take a minute to remember that it was real, actual people that did it, and real actual people that died trying to do it, and those people were not Canadian any more than it was Americans who were dying in Stalingrad or Kursk.

Not Canadian other than, you know, being from Canada and stuff.
posted by Sys Rq at 2:57 PM on July 1, 2012

Or, you know, not. But still! We wrote the letter asking for their help!
posted by Sys Rq at 3:02 PM on July 1, 2012

something something mooses maple syrup hockey poutine justin bieber something

Seriously though I would kill a man for some poutine.
posted by elizardbits at 3:05 PM on July 1, 2012

But there was never a bright line that separated Britain from Canada. We've gradually grown apart, but "God Save The Queen" was our national anthem until 1967. My family tree straddled both sides of the Atlantic well into the 20th century. There was one great-uncle who was thrown out of India in 1947, and another great-uncle who served in the British Army (posted to India) and then the Canadian army in WWI. The British Empire was us, and we were (sort of) British for a long time. So sure, that was our army in 1812.
posted by Kevin Street at 3:14 PM on July 1, 2012

I've always thought I should export poutine back to my native Scotland, but then I realise I'd likely be tried as a war criminal. It would be genocide, all those additional heart attacks.

I celebrated by making traditional Canadian wheat boards out of cedar planks, hard red wheat, and beeswax.
posted by scruss at 3:20 PM on July 1, 2012

"It would be genocide, all those additional heart attacks."

I'm struggling to understand how poutine could possibly cause any additional heart attacks in a land of the roll and pie (pie inside a roll) and deep-fried pizza.

Go ahead, introduce it, it's pure deliciousness and, who knows, maybe they'll deep-fry poutine and maximize its deliciosity into something of awesome, unstoppable power.
posted by Ivan Fyodorovich at 3:41 PM on July 1, 2012

Only in the same way that it was your army beating the shit out of India for daring to want their country back a little while later or your army keeping Ireland enserfed and starving.

The British Army was acting at our request in retaliation for your attack on Toronto (then York). I really can't see how British actions in Ireland or England are related to Canada at all.

By the way, the commanders of the force that attacked Washington ate the dinner prepared for your President before they burned the White House.
posted by orange swan at 3:46 PM on July 1, 2012

Would you pass the Canadian citizenship test?

I would, apparently, but I would not ace it. Bad expat! Bad!
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:01 PM on July 1, 2012

I scored higher than my Canadian wife. I was not allowed to be smug about it.
posted by arcticseal at 4:18 PM on July 1, 2012

I put my big Canadian flag out on the porch. I only get this flag out on signal occasions: Victoria Day, Canada Day, Remembrance Day, during the Olympics, and in the event of Stephen Harper's crushing defeat in the next election (ohpleaseohpleaseohpleaseohplease). My tenant tells me that in the States, the presence of a flag on the porch indicates the presence of a gun in the house. In Canada, a flag on the porch means there's maple syrup, a crokinole board, and a pair of ice skates in the house (check, check and check).
posted by orange swan at 4:33 PM on July 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

Tim Hortons used to be a great donut shop. But starting about ten years ago, they stopped baking everything fresh on site, switched to a half-baked-then-frozen-then-reheated process.

This just happened in Victoria in the last year or so. Now Tim's donuts are just too sweet.
posted by KokuRyu at 5:04 PM on July 1, 2012

It isn't like that anymore. Whatever cultural cachet the place still holds is entirely residual.

Like poutine, Tim Hortons seems to be a very modern construct as a representation of Canadianness, at least outside Quebec (and Ontario)?

I left Canada about 20 years ago, more or less, having grown up in BC (and Ontario until I was 6), and although I was aware that both existed, back then, neither had any great cultural-mythological freight to me or people I knew.

