100 Quotes About Canada

To many Canadians, their country is a symbol of freedom and equality, and they’re proud to be a part of it. They take pride in being able to speak English or French, have access to free healthcare, and are able to have free speech. But, Canadians are also very accepting of others, so they’re also willing to open their arms to those who are looking for a better life. These are the best quotes about canada you can use to remind yourself that Canada is a place where anyone can succeed.

1
It has been our experience that American houses insist on very comprehensive editing; that English houses as a rule require little or none and are inclined to go along with the author's script almost without query. The Canadian practice is just what you would expect--a middle-of-the-road course. We think the Americans edit too heavily and interfere with the author's rights. We think that the English publishers don't take enough editorial responsibility. Naturally, then, we consider our editing to be just about perfect. There's no doubt about it, we Canadians are a superior breed! (in a letter to author Margaret Laurence, dated May, 1960) . Jack McClelland
I've been to Canada, and I've always gotten the impression...
2
I've been to Canada, and I've always gotten the impression that I could take the country over in about two days. Jon Stewart
3
Can I see some ID?" "WE DON'T HAVE ID, " said Jay, loudly. "'CAUSE WE'RE CANADIAN. WE DON'T USE ID...THERE. AND THAT'S WHY WE LOOK SO YOUNG. 'CAUSE WE'RE CANADIAN." Doug stiffened. Jay sounded crazy. Doug tried looking extra sane to even things out. Adam Rex
What part of Canada are you from, honey?
4
What part of Canada are you from, honey?"" T H E LEFT PART, " said Jay. Adam Rex
5
I have spent weeks in the desert, forgetting to look at the moon, he says, as a married man may spend days never looking into the face of his wife. These are not sins of omission but signs of pre-occuopation. Michael Ondaatje
6
I am a Canadian, free to speak without fear, free to worship in my own way, free to stand for what I think right, free to oppose what I believe wrong, or free to choose those who shall govern my country. This heritage of freedom I pledge to uphold for myself and all mankind. John G. Diefenbaker
You ever want to negotiate a hostage situation in Quebec,...
7
You ever want to negotiate a hostage situation in Quebec, I'm your man. Send me in for a little parley and the francophone miscreants will flee, hands over bleeding ears. Will Ferguson
Canada is the place where maple syrup is its own...
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Canada is the place where maple syrup is its own food group. Jenny McWha
...my body has becomeanother countryand I feel like an unemployedillegal...
9
...my body has becomeanother countryand I feel like an unemployedillegal alienhow will I survivewhere I do not belong I belong with you Patrick CalifiaRice
10
Alecto, have you noticed how downhill this little island is becoming?” Mandy questioned sadly. “All these organic food stores and yoga studios and cellular phone towers… Cape Breton was one of the only places left where it still had that nostalgic small town atmosphere but now… I’ve only been away for a year, how could things have changed so quickly? I mean, how can the world accept it?”“ C'est la vie, ” said Alecto, looking extremely tired as he stared out the window at the late November maple keys fluttering down from vibrantly red trees lining the streets on either side of the windshield. Rebecca McNutt
11
The best leaders are well-rounded, able to draw on whatever skills suits the particular situation at hand. They are determined, insightful, shrewd, and, most important, able to command the attention of the people around them. Bob Rae
12
Leadership is not a voice crying in the wilderness, aloof and apart. It requires an ability to command as well as to inspire, to learn in the process of collaboration and to build a team with a common purpose that can take action and execute the change they envision. Bob Rae
13
You know, Dorothy, you can’t let people bring you down so easily or you’ll have your nose in the dirt for the rest of your life. From what I make of it, for every person with a good thought, there are about fifty who’d try to spoil it. We have to guard our good ideas, our happy thoughts, and fight for them. Because if we let those others snuff them out, well, we didn’t after all deserve them. . J.M. Lavallee
14
Everything has a past, a voice, existed at some point, even things as small and seemingly meaningless as a house in a huge suburb. It’s a house like every other house… but at some point a family lived there, made it theirs, made it important. When people forget that history, that somebody at some point thought the house mattered, it just becomes an empty pile of nailed wood and brick and concrete that gets torn down for some strip mall or chain store to take its place… and that’s what happens more and more now, everything is disposable, always replaced with no thought at all. That’s where things get lost, memories get lost, humanity slips through the cracks, because when we all fail to pay attention to the things that make up our lives, we’re no longer human at all, not really. . Rebecca McNutt
