An Introduction to Canada Episode 2: The Rest of the Provinces!

Welcome to part 2 of my ongoing series, my introduction of Canada to those who may not know that much about the country and Canadians in general. If you’re wondering where the Arctic Territories and the Maritime Provinces are at, head on over here.

Saskatchewan

Motto: Multis e Gentibus Vires (Latin) Strength from many peoples (English)

Capital: Regina

Largest City and Metro: Saskatoon

Joined Confederation: 1905 (Split from Northwest Territories)

Official Language: English

Premier: Brad Wall (Saskatchewan Party)

Population: 1,033,381

Comparable to: North Dakota, but prettier.

Claim to Fame: That one time Tom Hanks came to watch the Grey Cup.

Fun Facts:

• Canada’s farm-iest province.
• If you’re ever in Saskatchewan, and you want to win over the locals (Say, I dunno, you’re being forced into a shotgun wedding by a crazed gopher-herding family) just wear green and white, or some variation of this logo. Just trust me on this.

Also, wearing watermelons on your head is perfectly acceptable here. Just in case in case you’re into that stuff.

Manitoba

Motto: Gloriosus et- O irrumabo! Culicibus! (Latin) Glorious and- Oh, fuck! Mosquitoes! (English)

Capital, largest city and largest metro: Winnipeg

Joined Confederation: 1870

Official language: English, but French is all but official too.

Premier: Greg Selinger (New Democratic Party)

Population: 1, 208, 268

Comparable to: Minnesota, but covered in mosquitoes.

Claim to Fame: Along with Saskatchewan, Northern Ontario, and Western Ontario, one of the “flyover provinces”.

Fun Facts:

• Churchill, a town in the Northern part of the province, bordering Hudson’s Bay, is a small, mostly Aboriginal, town, where the tourism industry is thriving thanks to the fact that polar bears venture near (And sometimes into) the town in the months of October and November.
• More mosquitoes per square kilometer than most tropical countries.

Actual size.

Alberta

Motto: Fortis et liber (Latin) Strong and Free (English)

Capital: Edmonton (My hometown!)

Largest City and Metro: Calgary

Joined Confederation: 1901

Official language: English

Premier: Alison Redford (Progressive Conservative Party)

Population: 3, 645, 257

Comparable to: Montana (Climate) , Texas (Damn near apocalyptic environmental policies, right-leaning governments, and an unfortunate preference for country music).

Claim to fame: Nickleback. We are so, so fucking sorry.

Fun Facts:

• The second-most entitled, and most spoiled province in the country. Yep, we’re those guys.
• Fort McMurray, in the North of the province, is the heart of one of the country’s main hubs of oil production, the notorious Athabasca Tar Sands. No joke here, I just hope it burns to the ground.
• Just a heads up: Any city or town in Western Canada that has a name that begins with “Fort” is bound to be a piece of crap.

British Columbia

Motto: Splendor sine occasu (Latin) Splendour without diminishment (English

Capital: Victoria

Largest city: Vancouver

Largest metro: Metro Vancouver

Joined Confederation: 1871

Official language: English

Premier: Christy Clark (Liberal Party)

Population: 4, 400, 057

Comparable to: Washington (Canada’s main source of pot. Similar climate in the south. Also, hipsters) Oregon (Similar politics. And climate. Also, hipsters) California (Many TV shows and movies are filmed there. Also,  similar politics. And hipsters.)

Claim to fame: Pamela Anderson.

‘Nuff said.

Fun Facts:

• The most beautiful province in the country. Bar none.
• BC was the home of the internment camps where the Canadian government imprisoned innocent Japanese-Canadians during World War II. Yeah, we used to be REALLY racist.
• Also, while we’re on the topic of racism, the Canadian Pacific Railway, which runs from Vancouver to various parts of Canada and the Northern States, we made the not morally terrible at all decision to use Chinese migrant workers (Or “coolies”, as they were lovingly referred to) as slave labour, paying them pennies in return for building the damn railroad and handling insanely dangerous explosives. In return, the Chinese took over the city of Richmond.
• The southwest corner of the province is more or less the only part of the country that isn’t blanketed by snow eight months out of the year.

Quebec

Motto: Je me souviens (French) I remember (English)

Capital: Quebec City

Largest city and largest metro: Montreal

Joined Confederation: 1867

Official Language: French

Premier: Pauline Marois (Parti Quebecois)

Population: 7, 903, 001

Comparable to: Louisiana’s french population (Minus the friendly Cajuns) and Texas’s occasional separation jags (Except more realistic and more reasonable).