Although my father did die in a head-on collision with a Tim Horton's truck in 1971, so there's that.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:40 PM on July 1, 2012

Happy Canada Day Canadians and a special thank you to the good people from Nova Scotia for providing Boston with its annual Christmas Tree.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:09 PM on July 1, 2012 [3 favorites]

I'm sorry to hear that, stav. I know it's been a long time, but I'm still sorry to hear it.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:05 PM on July 1, 2012 [2 favorites]

scruss: "I've always thought I should export poutine back to my native Scotland, but then I realise I'd likely be tried as a war criminal. It would be genocide, all those additional heart attacks."

One word: Haggis.
posted by zarq at 7:12 PM on July 1, 2012

Although my father did die in a head-on collision with a Tim Horton's truck in 1971,

That sucks. My very late condolences.

Speaking of Tim Horton and car crashes ... when I was almost ten (and living in Don Mills, suburban Toronto), my best friend moved to the next suburb over (Willowdale) where his next door neighbour was none other than Tim Horton, Toronto Maple Leaf, all-star defenseman. Which was cool. But I never actually got to meet him, or even see him through the fence because the same week my friend switched suburbs my family moved 3000 miles west to Vancouver.

Maybe three years later, when I finally got back to Toronto, Mr. Horton and his wife had divorced. So all I got see through the fence was her and her daughters. Then, maybe two years later, Mr. Horton was killed in a big deal car accident on one of the local freeways. Which led directly to Mrs. Horton getting bought out of the donut chain for a measly million bucks.
posted by philip-random at 7:13 PM on July 1, 2012 [1 favorite]

Stav, I'm very sorry man. :(
posted by zarq at 7:13 PM on July 1, 2012

Oh hey, thanks for the nice words folks, but it was 40 years ago. Very much ancient history, and many other familial deaths since. I'm OK.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 7:34 PM on July 1, 2012

> how poutine could possibly cause any additional heart attacks in a land of the roll and pie (pie inside a roll) and deep-fried pizza.

I think it would be a critical mass. I mean, chips and cheese are common. So are chips and gravy. But to combine all three? Major Scottish urban centres would explode.

Pie rolls and fried pizza are for weans. Real Scottish people eat deep fried mac and cheese pie (roll optional), or the delicacy of delicacies, the chip roll. Ohh, the chip roll. I had to loll back in my chair 'cos I started to drool thinking of it ...
posted by scruss at 7:54 PM on July 1, 2012

Yes, I confirm the above, that the major draw of Tim Horton's used to be the maple-glazed donuts (slightly smoke flavored, and especially good right after the dentist, thank you '80s parenting) and the right to smoke in there for however long you wanted with a tiny coffee order (thanks teenage '90s). Now, not smoke flavored, sold from a kiosk and not particularly cheap...yeah Tim Horton's isn't what it used to be. But neither am I, I guess!

Happy canada day! Have a maple donut and a double double for me!
posted by bquarters at 7:58 PM on July 1, 2012

Also, it was really the only place you could get 'to go' coffee. So it was also popular with workers and people with long drives ahead. So that covers MANY Canadians right there. And if you were young enough, the long drive represented a road trip. Good times. And that's why I will always love Tim H's. (And also that one of the last times I went home to visit my parents they replaced all the coffee in the house with decaf without mentioning it. One tired, headache-filled visit later... Now I make sure I make a Tim's run daily when I'm back. Never again!)
posted by bquarters at 8:09 PM on July 1, 2012

I have a friend who celebrated his being sworn in as Canadian citizen (he was an American) by buying and eating a maple-glazed donut from Tim's.
posted by orange swan at 8:18 PM on July 1, 2012

But there was never a bright line that separated Britain from Canada. We've gradually grown apart, but "God Save The Queen" was our national anthem until 1967.

Technically, this is correct. And then thirteen years beyond that.

As a little kid in the seventies, I sang both "God Save The Queen" and "O Canada" every morning in class, but there was no doubt as to which was the official anthem and which one the de facto one.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 8:55 PM on July 1, 2012

For those looking to make appropriate MeTa posts, couple of helpful resources - List of national independence days and this also has a list.