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It 's the time of year when Canadians mate. Craig Ferguson
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Mandy smiled cheerfully at an overweight kid in a gold sweater and pink skirt who was chasing her little brother around along the boardwalk. When she was that age, on sunny days she’d be out on the boardwalk with Jud and Wendy, buying rainbow sorbet from the ice cream shop and placing paper boats into the harbour. She felt like a ghost, drifting past the shell of her own childhood. Rebecca McNutt
17
It's odd to imagine, of course: you pass a car on a lonely rural highway; you sit beside a man in a diner and share views with him; you wait behind a customer checking into a motel, a friendly man with a winning smile and twinkling hazel eyes, who's happy to fill you in on his life's story and wants you to like him - odd to think this man is cruising around with a loaded pistol, making up his mind about which bank he'll soon rob.' - Richard Ford, Canada . Richard Ford
18
Tax is not a four-letter word; rather, it's the price we pay for the country we want. Alex Himelfarb
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I might be the hazardous waste site that polluted it, but Cape Breton Island is still my home. Rebecca McNutt
20
A rural Venus, Selah rises from thegold foliage of the Sixhiboux River, sweepspetals of water from her skin. At once, clouds begin to sob for such beauty. Clothing drops like leaves." No one makes poetry, my Mme.Butterfly, my Carmen, in Whylah, ”I whisper. She smiles: “We’ll shape it withour souls.” Desire illuminates the dark manuscriptof our skin with beetles and butterflies. After the lightning and rain has ceased, after the lightning and rain of lovemakinghas ceased, Selah will dive again into thesunflower-open river. George Elliott Clarke
21
It’s an immense night out there, wheeling and windy. The lights on the street and in the houses against the black wetness, little unilluminating glints that might be painted on it. The town seems huddled together, cowering on a high tiny perch, afraid to move lest it topple into the wind. Sinclair Ross
22
Tell yourselves whatever you’d like, but I’m afraid it doesn’t make it true, ” Mearth sighed, beginning to look impatient. “Step aside Mandy, I have to remediate him, otherwise you’ll find yourself in a whole mess of trouble.”“ You can’t do this, it’s wrong, ” Mandy insisted.“ You don’t have a choice, Mandy! Either you let his life compromise the lives of everybody else in the world, or you let me remediate him and get it over with, ” Mearth icily declared.“… Do what she says, Mandy Valems….” Alecto added, standing up and staring with glazed eyes at Mearth.“I can’t, ” said Mandy.“…Go away! ” Alecto shouted at her suddenly, glaring with narrowed eyes, speaking in a voice that hardly sounded like his own. “Get out of here, Mandy Valems! I hate you, I want you to leave me alone! Go home and don’t ever come back here! ”“ I….” Mandy started, looking totally shocked.“ I said I hate you, don’t you understand anything? Go away, get out of here! ” Alecto repeated menacingly, stepping forward in a threatening manner. He looked like a mad dog, shivering as he chased her away from his site. She tearfully took off running, seeming both shocked and horrified, and he watched her leave for a moment with a blank expression, his dark eyes hollow. He looked like he was going to black out, but Mearth walked quickly towards him, for once not smiling at all. If it weren’t for her eyes, she would’ve looked like a person. “That was very cruel of you to do, Sydney Tar Ponds. I thought you loved her, ” she disappointedly exclaimed.“ I do love her, she’s my friend, and that’s why I said that stuff to her, ” Alecto replied forlornly. “None of it’s true, I don’t hate her at all… but I know what’s going to happen and I don’t want her to see it, so I lied to her and told her I hated her… can you explain to her after… why I said all that to her?. Rebecca McNutt
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- I believe in unlimited discovery and achievement.- I believe that dreams can become reality.- I believe in true love.- I believe in kindness and intelligence.- I trust life, regardless. Elysse Poetis
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In a time like this, let us trust in God even more. To trust when life is easy is no trust. Joy Kogawa
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This is my home, Cape Breton is my home, and I don’t know if I really want to leave it as much as I might think and I’m sort of scared to leave it all behind, everything I’ve lived with, I have so many memories of all the things I’ve done here and I’m afraid if I leave, I might lose all my memories… Rebecca McNutt
