{"id":20927,"date":"2013-07-03T09:21:30","date_gmt":"2013-07-03T14:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=20927"},"modified":"2013-07-03T09:21:30","modified_gmt":"2013-07-03T14:21:30","slug":"kathy-shaidles-dispatch-from-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2013\/07\/03\/kathy-shaidles-dispatch-from-canada\/","title":{"rendered":"Kathy Shaidle&#8217;s &#8220;Dispatch from Canada&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kathy will be writing a weekly column for our American friends, updating them with whatever&#8217;s up here in the Great White North. Given how little actually ever happens in Canada, it might be just a weather report or the latest style change for Justin Trudeau&#8217;s hair. However, to start it off, yesterday&#8217;s column attempted to <a href=\"http:\/\/pjmedia.com\/lifestyle\/2013\/07\/02\/dispatch-from-canada-146th-birthday-edition\/?singlepage=true\" target=\"_blank\">correct a few common notions about Canada<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Because a lot of what you think you know about Canada is probably decades out of date.<\/p>\n<p>As investment bigwig and journalist <a href=\"http:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2013\/07\/01\/canada-land-of-the-free\/\" target=\"_blank\">Theo Caldwell recently noted<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<p><em>But Canada is far from American stereotypes of socialism, centralization and obeisance, at least in relative terms. By almost any measure, Canada is a freer country than the U.S.A.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>Economically, the contrast is stark, for those who care to see. While folks reflexively state that Canadian taxes are higher than those of the United States, corporate and personal rates are lower up north.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/ul>\n<p>How much lower are those corporate taxes? <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/1553652797\/pjmedia-20\" target=\"_blank\">Canada<\/a> ranks 6th lowest out of 185 nations. America came in at a shocking 69th place.<\/p>\n<p>Believe it or not, <a href=\"http:\/\/www2.macleans.ca\/2013\/06\/28\/99-reasons-why-its-better-to-be-canadian\/\" target=\"_blank\">Canada\u2019s average household net worth is higher than America\u2019s<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/ca.news.yahoo.com\/blogs\/canada-politics\/canada-world-best-reputation-poll-054816450.html\" target=\"_blank\">We also have lower unemployment<\/a>, and our economy is holding steady, thanks in part to our ingenious refusal to give mortgages to welfare bums.<\/p>\n<p>We have fewer divorces, fewer traffic fatalities, and <em>way<\/em> fewer tornadoes.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.oecd.org\/canada\/BriefingNoteCANADA2012.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">We\u2019re skinnier, too<\/a>. (Seriously: your restaurant portions are freakishly huge.)<\/p>\n<p>But what about \u201cthe American Dream\u201d?<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"http:\/\/milescorak.com\/2012\/05\/22\/social-mobility-is-about-twice-as-great-in-australia-and-canada-than-in-the-united-kingdom-and-the-united-states-compared\/\" target=\"_blank\">one (Canadian) economist<\/a>, \u201ca son born to a poor father in the U.S. is twice as likely to remain poor throughout his life than if he had been born in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>[. . .]<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve got our flaws too, of course.<\/p>\n<p>We literally have no abortion law, which means it\u2019s easier to get one than a gun, even at the nine-month mark.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no death penalty. And try <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bcliving.ca\/health\/mri-scans-waiting-for-public-health-care-vs-paying-for-a-private-mri-clinic\" target=\"_blank\">getting an MRI<\/a>, unless you\u2019re a cat.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunnewsnetwork.ca\/video\/search\/police\/good-cop-bad-cop\/2497316826001\" target=\"_blank\">Our cops are increasingly corrupt<\/a>, if not downright fascist. (Don\u2019t be fooled by the propaganda about the noble, virtuous <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunnewsnetwork.ca\/sunnews\/canada\/archives\/2013\/07\/20130701-082750.html\" target=\"_blank\">Mountie\u2026<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>We have this unelected Senate thing (long story) and a dorky constitution, especially compared to yours.<\/p>\n<p>And don\u2019t get me started on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sunnewsnetwork.ca\/video\/search\/police\/spoofing-language-lunacy\/2506861611001\" target=\"_blank\">Quebec<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kathy will be writing a weekly column for our American friends, updating them with whatever&#8217;s up here in the Great White North. Given how little actually ever happens in Canada, it might be just a weather report or the latest style change for Justin Trudeau&#8217;s hair. However, to start it off, yesterday&#8217;s column attempted to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,25,13],"tags":[426,95,150,98,118,315],"class_list":["post-20927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-economics","category-usa","tag-housing","tag-jobs","tag-obesity","tag-police","tag-taxes","tag-wealth"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-5rx","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20927"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20927\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20929,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20927\/revisions\/20929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}