Burundi, Somalia and Rwanda also celebrate July 1, though I'm not quire sure if we've got Mefites over there.
posted by vidur at 10:00 PM on July 1, 2012

Canada Day is also my birthday and Klangklangston's.
posted by IndigoRain at 10:51 PM on July 1, 2012

Oh, and Languagehat's, and a few other people's. List.
posted by IndigoRain at 10:52 PM on July 1, 2012

orange swan: "My tenant tells me that in the States, the presence of a flag on the porch indicates the presence of a gun in the house."

If there's a gun in my house, the old owners must have concealed it under the floorboards or something.
posted by Chrysostom at 12:04 AM on July 2, 2012

Canadian flag in the window = I used my money to buy beer/weed instead of drapes.
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 1:37 AM on July 2, 2012 [1 favorite]

"My tenant tells me that in the States, the presence of a flag on the porch indicates the presence of a gun in the house."

Wasn't there someone in here who said that they hung a flag on their porch to celebrate the SCOTUS validation of the health care mandate? I think "flag on the porch" can cover a lot of things.

My grandmother was Canadian, and my dad was retroactively granted citizenship a few years ago.

My grandmother as well! How does someone retroactively get citizenship? (Although, my mom may not care.)

And what province? Grandma was from New Brunswick (although the family emigrated to Massachusetts when she was about six).
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 5:37 AM on July 2, 2012

My dad is a citizen by virtue of an act of parliament a few years ago which granted citizenship to children born across to Canadian citizens. I imagine your mom is, too. He and his sisters are in the midst of the necessary paperwork to have their citizenship officially recognized. (He probably wouldn't bother, but his youngest sister is married to a Canadian, and will eventually be moving to his hometown in Quebec, and it makes the process easier for her if they all do it.)

My grandmother was born in Calgary, grew up in Winnipeg, and started university in Toronto before moving to Kentucky with her parents. She was a city girl, was a child actor on CBC radio even, and ended up falling in love with my grandfather, a farmer, and became a beloved English teacher at Ridgway High School in Ridgway, Illinois.

I never met her, or my grandfather, as they were killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver in 1978.
posted by ocherdraco at 7:10 AM on July 2, 2012

*born abroad
posted by ocherdraco at 7:10 AM on July 2, 2012

Is this where we put Canuck jokes?
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 10:39 AM on July 2, 2012

Late to the party, as usual, but since you guys have today off, too: Happy Day after Dominion Day!

Canadian, Please!
posted by trip and a half at 11:35 AM on July 2, 2012

My tenant tells me that in the States, the presence of a flag on the porch indicates the presence of a gun in the house.

The presence of Tibetan prayer flags on my fire escape indicates that I got super drunk with some colleagues on Losar.
posted by elizardbits at 11:42 AM on July 2, 2012

Is "Canadians" still slang for "Black People"?
posted by Eideteker at 7:53 AM on July 3, 2012

Late to the party, as usual, but since you guys have today off, too: Happy Day after Dominion Day!

It's called Canada Day. Has been for thirty years now. Get with it, grandpa.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:29 AM on July 3, 2012

My Canadian parents have guns in the house, but no flag out front. We're sneaky like that.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 10:49 AM on July 3, 2012

Personally, I missed Canada Day because I forgot to cheque my calendar.
posted by Eideteker at 10:20 PM on July 3, 2012

There are not enough words in everyday usage with the letter "Q" in them.
posted by arcticseal at 2:27 PM on July 4, 2012

Quite.
posted by The Whelk at 2:49 PM on July 4, 2012

"I concur." —Carl Carlson
posted by Sys Rq at 2:57 PM on July 4, 2012

"Check" and "cheque" are two different concepts, so I like having two words. Same thing with "story" and "storey".
posted by Pruitt-Igoe at 3:38 PM on July 4, 2012

Yes, that's the joke.
posted by ocherdraco at 9:44 AM on July 5, 2012