The Canadaland Guide to Canada

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CONTENTS

HOW TO READ THIS BOOK

INTRODUCTION

THE BASICS

Our Drunk, Racist Dad

Our Estranged, Infirm British Mother

So You Want to Move to Canada!

Tricking People into Moving Here

Canada: Not by Choice

Travel Guide: Reserves

The Birth of Canadian Humble Superiority

Stillbirth of a Nation

Separatist Movements

Québec: Distinctly Distinct Distinctness

THE PEOPLE WHO RUN CANADA

Our Faceless Overlords

Foreign Policy

National Defense

From the Center Right to the Radical Center Right

Our Fancy Royal Horse Boys

Travel Guide: Ottawa

Political Scandals

Canadian Charter of Rights and Limitations

The Supreme Court

Our Prime Ministers: Are They Fuckable?

THE PEOPLE YOU’LL MEET HERE

500 Years of Oppression, The Game

Our Smelly, Moist, Patchy-Bearded Ice Goons

Our Intellectual Charlatans

Travel Guide: Toronto

Cults

Drugs!

Multiculturalism

HOW TO BEHAVE

Etiquette

What Canadians Wear

The True North Is Drunk and Needs to Pee

Bilingualism(e)

Travel Guide: Montréal

Canadian Sexuality

Families

Other Sports

Canadian Terrorism

HOW WE THINK

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Television

Canadian Cinema

Whining Losers and the Sounds They Make

A Plague of Wacky Assholes

How to Write Canadian Literature

HOW WE MAKE A LIVING

The Oil Sands

Nature

Inventions

Higher Education

Travel Guide: Vancouver

Global Warming? Fuck Yeah!

The Wall

IMAGE CREDITS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

For Jesse Brown

THE

CANADALAND

GUIDE TO CANADA

(PUBLISHED IN AMERICA)

by Jesse Brown

with Vicky Mochama and Nick Zarzycki

Editors: Nita Pronovost and Brendan May

Designer: Paul Bucci

Cover Painting: Dan Buller

Cover Design: Paul Barker

Illustrators: Andrew Barr, Deshi Deng

Contributors: Kathryn Borel, Rachel Bulatovich, Winnie Code, Melissa Deleary, Jacob Duarte Spiel, Aaron Hagey-MacKay, Jill Krajewski, Dave McGimpsey, Alex Nursall, Emma Overton, Simren Sandhu, Alexander Saxton, John Semley, Samuel Smith, Jimmy Thomson, Jamie Whitecrow, Bryce Warnes

HOW TO READ THIS BOOK

What you’re reading right now is the main body text of The Canadaland Guide to Canada. Despite the swears and made-up words like bonerish, the stuff over here is real, so far as we can tell. We looked it up. I mean, we didn’t call up the people involved or dig up old diaries from tombs or anything. But we didn’t just copy and paste it from Wikipedia, either. We got it mostly from books and old newspaper articles. Look, maybe there’s a mistake in here, who knows? But the idea is that this stuff is real.

The blue stuff over here in italics is silly nonsense.

QUOTESQUARE

Yes, the person quoted in these boxes actually said or wrote this stuff. In this case, it was me, Nick. —Nick Zarzycki

INTRODUCTION

CANADA: A BEIGE NATION

Quick—picture Canada.

Not the forest. The tiny strip along the bottom where people live. The cities. Think about what they look like.

Now, consider Canadians. Think about their clothes. Try to remember what their accents sound like.

Coming up empty? Is everything Canada blurring together into a shapeless, beige haze?

That’s exactly what we’re going for. Normalcy is the gold standard in Canada. Our aspirations are generic. We aim to pass. If you can’t distinguish Vancouver from Seattle or Toronto from Frankfurt, we’re thrilled.

The only thing that would give us more pleasure would be if you considered us to be just like you, but a little better.

Not in a flashy way. We’re not talking about better looking, or smarter, or richer, or more skilled. Just . . . a little cleaner. A little nicer. Feel free to cite us as an example of how your progressive politics aren’t so crazy after all. Diversity! Gun control! Free health care! Abortions! No big deal up in Canada, right?

We share a border with America. When your next-door neighbor is a billionaire crackhead porn star with a machine gun, you can get away with all kinds of shit and nobody will ever notice.

You can dig up the world’s dirtiest oil and be known as environmentalists! You can sell billions of dollars of weapons to murderous tyrants and be known as peacekeepers! You can deprive Indigenous people of clean drinking water and be known as multiculturalists!

In reality, Canadians don’t say eh or call each other hoser or eat more donuts than Americans (we do eat a shit-ton of donuts, though). We are more polite, but we are far less kind. We’ll choose peace and order over freedom any day of the week.

We enjoy our benign stereotype as much as anyone. Probably more so, since we’re the ones who created it. But it’s time we grew up and told the truth.

Sorry!

