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Reality Check:
Canadian Population (2003): 31,629,700
Canadian Armed Forces (1999) : 60,942

There was alot of ridiculous media trashing of Canada this year. Jean Chretien is gone (Thank God!) Our new PM Paul Martin gets along great with Dubya. Many Canadian troops were deployed to Afghanistan as part of the coalition force. As well, many Canadian troops are still in hellish areas such as Bosnia and Kosovo as UN Peacekeepers.

Please remember that Canadians love Americans, we have common dreams and goals based on freedom and democracy. I would like to comment on the big issues of 2003:

1) If Canada could have sent troops to Iraq for Operation Iraqi Freedom, we would have! I even wrote an email to Prime Minister Chretien begging him to reconsider, as a compromise sending even 2000 troops in a UN peacekeeping role afterwards for reconstruction efforts, but surprise, I got no response. Canada's armed forces have regressed after years of budget cuts under Chretien's 10 years in office, to the point that after deployments to Bosnia and Afghanistan, we are now spread very thin.

2) The Mad Cow Scare is so maddening that one cow caused Canada's beef industry to crumble this year, we've lost BILLIONS of dollars already as the world shut down its imports over ONE COW! Does anybody else find this smelling of conspiracy? We had to live with worldwide media coverage that was absolutely preposterous. A whole entourage of Japanese ministers touring Alberta farming operations to see if our cattle were raised under sanitary conditions. Excuse ME!?! Canada, along with the US and Australia have the highest quality beef you can get on the planet. Being treated like this is disgusting. The latest comments about the WA state cow being from Canada makes me want to scream at the top of my lungs. Our cattle industry is under attack from your media without proof and we have to just suck it up.

We are your ally and will be forever, but blaming your kid brother for one retarded cow is pretty low, there's no parent around to tell you to stop your bullying either. I won't even mention the softwood lumber tariffs or other US policies that ensure we are held back.

They were broadcasting on the evening news feeds the cow was 6 1/2 years of age and was traced to a herd of 81 animals sold to the U.S. Apparently the animal was being fed the diseased parts as it was alive before the restrictions were put in place about BSE.

Someone is covering this sale up and we are all blaming each other.

I say put it in a box and bury it. Let's be more careful in the future and fine the ranchers who fudge on their record keeping.

Also the slaughter houses should be made to discard that stuff they have been feeding back to the animals. That's nuts.

Do we feed dead cats and dogs in Purina chow???

This whole mess has everyone at everyone's throat.

And Canuck - Canada has had a lot of complaints against the Americans the past couple of years. I wonder if NAFTA has caused much of these problems. Just a thought.