If you’ve been with me for a while, you already know that I’m currently dealing with disability and that I used to live in Los Angeles before I became disabled. While I lived there, I was lucky enough that the priciest thing I needed medically was having the cysts that grew in my breasts drained a couple of times per year at costs ranging from 900 to 2000 dollars. The thing that brought me back to Canada was something that would have bankrupted me, but because I never became an American citizen, I still had the ability to come home to Canada and only pay 80 dollars per month for the provincial health insurance, which is pricey for Canada . The surgery that was required and the following treatment came to a grand total of ZERO DOLLARS. I was smart enough to stay here in Canada because just a few years later, my whole world changed because I had a massive stroke caused by an atrial myxoma tumor that had been growing in my heart for 25 plus years. The emergency cardiac surgery and the 6 months of in-hospital stroke recovery came to a total of ZERO DOLLARS.
I’m about to go into the hospital to have a cyst drained on the 13th, and it will cost me NOTHING . I have no idea what the stroke or cardiac surgery would have cost in the states ,but I can safely say that I’m happy to be home where you’re not treated like an ATM for being sick.
I’ve been thinking about buying some first-floor condos and renovating them to be wheelchair accessible rentals in my city for a while now. Unfortunately, I don’t have that kind of money yet, but I will eventually, and I’ve been wanting to give something to the disabled community here on Vancouver Island. The problem of not enough accessible housing is real and ripe for the plucking for the right developer. Every month, people are released from the stroke recovery floor of the hospital, and many of them have no accessible place to go,which they will need for at least a shorter stay. It’s just good sense to make sure that they have an accessible apartment they can use as a stop gap until they are able to renovate their own homes or until they have been able to fully recover from their stroke. It would be easy to build a relationship with the hospitals stroke recovery unit and benefits both the patients and the rentals and the city.
This app has been needed since before the invention of apps! If you’re a wheelchair user, you know just how frustrating it is to hear that the building is accessible, but the you get there only to find out that you must enter through the loading dock around back, where they’ll try to find enough men to lift you and your chair up onto the dock. Yes, it’s just that fun. I, for one, can’t wait until it covers the whole country !
So I’ve been following this guy’s YouTube channel for a few weeks now and I have to recommend it highly, especially if you’re into learning about Canada 🇨🇦. Over the past few weeks this self professed average American has been reacting to videos on YouTube about various aspects of Canada as a country and I, as a Canadian fully approve.
However I do have a bit of advice for this fellow. Please stop introducing yourself as a typical American because it isn’t true. The average American doesn’t generally want to learn about other countries and certainly has little to no interest in Canada until they meet someone who is Canadian and show them just how little they know or care about their northern neighbor. Which I know personally as I, a Canadian woman, lived in the USA for just under 20 years.
I realize that the subject of Canada is boring to most Americans and the reason for this is that Canada isn’t as skilled as the USA is when it comes to creating hype. I’ve long said that hype is the only thing America still successfully creates. In Canada, on the other hand the only real hype that we’ve created is around the sport of hockey. So much so that regardless of the outcome of a hockey game half the audience will riot over it.
Thankfully our politics are pretty boring, because we have more than two political parties involved we don’t have the same political division. Don’t get me wrong there is some division, but it’s not like we’re heading towards a civil war or anything like that. As a matter of fact, we have 5 political parties in Canada and two official languages in which to agree or disagree . Et c’est vres!
Another reason Canada is so boring is that we have quite a bit of elbow room. With just one tenth of the population of the USA, and much more land, we are free to enjoy our personal space far more than countries with denser populations, and can stay out of each other’s way. Of course there is still violence that exists here,but after our last massacre we took a much harder stance on guns, which has saved us from having daily mass shootings like they have south of the border.
Kudos to this young man for his curiosity about his northern neighbor, his eagerness to learn and his honesty when he doesn’t know something because it’s just very refreshing to see from way up here.
Oh,boy! The corpse of his beloved mommy isn’t even cold yet and he has called himself the King of Canada . Dude, read the room.
If you’ve been with me for a while, you know my opinion of the Tampon King and his wife whose new title (though I will always remember her as chlamydia duchess of corn hole) aptly refers to her one strength, her ability to consort. That this couple is fit to rule is laughable at best. We need to have a conversation, Canada. I wasn’t going to post this for a week or so to give a respectful amount of time to anyone who needs it, but those folks don’t read this little blog anyway.
We need to talk about the commonwealth ,which is a trade agreement for English speaking countries, save the USA,with a long tradition. I ,for one don’t like the idea of having to look at Upchuck’s face on my money, or having to spend that money on his and his family’s travel expenses, security etc. I put in enough time and this is the right,perhaps, the only time to change. Before he puts his gob on our money, stamps etc.
Australia is already having the conversation and why not? It can be just a trade agreement and nothing more. We can sustain ourselves and we should. England is a wealthy country and I say it’s beyond time that we let them pay their own way.
I know many of you aren’t Canadian, or even Canada adjacent. So I thought I’d share this peek into the personalities and stereotypes that make up the second largest country in the world. Thankfully, I recently found this video that explains it all, if not perfectly, but it’s Canada and we’re fine with second place.
