Oh Canada

As a Canadian, I am proud to live in this country of ours. The living conditions, the scenery and the people are all very nice. However, for some reason I feel that Canada as a country is not very assertive. I don't mean in terms of going to war. I would rather do with out any of that. I mean in terms of relations with the United States. Ah, the good old United States of America. Apple pie, baseball and Jesus, what more do you need? Anyway, as Pierre Trudeau once said, "it's 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." And to make matters worse, this elephant gets mood swings every 4 to 8 years. To give you an example of how the US dominates us, just look at the major sports. The NHL and NBA are both called national leagues, but the last time I checked national refers to one country. Unfortunately, both of these leagues have Canadian teams. Another example can be seen at the box office. When a studio releases its figures for domestic total, this includes the money made by the film in Canada. Last time I checked, domestic refers to one country as well. By this line of reasoning, our GDP could just have gotten 14 trillion dollars better.