Claim to Fame: Celine Dion. Again, we are so, so sorry.

“And my heeeeeeaaaaaaarrttt will go oooooooooooooooooon……….”

Fun Facts:

• While most of the southern part of the province is of stereotypical French-Canadian stock, the northern is composed mostly by Cree and Inuit people.
• In 1963, a far-left, separatist paramilitary group called the Quebec Liberation Front launched a series of propaganda and terrorism which targeted English (Or “Anglo-Saxon Imperialist”) institutions in the province. They were responsible for the deaths of at least five people in between 1963 and 1970, when they were involved in the October Crisis, during which they kidnapped the British trade commissioner to Canada, James Cross, as well as Quebec vice-premier Pierre Laporte. While Cross was released and the FLQ fled to Cuba like a bunch of little bitches, Laporte was found in the trunk of an FLQ members’ car, strangled by his own rosary beads. The world is a dark and horrible place, kids!

Oh, look! Puppies!

• The birthplace of poutine. See? Maybe life ain’t so bad.

Ontario

Motto: Ut incepit Fidelis Sic Permanet (Latin)

Capital, largest city and largest metro: Toronto (Ontario is also home to Canada’s federal capital, Ottawa)

Joined Confederation: 1867

Official Language: English (de facto)

Premier: Kathleen Wynne (Liberal Party)

Population: 12, 851, 821

Comparable to: New York State

Claim to fame: Rob Ford, motherfucker!

Fun Facts:

• The most populous province, accounting for forty percent of Canada’s population.
• Home of some of the most mediocre sports franchises in North America.

And that’s not even mentioning the Ottawa sports teams.

That’s it for today, but I plan on doing more episodes of my Intro to Canada some time in the near future. In the meantime, I’ll see you all sometime after my exams are over. Or when I finish binge-watching Orange is the New Black when I should be studying. Either or.

The Scale Of Douchiness- (Quadruple Feature!) Emma Roberts, Amanda Bynes, North Korea and Rolling Stone Magazine

The best part about writing about douchebags is that you never run out of source material. Case in point, for the very first edition of the SoD, I have four subjects! Oh, how I love the shittiness of humanity!

That’s right Kony…Keep those blog hits flowing nicely…

SUBJECT: Emma Roberts

Goddammit Emma, why’d you have to be so adorable? It just makes my job that much harder!

Douche-Crime: Beating up her boyfriend, fellow actor Evan Peters (American Horror Story).

Well shit, that makes sense, I guess.

Douche Points Awarded: 2/2

Severity Douche Points: 1.5/2. It wasn’t close to being a Chris Brown-style beatdown, but there isn’t too much of a gray area when it comes to beating somebody up Either you beat the living shit out of them or you don’t.

Frequency: First-time offender. However, may happen again, considering that they are still together, apparently. The joint statement read that they “are working together to move past it.” 1/2

Circumstances: None revealed yet, but it’s highly suggested that the assault wasn’t justified. 2/2

Overall Douche Rating: 6.5/8 (Definite douchebag)

It’s completely possible that Roberts just lost her cool at Peters, as people in a relationship are likely to do. However, it’s also not out of the question that this may be a recurring, theme. Plenty of young actresses tend to become mentally unstable as they fly through puberty, much like our next douchebag

AMANDA BYNES

Part of me knew that she would be on my very first edition.

Douche-Crime (This time): Tweeting, after getting her head shaved earlier this year because it was damaged by salon treatments, on her schizophrenic clusterfuck of a Twitter account that “Not having hair makes [her] feel like a cancer  patient.” She later tried to explain herself, claiming that the tweet was meant to be read “Not having hair makes her feel like a  Cancer: Patient.” (As in the astrological sign) In addition to being a bullshit excuse, it bears mentioning that Bynes is an Aries. 2/2

Severity: 1/2. Try to remember that some retard posting idiotic tweets

Frequency: 2/2. Chronic offender. By now, the thing that comes to mind whenever anyone mentions Amanda Bynes  is not her dead-in-the-water acting career, but her crude, offensive, unintentionally hilarious and all-around insane Twitter account. Some other gems of hers include:

“I have no clue [why people say I’m insane]. Every time I’ve heard it, it came from an ugly person’s mouth, so I don’t care.”

“Rihanna you look so ugly tryin to be white.”