Macdonald was still 30 percent less drunk and racist than everyone else in the country at the time.

OUR DRUNK, RACIST DAD

No man is more credited with the birth of our nation than our first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald. He united four British colonies into a single dominion and built an epic railway to connect them. He did all this while drunkenly extolling the virtues of the Aryan race, binge drinking his way through federal elections, puking during speeches, intentionally starving Indians, and setting himself on fire.

Macdonald loved Canada, but like most people, he loved alcohol more.

TIMELINE OF DRUNKENNESS

1822

A psychotic babysitter forces seven-year-old Macdonald and his five-year-old brother to guzzle gin, then kills his brother with a cane.

1866

Macdonald travels to London to lobby Queen Victoria for Canadian sovereignty. He nearly burns himself to death in his hotel room when he passes out near a lit candle, probably while hammered.

1866

Canada is invaded by veterans of the American Civil War. Macdonald, leader of the colony’s militia, spends the entire attack fabulously drunk in his office.

1872

Macdonald spends the entire federal election more or less under the influence of wine. Wins a majority government.

1872

In a drunken stupor, Macdonald writes a desperate plea for bribe money to railway contractors. I must have another ten thousand, he begs. Do not fail me; answer today.

1883

Macdonald secures the Intoxicating Liquors Bill, giving the government Al Capone-level control of liquor distribution in Canada, which it holds to this day.

ACHIEVEMENTS

FEMINIST

Macdonald introduced a progressive bill to extend voting rights to unmarried, propertied women—the best kind of women. When members of the House protested, he quickly edited the bill to remove the votes-for-women bit.

Macdonald likely introduced the bill on a dare.

MODEL RAILWAY HOBBYIST

Macdonald worked tirelessly to build a full-scale model of the Canadian Pacific Railway connecting Vancouver to Montréal.

INDIAN AFFAIRS MINISTER

Macdonald passed the Indian Act, set up the residential schools system and bragged about keeping tribes on the verge of actual starvation by killing their buffalo, so that he could hustle them away from his railway (verge shmerge, many were in fact starved to death). Also, he had Métis hero Louis Riel hanged.

INFOBOX

Sir John A. Macdonald’s name is included, for unclear reasons, in a historical database of British slave owners.

The Queen refers to all her Canadian subjects as sweetie.

OUR ESTRANGED, INFIRM BRITISH MOTHER

Canada’s head of state is an old British lady named Elizabeth who has never lived in Canada, enjoys the company of dogs and horses, and derives all her power directly from the will of God. She lives in a palace in London, is commander-in-chief of Australia’s military, and runs the Church of England. Canadians who care about the monarchy simply relish the thought of submitting themselves to a powerful British mother figure. She exists mainly to comfort Canadians who miss colonialism.

Dogs and horses report that the feeling is mutual.

INFOBOX

Canada is the only European monarchy visible from the moon.

A GUIDE TO INTERACTING WITH CANADA’S HEAD OF STATE

NO TOUCHING

When Elizabeth first visited Canada in 1951, members of the press were forbidden to approach within a distance of fifteen feet and from speaking to her unless first addressed by her. Royal protocol strongly discourages any touching. When Canadian cyclist Louis Garneau put his hand around the Queen’s shoulder for a photograph in 2002, it made national headlines in the UK.

To be fair, no Canadian has ever been interested in touching the Queen either.

IF YOU STARTLE HER, YOU’LL GO TO JAIL

The Canadian Criminal Code explicitly forbids committing an act with an intent to alarm Her Majesty. The offense is punishable by a prison term of up to two years.

Things that alarm the Queen: the lower orders, Prince Charles.

KILL ANYONE ELSE, JUST NOT HER MAJESTY

Conspiring to kill the Canadian prime minister is not considered treason according to the Criminal Code of Canada. It is treason only if you conspire against the Queen.

THE QUEEN’S VARIOUS ROLES

MASCOT/GOOD LUCK CHARM

The Canadian government gets very defensive when describing the Queen. We do not swear allegiance to a piece of cloth (office), a document (a constitution) or a political entity. Rather we swear allegiance to a person who embodies . . . our collective values as a people.

WARRIOR FOR JESUS

The Queen is an extremely vocal Christian. In 2000, she said that the teachings of Christ and my own personal accountability before God provide a framework in which I try to lead my life. She is Supreme Governor of the Church of England and her official title in Canada is Defender of the Faith. No one has been able to explain how this is compatible with Canada’s system of secular democracy (probably because it isn’t).

CABBAGE

People close to Elizabeth reportedly call her cabbage. She is also apparently addicted to Nintendo Wii, and was sent a custom gold-plated console by Nintendo. Favorite game: Wii Bowling.

Other likely favorite games include: Need for Speed VII: Equestrian; Call of Duty: Boer War; Wii Normal Person Chore Simulator.

MONARCHISTS