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 (Belated) Obligatory New Year Post

Happy 2014, everybody! I hope all your hangovers have cleared up by now!

2013 was a, well, let’s say an interesting year. From Syria to Rob Ford to Miley Cyrus to the NSA, it seemed like there was never a dull moment.

There were, however, several horrifying and confusing ones.

How did I spend my New Years’ Eve, you ask? Did I spend New Year’s Eve in Cuba, welcoming 2014 with a back massage on some idyllic paradise of a resort? Or did I go to some gathering with my family? Or, considering that I’m a wild and crazy seventeen year old kid, did I go to some house party, chug copious amounts of alcohol, pot and/or ecstasy before puking up my guts and passing out shortly after grinding a lamppost in front of all my friends? No. None of these. Especially not the last one.

“Man, you’re justa….just-…just a fuckin’ hater, man…’

I spent New Years Eve finishing off yesterday’s post  and watching Animaniacs reruns. I maintain that there is no better way to spend New Years Eve.

On an unrelated note, Rule 34 is a bitch when you’re just trying to find a goddamn Animaniacs logo. It’s a sick, sick world.

I’m not one for New Year’s Resolutions, because I’ve always seen them as setting yourself up for failure. Especially for a slacker who’s all set to congratulate himself for waking up in the morning without suffocating himself on his pillow.

Pillows: Soft and downy, yet, brutal and efficient.

Nonetheless, I did make myself a short list of resolutions to try to commit to in 2014. They are as follows:

1. Be less socially awkward. It’s kind of general and boring, I know, but there are only so much times one can tolerate being wished a Happy New Year and impulsively responding with “Thanks! I hope you don’t get cancer and die this year!”
2. Learn Portuguese and German. I already speak English (Duh), Spanish (Thanks to my Salvadoran-Canadian upbringing) and French (Thanks to the Edmonton Public School’s French Immersion program). However, I’ve always wanted to learn more languages, if for no other reason than to be able to communicate with locals during my future international book tours. Honestly though, I really want to actually learn more languages. Portuguese, because it’s a good starting point, being so similar to Spanish, and German, because I heard before I started to learn it that it’s extremely similar to English. Whoever told me that is a dirty liar.
3. Maintain an “A” average (80%). It’s currently hovering around the high seventies.
4. Get through the giant-ass pile of books on my desk that has been there since last Christmas. The sad thing is, most of them are Spider-Man comics.
5. Do at least one hundred blog posts this year. Recently, I’ve been pretty damn inconsistent when it comes to blogging, which is a shame, because I really love doing it and want to write as a career eventually. So this year, I want to do at least one hundred posts (This would be my second one), and hopefully, hone my abilities so I don’t have to rely on a snarky pop culture-related caption to get a cheap laugh.

Bieber. Douchebag. Stupid. Funny. You laugh now.

For now, though, I wish everyone a Happy 2014.

I hope none of you get cancer and die this year.

Since my last post…

• The Philippines continue to deal with the aftermath of typhoon Haiyan, which has affected 11 million people.
• The situation in Syria is still a total clusterfuck, with the Iranian Embassy in Lebanon being bombed by the fundamentalist Abdullah Azzam Shaheed Brigade. The good news, however, is that the UN is moving forward with the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons, meaning that both Bashar al-Assad and the Free Syrian Army can both haphazardly murder civilians without resorting to chemical weapons. Let freedom ring!
• The Saskatchewan Roughriders defeated the Hamilton Tiger-Cats 45-23 to win the 101st Grey Cup. Fuck you, this is news in Canada.
• A supermarket in Riga, Latvia collapsed, killing six and injuring 35.
• Everybody’s spying on everybody, with the NSA just generally being total assholes and spying on anybody with a pulse, and Australia and Canada spying on two known rogue nations, Indonesia and Brazil.

Although the pervert in me realizes the logic of setting up surveillance cameras in Brazil.

• The 50th anniversary of JFK’s murder came and went.
• Angola may or may not have illegalized the Islamic religion. Considering that Angola is not currently a smoking crater in the ground, I’m moderately sure the latter is the truth.
• Protests in the Ukraine rage on against the suspension of the European Union Association Agreement, and the rampant unemployment and corruption characteristic of post-Soviet republics. The Ukrainian police and government, being corrupt and trigger-happy, injure 165-244 Ukrainians.
• The Hunger Games: Catching Fire becomes the biggest North American November film release, grossing $161 million in the U.S. and Canada over its first weekend. The movie’s amazing. Go see it.
• Ian Watkins, the frontman of Welsh rock band LostProphets, pleads guilty at Cardiff Crown Court  to attempted rape and sexual assault of a child under 13, but not guilty to rape. This was accepted by the prosecution. He further pleaded guilty to three counts of sexual assault involving children and six involving taking, making or possessing indecent images of children and one of possessing an extreme pornographic image involving a sex act on an animal. Watkins’ victims included a baby. The world is a dark, unfeeling, evil place, kids!
• The Canadian  Prime Minister’s Office is all but proven guilty of bribing senators. What is this, Ukraine or something?
• The Fast and the Furious actor Paul Walker is killed in a car crash. Pointing out the irony of the previous statement, while humorous, does not make you any less of an asshole.
• The Thai Prime Minister is forced into hiding by anti-government protests.
• Gay marriage is outlawed in Croatia, with 65 per cent voting for illegalizing it. 65 per cent of Croatians suck.
• Holy crap, a nuclear deal between Iran and everybody else was signed! (Nobody tell them about Argo)
• Xavier Bettel becomes the first openly gay prime minister of Luxembourg.
• Unidentified militants murder 52 people in Sana’a, Yemen.
• Oh. Right. Lest we forget, Canada’s biggest city has a morbidly obese alcoholic crackhead for a mayor.

Toronto! (Plus: How to recognize a Canadian!)

On the eight, I will be flying out to Toronto for a week in order to, among other things, visit family, see the zoo and watch the Jays. I will try to update my blog while on vacation, but I think it unlikely that I will be able to. If my blog goes un-updated for more than a week though, it means that I have either been murdered for drug money by Toronto’s crackhead mayor, or have watched Josh Johnson pitch and suffered a coronary as a result.

Fret not faithful viewers! Before I venture off into a pleasant getaway/impending doom, I will leave you with a healthy tip on how to recognize a Canadian!

How an American/Brit will pronounce “Toronto”:

To-Ron-to

How an American/Brit trying to sound Canadian will pronounce “Toronto”:

To-Ronno

How a Canadian will pronounce “Toronto”

To-Ronno

“Aha” You may think to yourself, “Those last two sound exactly the same! You’re a fraud, random blogger I found on the internet while searching for pictures of Emma Watson in revealing clothing!”

Well, if you weren’t thinking about it before…

But you see, there is a difference. When a non-Canadian says “Toronto”, nothing happens afterwords.

When a Canadian says it, however, “O Canada” starts blaring triumphantly in the background as water turn into maple syrup while Mounties arrive to serve ice-cold Molson’s as ice-skating beavers play an impromptu hockey game.

“O Canada! (Fuck Yeah!)”

See ya next week (At the latest)!