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If you were me you’d do the right thing, help your friends, because you’re not a coward, ” Mandy sighed sadly. “I covered up a murder because I was scared to go to jail and I did the wrong thing… well, now’s my chance to do the right thing, to save someone’s life, because I don’t want you to die.”“ Save someone’s life? I’m no one, ” Alecto laughed morbidly. “A hundred and twelve years is definitely way too long to have survived. You’d be wasting your time and risking your own life….”“ This is my life, ” Mandy declared, smiling sincerely. Alecto just looked concerned and very doubtful as the rain drizzled down the roads and sidewalks, towards the harbour where it fell into the ocean, indistinguishable from all the other water in the world. Rebecca McNutt
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Simple life EthosIf you must judge. Let your moral beacon guide you to a decision you can live with, If you feel generous, give with humility so others could live with dignity, If you became aware of injustice, your inaction or silence are part of it, Living life without courage, is like living without honour, If your arrogance started to control your behavior, then it's time for you to stratify to heaven where there are no earthly human beings Never live behind the rocks. Always move to find comfort in brighter places, and Always deem yourself to be courageous when others call upon you.... Husam Wafaei
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Mandy loved the smell of a sunny day after a night of rain. The sun hit the orange puddles, the overgrown, soft, green grass on her lawn, and it beamed down through the orange steel mill smog, sending otherworldly, bizarre shadows across the concrete sidewalk. Rebecca McNutt
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May the ears of Canada never grow deaf to the plea of widows and orphans and our crippled men for care and support. May the eyes of Canada never be blind to that glorious light which shines upon our young national life from the deeds of those "who counted not their lives dear unto themselves, " and may the lips of Canada never be dumb to tell to future generations the tales of heroism which will kindle the imagination and fire the patriotism of children that are yet unborn. Frederick George Scott
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Well, we're originally from Glace Bay."Grandma Elsie's eyes glittered. She was looking at one of her own, a lost Cape Bretoner in need of help and offering a new story. "Tell me all about it, dear. Beatrice Rose Roberts
31
Every night we stopped in a cabin where wood had been stacked, matches left, and canned goods laid out for the chance traveler. All the unknown host received in return was a scribbled note giving our thanks, any news we could think of, and our names. This whole system of northern hospitality was a gigantic chain, for while we were eating this man’s beans, he was undoubtedly farther up the trail, eating somebody else’s. Benedict Freedman
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Super 8 film is the language of silence. Rebecca McNutt
33
Yeah, you’re right about having entire rooms full of film and photos… in that Sydney Mines house I have a darkroom, I have boxes of film and home movie footage… I have a few projectors, I have piles of Kodachrome slides… I like photographs. The world is always running away from society and the only way to keep the stuff that’s happened in the past is by taking photographs, I can keep memories of things alive with photographs, ” Alecto responded. “People say that a time machine can’t be invented, but they’ve already invented a device that can stop time, cameras are the world’s first time machines… The steel mill, the coal mines, the train tracks, the smog in the sky, I’ve been able to rescue it on super-8 and Kodachrome, and no one can remediate those photographs, I can keep them as long as I want to. Rebecca McNutt
34
Not very long ago I was driving with my husband on the back roads of Grey County, which is to the north and east of Huron County. We passed a country store standing empty at a crossroads. It had old-fashioned store windows, with long narrow panes. Out in front there was a stand for gas pumps which weren't there anymore. Close beside it was a mound of sumac trees and strangling vines, into which all kinds of junk had been thrown. The sumacs jogged my memory and I looked back at the store. It seemed to me that I had been here once, and the the scene was connected with some disappointment or dismay. I knew that I had never driven this way before in my adult life and I did not think I could have come here as a child. It was too far from home. Most of our drives out of town where to my grandparents'house in Blyth--they had retired there after they sold the farm. And once a summer we drove to the lake at Goderich. But even as I was saying this to my husband I remembered the disappointment. Ice cream. Then I remembered everything--the trip my father and I had made to Muskoka in 1941, when my mother was already there, selling furs at the Pine Tree Hotel north of Gravehurst. Alice Munro
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Be lawful for the Queen, by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate and House of Commons, to make Laws for the Peace, Order, and Good Government of Canada Unknown
