Picture of the Week: Lonely Dog

Wel­come to my new “How To… Canada” series! In this series, I’ll try to put my knowl­edge to good use and shed some light on my new coun­try: Canada. You will learn how some immi­gra­tion tips and tricks, how to improve your pro­fi­ciency in both offi­cial lan­guages, how to find a job, how to set­tle in Canada etc. I’ll pub­lish a new “How To… Canada” post every Saturday.

Humor, jokes, what’s funny and what’s not strongly dif­fers in cul­tures. Cana­di­ans have a strong sense of humor, and Cana­dian humor is an inte­gral part of the identity.

The weather: fuck­ing cold…eh?

The leg­endary win­ters in Canada are always a good excuse for a laugh:

In Canada we have two Seasons…six months of win­ter and six months of poor snow­mo­bile weather.

You know you’re Cana­dian when…

• You’ve plugged a car in overnight
• You design your kid’s Hal­loween cos­tume to fit over a snowsuit
• Dri­ving is bet­ter in the win­ter because then the pot­holes are filled with snow
• You carry jumper cables in your car and your girl­friend knows how to use them.

Our South­ern neigh­bors: The U.S.A

It’s not that we don’t like them. I just that we like to make fun of them!

On the sixth day God turned to Archangel Gabriel and said: “Today I am going to cre­ate a land called Canada, it will be a land of out­stand­ing nat­ural beauty. It shall have tall majes­tic moun­tains full of moun­tain goats and eagles, beau­ti­ful sparkling lakes boun­ti­ful with bass and trout, forests full of elk and moose, high cliffs over-looking sandy beaches with an abun­dance of sea life, and rivers stocked with salmon.”

God con­tin­ued, “I shall make the land rich in oil so as to make the inhab­i­tants pros­per, I shall call these inhab­i­tants Cana­di­ans, and they shall be known as the most friendly peo­ple on the earth.”

“But Lord,” asked Gabriel, “don’t you think you are being too gen­er­ous to these Cana­di­ans?”

“Not really,” replied God, “just wait and see the neigh­bours I am going to give them.”

Cana­di­ans are also sup­posed to be very polite and to apol­o­gize a lot, espe­cially com­pared to Amer­i­cans whom are seen as arro­gant. Here is a Cana­dian Apol­ogy to the USA, from Rick Mercer:

On behalf of Cana­di­ans every­where I’d like to offer an apol­ogy to the United States of Amer­ica. We haven’t been get­ting along very well recently and for that, I am truly sorry. I’m sorry we called George Bush a moron. He is a moron, but it wasn’t nice of us to point it out. If it’s any con­so­la­tion, the fact that he’s a moron shouldn’t reflect poorly on the peo­ple of Amer­ica. After all, it’s not like you actu­ally elected him.

I’m sorry we beat you in Olympic hockey. In our defense I guess our excuse would be that our team was much, much, much, much bet­ter than yours. As word of apol­ogy, please accept all of our NHL teams which, one by one, are going out of busi­ness and mov­ing to your fine country.

I’m sorry about our waf­fling on Iraq. I mean, when you’re going up against a crazed dic­ta­tor, you want to have your friends by your side. I real­ize it took more than two years before you guys pitched in against Hitler, but that was dif­fer­ent. Every­one knew he had weapons.

I’m sorry we burnt down your White House dur­ing the War of 1812. I see you’ve rebuilt it! It’s very nice.

And finally on behalf of all Cana­di­ans, I’m sorry that we’re con­stantly apol­o­giz­ing for things in a passive-aggressive way which is really a thinly veiled crit­i­cism. I sin­cerely hope that you’re not upset over this. Because we’ve seen what you do to coun­tries you get upset with.

Our national sport: Give Blood, Play Hockey

When it comes to hockey, if often Canada vs. Toronto, as this team has the more money but never ever seems to win. Poor Maple Leafs…

A Mon­treal Cana­di­ens hockey fan is dri­ving home from work when he passes the local priest. He stops and gives him a lift.

