Canada

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Canada is a country that works better in practice than in theory. ~ Stéphane Dion

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 Queen Elizabeth II, the leader of the Church of England, as its head of state. The official languages of the Canada are English and French

Arranged alphabetically by author or source:
A · B · C · D · E · F · G · H · I · J · K · L · M · N · O · P · Q · R · S · T · U · V · W · X · Y · Z · See also · External links

Quotes[edit]

When Canada's having its way with you, you know something's gone horribly wrong. ~ Michael Ballaban
I'm about to go to Canada, I can't wait. ~ Rufus Arthur Johnson
Canada, having few indigenous prejudices, has been compelled to import them. ~ Robertson Davies
Canada is in fact its own sovereign nation, and not some wayward 51st state that serves a refuge for those that fancy themselves political refugees. ~ Concho Bhar
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[edit]

  • 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.
  • 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)
  • 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.

B[edit]

  • 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...."

C[edit]

  • 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
  • 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

D[edit]

  • Canada, has been compelled to import them from elsewhere, duty-free, and it is the rare Canadian who is not shaken, at some time in the year, by "old, unhappy, far-off things / And battles long ago", like Wordsworth's solitary reaper. We are a nation of immigrants, and not happy in our minds.

E[edit]

F[edit]

  • 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

G[edit]

  • 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.

J[edit]

K[edit]

J[edit]

  • 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.
  • 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.

L[edit]

  • The Canadians have the Loonie, and we can have the Ronnie.

M[edit]

  • 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.
  • 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.

N[edit]

P[edit]

  • Canada is a filthy country run by fags, which has Draconian laws making it a crime to preach the Gospel there. All of these cowardly kissy-poo preachers who telecast their milquetoast sermons into Canada have to edit out every single word critical of fags - snip, snip, snip - or the fag officials of Canada will arrest and criminally prosecute the Canadian affiliates, and shut down their stations! There's no freedom of speech in Canada. There's no freedom of religion in Canada. It is against the law to read the Bible in Canada... Our church has had a lot of bad dealings with those demon-possessed Canadians! A big Canadian flag flies at our church upside-down, the international symbol of distress. We fly it day and night, to educate and warn people about the fagi-nazi regime just to the north of us. Canadians are afraid of their tyrannical fag-run government. You can determine for yourself about Canada, and keep as far away from them as you can.
  • 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.

R[edit]

  • [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.
  • 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.

S[edit]

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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[edit]

  • 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.
  • 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.
  • 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.

Z[edit]

See also[edit]

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