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Other nations merely change governments as a lady changes dancing partners: Canada contrives to fall in a dead faint every time the music stops. Gordon Donaldson
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Strange, how in all those apocalyptic movies, when their society breaks down into lawlessness and anarchy, Canada is always the haven of safety, the place people want to escape to. Jenifer Mohammed
38
There is no concept of justice in Cree culture. The nearest word is kintohpatatin, which loosely translates to "you've been listened to." But kintohpatatin is richer than justice - really it means you've been listened to by someone compassionate and fair, and your needs will be taken seriously. Edmund Metatawabin
39
Lyme disease is preventable, but only if Canadians have the information they need to prevent it. Vanessa Farnsworth
40
Try as you might, you'll never be able to please an environmentalist. You can stop using coal to heat your house, you can stop throwing out bottles and cans, you can have every factory in Canada shut down and you can buy only organic gluten-free non- G M O food, you can give up your favorite station wagon for a weird electric hybrid, you can stop developing film and buy a never-ending cycle of digital cameras, you can give up your job at a refinery or mill, and they'll still get after you for not enjoying yourself while doing so. Rebecca McNutt
41
I'm an old-fashioned guy. I believe in the Enlightenment, and reason, and logic, and you know, facts. Barack Obama
42
It's like I'm dreaming of the imaginary friend Katie and I had when we were little. She'd been so real to us as kids. We each remembered Anna, that's what we'd called her, just like we remembered bits of our parents. But now, in this dreamscape of Paradise Lost, our imaginary third twin has all grown up. Beatrice Rose Roberts
43
You're actually each other's wingman. You never leave your partner vulnerable." - Graham Warner, husband of fun-loving seven-time cancer survivor Dionne Warner Deana J. Driver
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I'm intrigued by how ordinary behavior exists so close beside its opposite. Richard Ford
45
It was as if they'd discovered something that had once been there but had gotten hidden or misunderstood or forgotten over time, and they were charmed by it once more, and by one another. Which seems only right and expectable for married people. They caught a glimpse of the person they fell in love with, and who sustained life. For some, that vision must never dim - as is true of me. But it was odd that our parents should catch their glimpse, and have frustration, anxiety and worry pass away like clouds dispersing after a storm, refind their best selves, but for that glimpse to happen just before landing our family in ruin. Richard Ford
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To fit the individual to live and to function in the institutional life of his day. Max Braithwaite
47
Bill C-9 was supposed to be a budget bill, but it came with innumerable measures that had little or nothing to do with the nation's finances. It was, as critics put it, the advance of the Harper agenda by stealth, yet another abuse of the democratic process. The bill was a behemoth. It was 904 pages, with 23 separate sections and 2, 208 individual clauses.. As a Reform MP, [Stephen Harper]. . said of one piece of legislation that 'the subject matter of the bill is so diverse that a single vote on the content would put members in conflict with their own principles.' The bill he referred to was 21 page long -- or 883 pages shorter than the one he was now putting before Parliament. Lawrence Martin
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[Stephen] Harper had said he would use all legal means, and what [John] Baird suggested was an option the prome minister was considering. If the governor general had refused his request, he could have replaced her with a more compliant one, making the case to the Queen that the people of Canada were opposed in great numbers to a coalition replacing his government. Lawrence Martin
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This points to a central tension in our very idea and practice of democracy — it is not a simple appeal to the rule of the majority. It is also about respecting that the power of the people is limited by what’s fair to minorities, what’s reasonable, and by what’s legal and constitutional. Bob Rae
50
