Canada

Canada, formerly known as the Dominion of Canada, is a country located in North America consisting of 10 provinces and 3 territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean. At 9.98 million square kilometers in total, Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the world's longest land border shared by the same two countries. Canada is a federal parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy, and a Commonwealth realm, meaning that it has British monarch King Charles III, the leader of the Church of England, as its head of state. Its head of government is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. The official languages of the Canada are English and French.

Quotes

When Canada's having its way with you, you know something's gone horribly wrong. ~ Michael Ballaban

If aliens invaded Quebec, the U.S. press would give it two inches in the entertainment section. —Alison Bechdel

We are a nation of immigrants, and not happy in our minds. ~ Robertson Davies

Canada is today the most successful pluralist society on the face of our globe, without any doubt in my mind... That is something unique to Canada. It is an amazing global human asset. —Aga Khan IV

Canada is either an idea or it does not exist. ~ John Ralston Saul

The proud, reserved Dominion, with a story of her own. ~ Bliss Carman

Canada has an experience of governance of which much of the world stands in dire need. ~ Aga Khan IV

Geography has made us neighbors. ~ John F. Kennedy

Canada could have enjoyed:
English government,
French culture,
and American know-how.

Instead it ended up with:
English know-how,
French government,
and American culture.
~ John Robert Colombo

The old cliché about having all your eggs in one basket takes on new meaning with Canada. ~ John Ralston Saul

There's a land where the mountains are nameless. ~ Robert Service

This is the law of the Yukon, that only the Strong shall survive. ~ Robert Service

The Canadian game is rigged, and has been from the start. ~ Drew Brown and Mack Lamoureux

Canadians are just too damn polite. ~ Peter Zeihan

A

Canada is today the most successful pluralist society on the face of our globe, without any doubt in my mind... That is something unique to Canada. It is an amazing global human asset.
- Aga Khan IV, in "Canada: 'A model for the world', in The Globe and Mail (2 February 2002)

Canada has an experience of governance of which much of the world stands in dire need. It is a world of increasing dissension and conflict in which a significant contribution is the failure of different ethnic, tribal, religious, or social groups to search for, and agree upon, a common space for harmonious co-existence.
- Aga Khan IV, address at the Leadership and Diversity Conference Gatineau, Quebec, Canada (19 May 2004)

Canada has for many years been a beacon to the rest of the world for its commitment to pluralism and for its support for the multicultural richness and diversity of its peoples
- Aga Khan IV, as quoted in AKDN press release "Aga Khan Welcomes Government of Canada's Partnership in New Global Centre for Pluralism, Ottawa, Canada" (18 April 2005)

I was born in Canada and I'm Canadian... I grew up in Canada.
- Fraser Aird, as quoted in "Fraser: I Had to Choose Canada" (9 October 2015), Daily Record, United Kingdom

Canada acceding to this confederation, and adjoining in the measures of the United States, shall be admitted into, and entitled to all the advantages of this Union; but no other colony shall be admitted into the same, unless such admission be agreed to by nine States.
- Article XI, Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union

B

[W]hen Canada's having its way with you, you know something's gone horribly wrong.
- Michael Ballaban, "Watch These Russian Missiles Completely Tear Through A Derelict Wreck" (17 February 2014), Foxtrot Alpha, Jalopnik

If aliens invaded Quebec, the U.S. press would give it two inches in the entertainment section.
- Sparrow, as quoted in Dykes to Watch Out For, Alison Bechdel.