Many disabled people don’t like to leave the house much, even before the pandemic hit, because they are all too aware that the attitudes of others are unkind at best, but put the extra stress of those others, now being worked up into a lather of rage, it’s just not safe for us. I find myself saying the words GROW UP multiple times a day. Especially when news stories are covering the freedumb rally, or some other anti-vaccine nonsense, because they ARE ALL ACTING LIKE CHILDREN IN THE MIDDLE OF A TEMPER TANTRUM 🙄. I really hope that none of these people ever have to be in a wheelchair because they are not nearly strong enough to deal with it. If you can’t handle a couple of years in a mask without whining, I’d hate to see you have to learn how to walk again. STOP FUNDING THESE MORONS! They do NOT deserve your money 😤
Singer Jann Arden tweeted the best comment about the truckers. She wrote, Me Me Me Me Me Me Me, Me Me Me Honk Honk Honk Honk Me Me Me Honk Me. I would have thrown in a couple of whaaahs, but still the best tweet of the topic so far 👌
My fellow Canadians need to see and really think about the numbers seen in this video. Do we want to follow in the wake of the American stench or are we truly a sovereign nation unto ourselves?
After the first week of Olympic competition, Canada has won a total of 12 medals, 8 bronze, 2 silver and 2 gold. The odd thing about this is that they were all won by women, with our swimmers shining above the rest. The number of medals won at this point in a summer Olympic games is about right for Canada, a country that traditionally does far better in the winter games, with both men and women dominating their respective sports. While the Canadian men have yet to collect any metal, the feminist in me is over the moon with pride and joy at the performances of these hard working female athletes.
Bronze medal winners
Swimming
Swimming
Canadian women’s rugby seven team celebrating winning bronze
Canada’s womens cycling track team takes home the bronze
Brianne Theissen -Eaton, bronze medalist in the women’s heptathalon
Silver medal winners Rowers Lindsay Jennerich and Patricia Obee show off their silver medals
Gold medal winners
Rosie Maclennan kisses her gold medal won for trampoline
Medal leader, swimmer Penny Oleksiak won 2 bronze, 1silver and 1 gold for Canada
If we want to beat our total medal count of 18, from the 2012 games we need 6 more medals, so unless our men really step up next week, it looks like, this summer, in Canada, the fairer sex is also the stronger sex .
*** the day after this post was published, Canadian runner, Andre Degrasse won the bronze in the men’s 100 meter sprint. Well done!
It seems that whenever people talk about a fallen empire, they invariably discuss the fall of the Holy Roman empire, but there have been a plethora of fallen empires throughout history and they all share a common thread. It has been said that Pride goeth before a fall, but it is not only pride, or even arrogance that preceded the fall of some of the world’s most powerful empires. The real culprit is a different deadly sin… greed.
A lot has been made of late about income inequality and for good reason. When the haves, who make up less than 1 percent of the population of a country, own more than 90 percent of a country’s wealth and the vast majority are the have-nots, who share the last few percentage points, the fall of that country is not far off. The masses will only put up with so much before there is a revolution, just look at the French Revolution (what happens when you have a pair of entitled 15 year olds ruling a country), or more recently the Arab Spring. Whether it’s a royal aristocracy, a dictatorship or capitalism run amok that keeps the people down, it is only a matter of time until the people will realize that all they need to do is band together and revolt in order to stop the madness.
Mmmm Cake!
Sir Edmund Burke once said, “Those who do not know history’s mistakes are doomed to repeat them.” He was right. It’s easy to look back at the causes of the declines and falls of each and every former empire and make direct comparisons to current world powers. The writing is on the wall. It is not enough to make sure that the have-nots have almost enough to live on and dangle the carrot of a lottery win, a singing career, a reality show or a game show as hope that they too can become rich. There are only so many times that a shiny object (celebrity) can be used to distract the people from the erosion of their rights. A country must provide more than just welfare and food stamps for its poor. It’s not just the impoverished, though. If a country has successfully eroded away its middle class, by union busting and outsourcing jobs to other countries, all in the name of saving a buck, they have then joined the middle class (which should be more populous than the poverty-stricken) with the poor, thereby strengthening their numbers and making themselves that many more new enemies.
China used to be a powerful empire and is the only country that actually has a chance, and a good chance, at that, of becoming a powerful empire for a second time. This time, they are building their economy by educating their children in fields like technology, science and agriculture. They are studying the success and failures of other countries and learning from them. They are buying the debt of countries that have a lot of unpopulated land, as they are quickly running out of land of their own. They are forward thinking, all the while looking to the past.
Thanks to global warming (or climate change) Russia is poised for power as well. It wasn’t that long ago (1917) that the Russian Revolution happened and Putin is ruling like he has never heard of it. The arctic will be a major resource in the coming decades and Russia owns the lion’s share of the region. It is imperative that they have a forward thinking party in power and soon if they want to be a major player in the near future.
Canadians; apologizing our way to the top.
There is a country that is on the threshold of becoming a world power player for the first time for much the same reason. The country that owns the second largest share of the arctic, Canada. Yes, quiet, polite Canada with our wealth of natural resources and our vast amounts of unpopulated land, really could be a super-power in the, not so distant, future, if we play our cards right. When it comes to social issues like healthcare and human rights, Canada is on the forefront. Canada is one of the best countries in which to live if you are a minority or a woman. The quality of our education system is excellent and not so overpriced that only the wealthy can access it. Yes, Canada is indeed a great place to live, which is why as we look forward by protecting our arctic land, we must also look around, like the Chinese are doing, at the successes and failures of others, both past and present and learn from them, so it will continue to be that great place to live. We do not want to see our rights eroded due to complacency on the part of the voting public. It is important that the people of Canada keep a watchful eye on our elected officials, so that they continue to act in our best interests and not succumb to the one thing that will spell our downfall… greed.