A block later they pass a man wear­ing a Toronto Maple Leafs jer­sey. The Mon­treal fan sud­denly feels an uncon­trol­lable urge to run him over with the car. He puts his foot down on the accel­er­a­tor and tries to hit him. At the last minute the Maple Leafs fan jumps out of the way and the dri­ver hears a thump which he fig­ures must just be the curb.

The two men pro­cede in silence until finally the Canucks fan blurts out, “Look Father, I’m really sorry about that inci­dent back there. I tried to run the Leafs fan over but I believe I missed him : can you for­give me father?”

The Priest replies “It’s okay son, no need to apol­o­gize; I got him with the car door.“

Cana­di­ans love to brag about how vio­lent is hockey:

Reporter to hockey player: “Did you ever break your nose?” Player: “No, but eleven other play­ers did!”

A hockey puck is a hard rub­ber disc that hockey play­ers hit when they are not hit­ting each other.

Hockey is def­i­nitely too tough. I mean, what other sport has a coroner?

You know it’s going to be a wild game when a fight broke out in the mid­dle of the National Anthem.

Regional humor:

We make fun of BC because of its weather (pretty mild but very wet) and its “laid back” attitude:

Top rea­sons to live in BC:

• The local hero is a pot-smoking snowboarder
• There’s always some sort of defor­esta­tion protest going on
• If a cop pulls you over, just offer them some of your hash

Man­i­toba, and espe­cially the city of Win­nipeg, is famous for its freez­ing winters:

Top rea­sons to live in Manitoba:

• Amus­ing town names like “Flin Flon” and “Winnipeg”
• Hun­dreds of huge, hor­ri­bly frigid lakes
• Noth­ing com­pares to a wicked Win­nipeg winter
• You remem­ber the dates of major bliz­zards 30 years ago.

A lot of Cana­di­ans resent Ontario, or at least, like to make fun of it, because the province is home to both Canada’s biggest city and the national cap­i­tal. There­for, the province is seen as cor­rupted and boring.

Top rea­sons to live in Ontario:

• Your provin­cial cap­i­tal calls in the army to help clean up after a snow storm.
• Your $400,000 Toronto home is actu­ally a dump
• You, and you, alone decide who will win the fed­eral election
• The only province with hard-core American-style crime
• You live in the cen­ter of the universe
• There’s no such thing as an Ontario Sep­a­ratist
  
• Your grand­par­ents sold booze to the States dur­ing Prohibition

Que­bec is another easy tar­get. The only province with a major­ity of French speak­ers and an his­tory of sep­a­ratism is of course being made fun of.

Top ten rea­sons to live in Quebec:

• You cant believe that a cashier in Ontario speaks French too!
• Other provinces basi­cally bribe you to stay in Canada
• The only province/territory to ever kid­nap fed­eral politicians
• NON-smokers are the outcasts
• You can blame all your prob­lems on the “Anglo bastards”
• Your hockey team is made up entirely of dirty French guys

In addi­tion to that, every Cana­dian knows a joke about New­found­land. New­found­land was the last province to join Con­fed­er­a­tion in 1949 and they had the choice of either becom­ing part of Canada or part of the US. They decided to join Canada, and became a national joke… sorry guys! New­fie are our red­neck (as well as Alber­tans, but that’s just jeal­ousy because they are richer than other provinces right now).

For more Cana­dian humor, check out:

• “I Is An New­found­lan­der”
• “I am Not Cana­dian” (both are a par­ody of the Mol­son beer Cana­dian Rant)
• More Moslon rant par­o­dies
  
• The Toque (great Cana­dian jokes)

Related posts:

1. 10 Cana­dian Sports
2. Hockey (2÷10)
3. Stuffs Cana­di­ans Like (Part 2)
4. Go Sens, Go !
5. 10 Clues I Became Canadian