Yep, total Uncle Tom, right here.

“I’m 27 and don’t like when press talks to my parents. My parents are almost 70 years old. We are no longer on speaking terms. I would rather them be homeless than live off of my money.”

“I only have hot friends. They have my back until I die.”

“Everything is connected and connection is everything.”

“I want Drake to murder my vagina.”

“I’ll post ugly pics of @Drake every time I see one! Not hard  ”

“Chris Brown beat you because you’re not pretty enough.”

“Barack Obama and Michelle Obama are ugly!”

“Hey @Barack Obama… I don’t drink. Please fire the cop who arrested me. I also don’t hit and run. The end.” 

“I have no clue [why people say I’m insane]. Every time I’ve heard it, it came from an ugly person’s mouth, so I don’t care.”

To “American Pie” star Jason Biggs: “You’re so ugly I won’t talk to you.”

Adam Sandler-ish? Maybe. Ugly? Fuck no.

And my personal favourite:

“Chrissy Teigen, you’re not a pretty model compared to me,I signed to Ford models at age 13. I don’t looks up to you beauty wise. I’m far prettier than you! I’m offended that you’re saying I have a mental illness when I show no sign of it. But thankfully not one man that wants me wants you and you are an old ugly model compared to me!”

For those who don’t know, this is Chrissy Teigen.

“Look! Look at this ugly piece of shit!”

And this is Amanda Bynes:

“I’m very aroused.”

Circumstances: 2/2. Let’s see…. No one but her accesses her Twitter account, which means that she intentionally posted it.

ODR: 7/8 (Major Douchebag)

Sure, she’s just a has-been celebrity and who gives a shit, but that doesn’t make her any less douchey or her comment any more douchey and ignorant.

I try to be nice to our next douchebag, but they’ve finally crossed the line. Presenting…

ROLLING STONE MAGAZINE

Douche-Crime: Previously just a magazine with terrible music coverage and a socially liberal political slant (And yet, they back Obama), Rolling Stone decided to run a story about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston Marathon bomber. This would have been okay if they didn’t depict him as some sort of indie pop star. 2/2

Severity: 2/2. Truth be told, I do think the story needed to be run. From that I’ve heard on the Philip DeFranco Show, it’s a pretty informative, well written article.

But for God’s sake, did they have to run this picture? It’s bad enough that some freaky teenage girls are starting to turn him into a teen idol.

I can’t think of a joke here, this is fucking horrifying.

Couldn’t they have picked a different cover? Something that’s edgy, but not overly offensive? How about a photo of a rescue mission, or of the EIGHT YEAR OLD BOY HE MURDERED.

Henry Rollins did a spoken word piece on how death and violence are being “sexed-up” by the media. (Army ads, video games) I’m not here to tell everyone to not play Call of Duty, because it’s fun as hell, but they’re still glorifying violence any way you spin it. That magazine cover doesn’t make Tsarnaev look like the terrorist that he is, but a cute, tortured artist. That is not good. Those idiot teenagers I mentioned will not look at that cover and think “How could a regular, American kid be so horribly twisted.” They’re more likely to think “I hope he escapes custody, I wanna bang him.”

Frequency: 0.5/2. One-time thing, but they haven’t been good enough to apologize.

Circumstance: 1/2. It WAS their fault  that the cover was run, but I get what they’re trying to say with it: “How could such a sweet, peaceful American kid turn out to be such a monster?” They probably could’ve picked a better picture to convey that image, though.

ODR: 5.5/8 (Douchebag)

I think the story needed to be told, but I think Rolling Stone had the chance to present their message better and blew it badly. I just hope the “Free Jahar” people grow the fuck up before they do something horrible.

And, speaking of fucked up cults nobody likes… Our forth douchebag of the day!!!

NORTH KOREA

Douche-Crime: Transporting missiles across the Panama Canal and trying to riot when Panamanian authorities boarded the ship. Missiles are bad, m’kay? 2/2

Severity: 0.5/2. Sure, missiles aren’t always a laughing matter, but they are in the hands of a country that think that a twenty-something fat man is the reincarnation of the sun go or whatever the fuck they’re telling them now.

Frequency: 2/2. Kim Jong-Un is always trying to test his might against the powers that be, even though it really is hard to be intimidated by someone who looks Chaz Bono with allergies.

Circumstances: I dunno, Kim’s just an asshole. 2/2

ODR: 6.5/8 (Definite douchebags)

Cheers!