Today pluralism operates as a court religion, while having less and less intellectual credibility. Betraying the plastic terminology in which its directives are framed are the additions to the “Human Rights Code” passed in the Canadian province of Ontario in 1994. The Code cites “human dignity” to justify the criminalization of “conduct or communication [that] promotes the superiority or inferiority of a person or class because of race, class, or sexual orientation.” The law has already been applied to prosecute scholars making hereditarian arguments about social behavior, and its proponents defend this muzzling as necessary for “human dignity.” But never are we told whence that dignity is derived. It is certainly not the one to which the Bible, a text that unequivocally condemns certain “sexual orientations, ” refers. Nor are we speaking here about the dignity of nonengineered academic discourse, an act that the supporters of the Ontario Human Rights Code consider to be criminal if judged insensitive. Yet the pluralist advocates of human rights codes that now operate in Canada, Australia, England, and on the European continent assume there is a human dignity. Indeed this dignity is so widely and passionately accepted, or so it is asserted, that we must criminalize unkind communication. In the name of that supposedly axiomatic dignity, we are called upon to suppress scholarship and even to imprison its authors. Paul Edward Gottfried
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Mom talks about moving to Canada as though my father had requested she start wearing fun hats. "Why not try it?" she thought, instead of "This fucking lunatic wants me to go to a country made of ice and casual racism. Scaachi Koul
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Resiliency is the body's internal response to a stressful situation. Asa Don Brown
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We, gays, can get married in Canada. We let heterosexuals too, but that was a huge thing, we had to have a referendum and a vote, it’s crazy! But then we were like, if they want to get married.. that’s cool. That’s gonna destroy their relationships, but.. Heterosexuals deserve the same rights as homosexuals. Tegan Quin
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Because this is Upper Canada, after all, and 'caning' sounds more English than 'having ass whipped to death with hickory stick. Allan Dare Pearce
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Let us build for the tomorrow, build a nation strong and free; and the Lord who dwells above us, He will bless our destiny". P. J. Peters
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I've been all over the place in all kinds of living situations. Due to the fact that my mind is my own worst enemy. In a way I am perpetually and permanently in a state of rehabilitation m in an attempt to rehabilitate from the shock of being born. Some people are too sensitive to withstand that. Heather ONeill
57
In Canada, when we speak of water, we're speaking of ourselves. Canadians are known to be unextravagant, and one explanation of this might be that we know that wasted water means a diminished collective soul; polluted waters mean a sickened soul. Water is the basis of our self-identity, and when we dream of canoes and thunderstorms and streams and even snowballs, we're dreaming about our innermost selves. Douglas Coupland
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Canada is a free country, after all. Rebecca McNutt
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Real Canada is where people wear sweaters for survival, not style. Mark LeirenYoung
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To survive the Canadian winter, one needs a body of brass, eyes of glass, and blood made of brandy. Unknown
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What are these guys?" He whispered" Canadians, " Percy said. Frank leaned away from him. "Excuse me?"" Uh, no offense, " Percy said. "That's what Annabeth called them when I fought them before. She said they live in the north, in Canada.""Yeah, well, " Frank grumbled, "we're in Canada. I'm Canadian. But I've never seen those things before. Rick Riordan
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The zombies were like Canadians, in that they looked enough like real people at first, to fool you. Kelly Link
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If you want to go foraging into the wilds of Canada without proper gear, you deserve what you get, even if that happens to include being attacked by an undead moose. Mira Grant
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Canada is like an old cow. The West feeds it. Ontario and Quebec milk it. And you can well imagine what it's doing in the Maritimes. Tommy Douglas
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Canada is not so much a country as a clothesline nearly 4 000 miles long. St John's in Newfoundland is closer to Milan Italy than to Vancouver. Simon Hoggart
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Canada is so square even the female impersonators are women. Anonymous
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No one is the worse for knowing two languages. Oliver Mowat
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One of the cool chaste countries - Canada or Sweden. John Updike
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That long (Canadian) frontier from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean guarded only by neighbourly respect and honourable obligations as an example to every country and a pattern for the future of the world. Winston Churchill
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To me it's very obvious there are huge cultural differences between Americans and Canadians. But a lot of what we are is American. David Cronenberg