The Canadian game is rigged, and has been from the start.
- Drew Brown and Mack Lamoureux, "The Last Best West: Meet Alberta’s New Separatists" (29 February 2016), Vice News

Oh God! Oh Montreal!
- Samuel Butler, Psalm of Montreal; see Spectator (May 18, 1878); a writer in the Dial (Jan. 6, 1916), attributes it to W. H. Hurlbert; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 524

"...Right here in Canada, white Canadians have violated the rights of Indigenous peoples in more ways than we can count. One of the most heinous abuses against Indigenous women is forced sterilization, where white Canadians violated Indigenous women's bodies to make it impossible for them to conceive and become mothers....This is genocide. This abuse of human rights is not something of the past. White Canadians have forcibly sterilized Indigenous women just within the past few years in 2017...In the 1960s and 1970s, the federal government learned how expensive it would be to build accessible health services in the north. So instead of building, the federal government decided that these isolated Indigenous women should use birth control, even though birth control was illegal at the time...They broke their own laws because they did not value accessible and safe healthcare for Indigenous peoples...The right to choice must also include human rights and dignity of Indigenous peoples, with whom we live amongst on stolen land....If you believe in the right to choice, for the right to legal and safe abortions, then you must also fight for bodily autonomy for black persons....We have a shameful history in how we have treated black persons. Human rights and bodily autonomy were violated at the hands of White colonists during slavery. black people were auctioned off while chained and likely naked, forced to carry a fetus to term, and were sterilized, all of course without their consent.....Our fight for right to choice must consider the histories of abuses and inequalities, of White bodies controlling vulnerable and marginalized bodies, of White bodies controlling who is vulnerable and is who is marginalized...Your fight for bodily autonomy must be all-inclusive. If your fight for human rights are not universal, it is self serving and it allows unjust harm onto vulnerable and marginalized peoples. One should have full control over their body. Our body. Our choice...."

- Shahzi Bokhari What Bodily Autonomy Means - Raise the Hammer May 29, 2019

C

Do I do business with Canadian racketeers? I don't even know what street Canada is on.
- Al Capone, as quoted in Iced: The Story of Organized Crime in Canada (2009) by Stephen Schneider, chapter Five, p. 206

Canada's use of the term "visible minorities" to identify people it considers susceptible to racial discrimination came under fire at the United Nations Wednesday - for being racist.
- CanWest News Service, "UN calls Canada racist for 'visible minorities' tag" (8 March 2007)

And slowly, very slowly, the gorgeous dream grows bright,
Where rise the four democracies of Anglo-Saxon might;
The Republic, fair, alone;
The Commonwealth, new-grown;
The proud, reserved Dominion, with a story of her own,
And One that shall emerge at length from travail war, and blight.
- Bliss Carman, Ode on the Coronation of King Edward (1902); partly mentioned in Our Empire Story (1903) by H. E. Marshall

Canada could have enjoyed:
English government,
  French culture,
   and American know-how.
Instead it ended up with:
English know-how,
  French government,
   and American culture.
- John Robert Colombo (1965), as quoted in "The Bumper Book of Insults" (1993) by Nancy McPhee, p. 108

66 per cent of the average monthly income to make payments on the average single-detached Canadian house
- Conservative Party according to Housing experts weigh in on Pierre Poilievre's latest video (2 days ago)

D

We are a nation of immigrants, and not happy in our minds.
- Robertson Davies, The Diary of Samuel Marchbanks

Canada is a country that works better in practice than in theory.
- Stéphane Dion, "One nation or many?" (16 November 2006), The Economist

E

[O]ne of the great events of our time... So it is that everywhere in Canada, and especially here in the heart of French Canada, there seethes a life of intensity, a deep will for renewal. All we see, everywhere in Canada, is a shock of ideas, questions, demands, projects, a whole vigorous churning which is the tumult of life itself.
- Queen Elizabeth II, speech at the Montreal's world's fair in 1967, as quoted in "Fifty years on, does ‘Vive le Québec libre’ still resonate?" (21 July 2017), by Konrad Yakabuski, The Globe and Mail

F

Belgium... they're the Canada of France! There, I said it!
- Craig Ferguson, at the 2008 White House Correspondents' Dinner, as quoted in C-Span (26 April 2008), 1:02:10
It has sometimes been argued that in gaining Canada in the Seven Years War, Britain had undermined her position in America. Without the French threat, why should the thirteen colonies stay loyal? Yet the loss of America had the unforeseen effect of securing Canada for the Empire, thanks to the flood of English-speaking Loyalists who, together with new British settlers, would eventually reduce the French Quebecois to a beleaguered minority. The amazing thing is that so many people should have voted with their feet against American independence, choosing loyalty to King and Empire over 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness'.
- Niall Ferguson, Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World (2003)

