So welcome to Canada eh?
Maybe we should forget about an onslaught of Syrian refugees and, instead, set sights on welcoming thousands of American citizens sometime just before Christmas.
If Donnie Trump gets to be president, he has promised to do great, great, big, big, awful, awful things to certain people and I’m pretty certain a few U.S. citizens may not wish to be around once he begins his reign of error.
So here’s a primer for our American friends who might be contemplating a flight north. First off, leave your guns behind. You don’t need them here, unless you like to hunt ducks and deer.
Learn to say “I’m sorry,” and “eh” at the beginning and end of sentences. Otherwise, you can talk like you normally do. And, by the way, only the maritimers say “aboot.”
Our senate is waaay different than your senate. We’ll explain later.
Our House of Commons is about the same as your House of Congress. Both are well-meaning but badly malfunctioning bodies, but it’s the best we have and better than the alternatives.
You won’t be able to buy a house in Vancouver or Toronto.
In English Canada, all the cans and boxes containing food are stacked on the grocery store shelves with French language labels forward. You must turn the cans and boxes carefully 180 degrees, and you will discover the English language on the other side of the label. You won’t have to learn French in order to eat. We presume the opposite details are followed in Quebec, our French speaking province. Again, we’ll explain all that later, after you get settled in and comfortable.
We have adopted the metric system in Canada. Kinda. Well, not really. We’re officially metric, but we’ll understand you if you care to continue to relate matters in terms of pounds, inches, gallons and Fahrenheit. In fact, most of us don’t know how much a 2.2 kilogram roast of beef actually weighs either and we’ve been at the stupid game for over 50 years. So, no need to rush into metrics. Just remember, 100 on the highway sign means 60 mph, and you’ll do just fine. The vehicles are now smarter than we are anyway, they’ll do the converting.
If you are escaping from Alabama, Arkansas or Georgia, you may want to register for a few English as Another Language courses. In the interim, we can communicate with you using universal sign language.
That’s the British royalty woman pictured on the front side of our funny coloured botoxed money, not an old movie star. The others are dead Prime Ministers.
Our one dollar and two dollar bills are actually big coins and we call them loonies and toonies … don’t ask, just accept. Oh, we don’t have pennies any more … you’re welcome.
The only place we fight is in hockey rinks with most of them taking place on the ice surface. We don’t fight at political rallies. In fact, we barely bother to show up at them.
We have more than two political parties in Canada. We have three, or maybe four that are easily identifiable and the others are difficult to identify and explain, but they do add a little interest and humour to our much shorter and cheaper political campaigns.
The current leader of our country is Sunny Ways Sequel. Once upon a time his daddy was the leader of our country. The other parties don’t have leaders right now. Again, we’ll explain that after you’ve settled in.
And oh, you’ll like our health care system, at least for the time being, and our beer gardens.
Welcome to Canada, stay as long as you like, we don’t check up on visitors’ visas either.
