Happy Dominion Day!

Steyn Online ^ | July 1, 2014 | Mark Steyn

[Squawk 8888]

To all my fellow sons and daughters of the Great White North, a happy and glorious Dominion Day to you.

There are many things I love about my native land. It doesn't have Fannie Mae and (John Koskinen's) Freddie Mac, so its housing market was not clobbered by subprime mumbo-jumbo. Many other things, from the banking system to immigration policy, are less insane than America and elsewhere. Its foreign policy in recent years has been sober and serious, as Israel and others appreciate.

Beyond that, its political class seems less weird, or at any rate less expensive to maintain. I find the whole Emirs-of-Incumbistan thing at the US Senate almost too stomach-churning to be around at close quarters. In Canada, by contrast, you don't get a retinue, and, when your number's up, you don't parlay your Rolodex and Capitol parking pass into a gazillion-dollar-a-year lobbying gig.

[Squawk 8888]

Today I reflect on the awesome privilege it is to be a citizen of the greatest nation ever created by accident.

[Squawk 8888]

To all- please ping me to Canadian topics.

Canada Ping!

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

To all of our Canadian friends I say great job eh.

[laplata]

Happy Dominion Day to all our Canadian friends!

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

Nobody has to anger me more about the place the Canadians have been denied in history especially during WW II. Their accomplishments were awesome and I wish more people knew about them.

[Fungi]

Amen. As a Canadian, I support the efforts of Harper. Mark Steyn, you should have stayed in Canada. As it is, you have the same battles on both sides of the border. Stay strong my brother.

[Utilizer]

Perhaps someone should send a message to Babylon 5... *grin*

[Squawk 8888]

Good point- even most Canadians today are unaware of the scale of our involvement in WWII. The numbers were mind-boggling; a population of 9 million, our military had more than one million members. Every family was impacted; my mother was a cashier at Woolworth’s and part of her job was to enforce rationing. My father was too young to serve, but his oldest brother was in the Navy doing escort duty on the Murmansk run. That part of our history was buried for a long time, and I’m glad it’s now being rediscovered.

[caveat emptor]

so its [Canada's] housing market was not clobbered by subprime mumbo-jumbo.

Yes but - housing prices were clobbered in western Canada especially in Calgary and Edmonton by commie, anti-western Trudeau's National Energy Policy in the early 1980s:

While,the U.S. Office of the Federal Housing Oversight (OFHEO) reported overall declines in real estate prices of between 10% and 15% from 1980 through 1985, the years of the NEP. That same report presents information from the Canadian Real Estate Association (CREA) showing that during those years (1980–1985) most eastern Canadian markets fell 10%-15% and the Toronto market held relatively steady.[23] In contrast, the CREA historical data shows a decline from 1980 through to 1985 of approximately 20% for Vancouver, Saskatoon and Winnipeg while the drop approached 40% in the oil dominated economies of Edmonton and Calgary,[

[Squawk 8888]

No question Trudeau was a one-man wrecking crew that almost destroyed a great nation. The biggest surprise from Stephen Harper is how much of that legacy he’s been able to undo in just eight years.

[GOPJ]

Emirs-of-Incumbistan thing at the US Senate almost too stomach-churning to be around at close quarters.

LOL

[xp38]

The good old days when it also meant the local supermarket

Now taken over by a Quebec company who changed the name to Metro

[Squawk 8888]

To be fair, I blame Dominion management. They took a venerable brand and rendered it worthless.

[Squawk 8888]

BTW the Metro in your photo was always Quebec- owned. That architecture was Miracle Food Mart, which was owned by Steinberg’s.

[caveat emptor]

No question Trudeau was a one-man wrecking crew that almost destroyed a great nation.

In economic matters it seems to be the west that takes the biggest hits. With T2 there's this:

Justin Trudeau is going to bring in a carbon tax. Just like his dad, Pierre Trudeau, did.

His dad called it the National Energy Program, and claimed it was for national sovereignty reasons, or whatever excuse worked with the media of the day.

It’s 2014, so the excuse now is “the environment.”

Trudeau announced his plans for a carbon tax last year in Calgary — at the Petroleum Club no less. It was a shocking announcement — but not a single other media outlet reported it, except a brief mention on the Globe and Mail’s website.

Why would the media ignore Trudeau’s speech calling for a carbon tax — a speech that is available on his website to this day?

Easy: the media recalls how a similar pledge by Stephane Dion tanked the Liberal Party’s campaign in 2008. The cone of silence around Trudeau’s carbon tax plans is the media mopping up Trudeau’s political mess for him, by pretending they didn’t see it, and ensuring no Canadian voters do either.

[Squawk 8888]

I saw that column. AFAIK Ezra Levant and Mark Steyn are national heroes who should be inducted into the Order of Canada. Doing that would go a long way towards erasing that stain that inducting the mass-murderer Henry Morgentaler created.