G

Canada harbours its own disgraceful legacy. Down through the decades, scores of federal and provincial laws isolated, dispossessed and ghettoized one racial or ethnic minority after another. Asians weren't allowed to vote in Canada until the late 1940s; federally-registered Indians had to wait until 1960.
- Terry Glavin, "Canadians have no reason to be smug about race" (November 2014), The Ottawa Citizen

Greece is a sort of American vassal; the Netherlands is the country of American bases that grow like tulip bulbs; Cuba is the main sugar plantation of the American monopolies; Turkey is prepared to kowtow before any United States proconsul and Canada is the boring second fiddle in the American symphony.
- Andrei Gromyko, as quoted in the New York Herald Tribune (30 June 1953)

J

We shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of Canada.
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Rogers Clark (25 December 1780)

I'm about to go to Canada, I can't wait. Tell bitches I know Drake and get my asshole ate.
- Rufus Johnson, "Justin Bieber" (21 May 2012), This Guy's A Weirdo (2012)

K

Geography has made us neighbors. History has made us friends. Economics has made us partners. And necessity has made us allies. Those whom nature hath so joined together, let no man put asunder.
- John F. Kennedy, of the United States and Canada, in an address to the Canadian Parliament (17 May 1961) ^{[specific citation needed]}

It is a deep personal privilege to address a nation-wide Canadian audience. Over and above any kinship of U.S. citizens and Canadians as North Americans there is a singular historical relationship between American Negroes and Canadians. Canada is not merely a neighbor to Negroes. Deep in our history of struggle for freedom Canada was the north star. The Negro slave, denied education, de-humanized, imprisoned on cruel plantations, knew that far to the north a land existed where a fugitive slave if he survived the horrors of the journey could find freedom. The legendary underground railroad started in the south and ended in Canada. The freedom road links us together. Our spirituals, now so widely admired around the world, were often codes. We sang of "heaven" that awaited us and the slave masters listened in innocence, not realizing that we were not speaking of the hereafter. Heaven was the word for Canada and the Negro sang of the hope that his escape on the underground railroad would carry him there. One of our spirituals, "Follow the Drinking Gourd," in its disguised lyrics contained directions for escape. The gourd was the big dipper, and the north star to which its handle pointed gave the celestial map that directed the flight to the Canadian border.
- Martin Luther King, Jr., 1967 CBC Massey Lectures, "Conscience for Change" in The Lost Massey Lectures

[T]here’s a very good way to distinguish between America and Canada. In the Canadian Constitution it defines its objectives, this is the British North America Act of 1867, that’s our constitution, it said, “The purpose of this act” which was to make Canada one dominion, “was to provide for peace, order, and good government.” For us, it’s life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. For them it’s peace, order, and good government. That tells everything you want to know about it.
- Charles Krauthammer, interview with Bill Kristol (2015)

J

We shall divert through our own Country a branch of commerce which the European States have thought worthy of the most important struggles and sacrifices, and in the event of peace... we shall form to the American union a barrier against the dangerous extension of the British Province of Canada and add to the Empire of liberty an extensive and fertile Country thereby converting dangerous Enemies into valuable friends.
- Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Rogers Clark (25 December 1780)

The acquisition of Canada this year, as far as the neighborhood of Quebec, will be a mere matter of marching, and will give us experience for the attack of Halifax the next, and the final expulsion of England from the American continent.
- Thomas Jefferson, statement during an early stage of the War of 1812, in a letter to William Duane (4 August 1812)