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You've never seen this country It's not the way you thought it was Look again. Al Purdy
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The whole history of the Canadian north can be divided into two periods - before and after the aeroplane. Hugh Keenleyside
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The Lord said 'let there be wheat' and Saskatchewan was born. Stephen Leacock
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The father of confederation is deadlock. Goldwin Smith
75
The first time I ever felt the necessity or inevitableness of verse was in the desire to reproduce the peculiar quality of feeling which is induced by the flat spaces and wide horizons of the virgin prairie of western Canada. T. E. Hulme
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Quebec is the original heart the hardest and deepest kernel the core of first time. All round nine other provinces form the flesh of this still-bitter fruit called Canada. Anne Hubert
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Ottawa - a sub-arctic lumber-village converted by royal mandate into a political cockpit. Goldwin Smith
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Americans like to make money: Canadians like to audit it. I know no country where accountants have a higher social and moral status. Northrop Frye
79
I suppose the half-breeds in Manitoba in 1870 did not fight for two hundred forty acres of land but it is to be understood there were two societies who treated together. One was small but in its smallness it had its rights. The other was great but in its greatness it had no greater rights than the rights of the small because the right is the same for everyone. Louis Riel
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Canada's national bird is the grouse. Stuart Keate
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Separatism is a very healthy movement within culture. It's a disastrous movement within politics and economics. Northrop Frye
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An arena large as Europe Silent waiting the contest F. R. Scott
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There has never been a war of Canadian origin nor for a Canadian cause. William Arthur Deacon
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Canada is a collection often provinces with strong governments loosely connected by fear. Dave Broadfoot
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Canada is a good country to be from. It has a gentler slower pace - it lends perspective. Paul Anka
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My generation of Canadians grew up believing that if we were very good or very smart or both we would some day graduate from Canada. Robert Fulford
87
We are being swallowed up by the popular culture of the United States but then the Americans are being swallowed up by it too. It's just as much a threat to American culture as it is to ours. Northrop Frye
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Never hear anything bad about Canada that's one thing - in fact I guess it's the only thing. Walter Stewart
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Canada is a society rather than a nation. Kildare Dobbs
90
Living next to the United States is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast one is affected by every twitch and grunt. Pierre Elliott Trudeau
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Canada reminds me of vichyssoise - it's cold half- French and difficult to stir. Stuart Keate
92
Our country has shown a lack of will to resist its own disintegration ... Canada is practically the only country left in the world which is a pure colony colonial in psychology as well as in mercantile economics. Northrop Frye
93
Americans assume Canada to be bestowed as a right and accept this bounty as they do air without thought or appreciation. Dean Acheson
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Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the United States. J. Bartlet Brebner
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'Old Tomorrow.' Unknown
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'Rich by nature poor by policy' might be written over Canada's door. Goldwin Smith
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Canadian politics in British Columbia is an adventure on the Prairies a cause in Ontario a business in Quebec a religion in the Maritimes a disease. Paul St. Pierre
98
(Canada) - the most parochial nationette on earth ... I have been living in this sanctimonious icebox ... painting portraits of the opulent Methodists of Toronto. Methodism and money in this city have produced a sort of hell of dullness. Wyndham Lewis
99
When I stand on a street in a Canadian city and look across the street it couldn't be anywhere but Canada but how can I prove it? Margaret Mead
100
Newfoundland is a great English ship moored near the Banks during the fishing season for the convenience of the English fishermen. A. H. Mcintosh