L

The testing of cruise missiles in Canada proved very contentious. The government explained its decision in both political and technical terms. Politically, testing demonstrated alliance solidarity over the modernization of NATO's nuclear deterrent. Technically, testing the missile over terrain similar to that of the northern Soviet Union would improve its effectiveness, and allow the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD) to develop an anti-cruise capability. The tests would take place in a 2,200-kilometre test corridor that included parts of the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta and Saskatchewan. Tests could involve either releasing the missile in a "free flight" to its target, or allowing its guidance system to direct both the missile and the launch aircraft to the target in a "captive carry" test. The tests take several hours, and involve a number of aircraft in both Canada and the United States, from tankers to fighters to Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) planes. After the first few years of tests, attention shifted from monitoring the missile itself to attempting to track and intercept it. In order to simulate the climate of the northern Soviet Union, most cruise missile tests in Canada have taken place in the winter months.
- James Lee, "Cruise Missile Testing in Canada: The Post-Cold War Debate", Political and Social Affairs Division, Parliamentary Research Branch, Depository Services Program Government of Canada, (January 21, 1994).

Forty thousand Canadians alone... came south to volunteer for the Union cause.
- James Loewen, Lies My Teacher Told Me

The Canadians have the Loonie, and we can have the Ronnie.
- Chester Lott, on Ronald Reagan, as quoted in an interview in New York Times Sunday Magazine (20 June 2004)

M

As individuals, we are all, at least in part, products of our own histories, which include our geographical place, our times, our social classes, and our family backgrounds. I am a Canadian who has grown up in this country and so have enjoyed an extraordinary period, unusual in much of the world’s history, of peace, stability, and prosperity. That has surely shaped the ways in which I look at the world, perhaps with more optimism about things getting better than I might have if I had grown up in Afghanistan or Somalia. And I am also a product of my parents’ and grandparents’ history. I grew up with some knowledge, incomplete and fragmentary to be sure, of World War II, which my father fought in, and of World War I, which drew in both my grandfathers.
- Margaret MacMillan, The Uses and Abuses of History (2008)
The European Union and many of its countries, which used to take initiatives in the United Nations for peaceful settlements of conflict, are now one of the most important war assets of the U.S./NATO front. Many countries have also been drawn into complicity in breaking international law through U.S./U.K./NATO wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and so on.
- Mairead Maguire in "Disturbing Expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex", Common Dreams (2014-10-14)

Canadians love Canada, a lot. Canadians love Canada so much that the title of this essay will make some not even bother to read it. Some will call me anti-Canadian. Some will leave comments about the CBC running "Indian Propaganda" against its citizens. In 2014, when I recorded my last comedy special Red Man Laughing for CBC, there were death threats left on the Edmonton Journal website when they ran a story of our sold out first night. This is the Canada I know well... [C]olonialism is not just a thing of the past — it is ongoing. This country was founded by coercing, sometimes violently so, Indigenous peoples off of their territories to provide access to the rich natural resources that would form this country’s economy... Canada’s economy has also killed Indigenous peoples. So what are we celebrating exactly? We never have — and still don’t — treat Indigenous people fairly. There are too many cases where provincial and federal governments delay and ignore land issues that are destroying our health and well-being.
- Ryan McMahon, "Why I Won't Be Attending Canada's 150th Birthday Party" (2016-06-18), Colonization Road, CBC FirstHand

As always, Canada will now bury its war dead, just as the rest of the world, as always, will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does. It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance.
- Kevin Myers, as quoted in The Daily Telegraph, London
It’s a unique experience to grow up in Canada, and when I explain it to non-Canadians, I feel like I am describing a dream I had, because the Canadian experience is not well known outside of Canada.
- Mike Myers, in "My Canada", the introduction to his memoir Canada (2016)
Canada may not have put a man on the moon, but it’s been awfully nice to the man on earth.
- Mike Myers in "A Canadian Future", the sixth chapter of his memoir Canada (2016)

N

For among nations--as within nations-the soundest unity is that which respects diversity, and the strongest cohesion is that which rejects coercion. Over the years, the people of Canada have come to understand these concepts particularly well. Within your own borders, you have been working to bring a wide variety of peoples and provinces and points of view into a great national union--a union which honors the integrity of its constituent elements. It was Prime Minister Laurier who said of Canada's differing components: "I want the marble to remain the marble; I want the granite to remain the granite; I want the oak to remain the oak." This has been the Canadian way. As a result, Canadians have helped to teach the world, as Governor-General Massey once said, that the "toleration of differences is the measure of civilization." Today, more than ever before, we need to apply that understanding to the whole range of world affairs. And to begin with, we must apply it to our dealings with one another.
- Richard Nixon; Address to a Joint Meeting of the Canadian Parliament Online, The American Presidency Project; 14 April 1972

P

Canada is an open, welcoming country that stands by its citizens. We are a nation of millions of immigrants and refugees, of hundreds of cultures, languages and religions bound by one, unwavering, unshakable belief: we are stronger not in spite of our differences, but because of them.
These tweets by Fox News dishonour the memory of the six victims and their families by spreading misinformation, playing identity politics, and perpetuating fear and division within our communities.
- Kate Purchase, communications director for the Prime Minister's Office, in criticism of Fox News for not immediately clarifying misreported information that the shooter was Moroccan not Caucasian in the January 30 Quebec mosque shooting, as quoted by The Canadian Press in Global News, Fox News deletes erroneous tweet on Quebec City shooter’s nationality (31 January 2017)

R

[C]elebrations are supposed to remind us that Canada is place of tolerance, peace, prosperity, and freedom. But, for the majority of us, this could not be further from the truth. In reality Canada is a nation built on genocide and sustained by the misery of millions.
- Revolutionary Communist Party, "Call-Out: Fuck the 150th" (24 May 2017), Fuck the 150th

Canada, a country which is a breeding-ground for all other forms of oppression, constantly dehumanizing the most marginalized within our societies. Canada: a source of misery for millions and millions, at home, and around the world. Canada: a country which must be ended if the masses in this country are to enjoy even the most basic human dignity.
- Revolutionary Communist Party, "An Appeal on the 150th Anniversary of a Prison House Of Nations" (1 July 2017), Fuck the 150th

In the month of January, Canada created more new jobs than we did.
- Mitt Romney, speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference (11 February 2011)

For twenty-one years I have lived in Canada, the country of promise. There is a magnificent air of freedom about this country, a freedom which the winds of all seasons, sweeping through the breadth of the continent seem to carry on their wings-an ideal place of escape for those who have been oppressed and enslaved elsewhere, for those who wish to turn over a new leaf, who hope for change, for betterment, who want to live their lives as they please.
- Chava Rosenfarb Introduction (1971) to Exile At Last: Selected Poems (2013)

S

After all, in both languages we were dealing in large measure not with English and French, but with Scots and Irish, Bretons and Normans … There could be no more eloquent illustration of the colonial mind-set than a bunch of Celts and Vikings in a distant northern territory insulting each other as les Anglais and the French as if they were the descendants of the people who had subjected and ruined them.
- John Ralston Saul, Reflections of a Siamese Twin

Canada is either an idea or it does not exist. It is either an intellectual undertaking or it is little more than a resource-rich vacuum lying in the buffer zone just north of a great empire.
- John Ralston Saul, Reflections of a Siamese Twin

The old cliché about having all your eggs in one basket takes on new meaning with Canada and the United States, because there is something even more wrong about having all your eggs in someone else's basket. It is worse still if that country is much larger than you and worst of all if they don't have all their eggs in your basket. This is not a relationship. It is a dependency. Canada's survival will depend largely on its ability to change that dependency back into a relationship. And one of the key factors in doing that will be the redistribution of our trade. But we can't do that if we have no politicians willing to take the lead.
- John Ralston Saul, Reflections of a Siamese Twin

This is the law of the Yukon, that only the Strong shall survive;
That surely the Weak shall perish, and only the Fit survive.
Dissolute, damned and despairful, crippled and palsied and slain,
This is the Will of the Yukon,—Lo, how she makes it plain!
- Robert Service, Law of the Yukon; as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 924

Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.
~ Pierre Trudeau

There's a land where the mountains are nameless
And the rivers all run God knows where;
There are lives that are erring and aimless,
And deaths that just hang by a hair;
There are hardships that nobody reckons;
There are valleys unpeopled and still;
There's a land—oh, it beckons and beckons,
And I want to go back—and I will.
- Robert Service, Spell of the Yukon; as quoted in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 924

Saskatchewan is much like Texas; except it's more friendly to the United States.
- Attributed to Adlai Stevenson. This was attributed to Stevenson without reference in 1001 Greatest Things Ever Said About Texas (2006) by Donna Ingham, p. 92. It was also attributed without reference in "Reporters' Notebook", The Buffalo News, September 24, 1992. No closer connection to Stevenson has been found.

T

Canada is, in fact, the true model of what has always been seen there.
- Alexis de Tocqueville, Centralised Government in Canada andDecentralised Government in America (1856)

Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.
- Être votre voisin, c'est comme dormir avec un éléphant; quelque douce et placide que soit la bête, on subit chacun de ses mouvements et de ses grognements.
- Pierre Trudeau, Addressing the Press Club in Washington, D.C. (25 March 1969) - Audio clip

For me, to represent people who represent the future of Canada and the great challenges we will face over the coming decades — this is where I wanted to start. … I'm a teacher; I'm a convenor; I'm a gatherer; I'm someone who reaches out to people and is deeply interested in what they have to say. And people see that I'm not faking it. I'm actually genuinely committed to this dialogue that we're opening up, and this understanding that needs to happen in order to be an effective MP.
- Justin Trudeau, on winning his riding nomination in Quebec, as quoted in "Trudeau wins Montreal riding nomination" in CBC News (30 April 2007)

It's an old idea from the 19th century. It is something that is not relevant to the vibrant, extraordinary, culture that is Quebec as Quebec is an amazing part of Canada. Nationalism is based on a smallness of thought that closes in, that builds up barriers between people, and has nothing to do with the Canada we should be building. It stands against everything my father ever believed.
- Justin Trudeau, responding to Michael Ignatieff's Quebec nationalism proposal during a CTV interview on Canada AM.

We should be past tolerance in Canada... In Canada, can we speak of acceptance, openness, friendship, understanding? It is about where we are going and what we are going through every day in our diverse and rich communities... Tolerating someone means accepting their right to exist on the condition that they don’t disturb us too, too much.
- Justin Trudeau, as quoted by The Guardian, Justin Trudeau rules out burkini ban in Canada (23 August 2016)

Americans who come to know Canada informally, such as our tourists, as well as those whose approach is more academic, learn that Canada is a broad land--broad in mind, broad in spirit, and broad in physical expanse. They find that the composition of your population and the evolution of your political institutions hold a lesson for the other nations of the earth. Canada has achieved internal unity and material strength, and has grown in stature in the world community, by solving problems that might have hopelessly divided and weakened a less gifted people. Canada's eminent position today is a tribute to the patience, tolerance, and strength of character of her people, of both French and British strains. For Canada is enriched by the heritage of France as well as of Britain, and Quebec has imparted the vitality and spirit of France itself to Canada. Canada's notable achievement of national unity and progress through accommodation, moderation, and forbearance can be studied with profit by her sister nations.
- Harry S. Truman; Address Before the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa Online, The American Presidency Project; 11 June 1947

Z

The redistribution system that Canada has with the transfer payments, anywhere else would have social instability. But to be blunt, Canadians are just too damn polite.
- Peter Zeihan, as quoted in "The Last Best West: Alberta's New Separatists" (29 February 2016), by Drew Brown and Mack Lamoureux, Vice News

Canada’s demographic situation is similar to the rest of the developed world — a large population moving toward retirement and hardly any young people in the replacement generation coming up.
- Peter Zeihan, interview with Jen Gerson

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