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From: chapman@fornax.UUCP
Newsgroups: can.politics
Subject: Re: definitions of culture
Message-ID: <193@fornax.uucp>
Date: Mon, 23-Feb-87 16:40:34 EST
Article-I.D.: fornax.193
Posted: Mon Feb 23 16:40:34 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 24-Feb-87 01:16:00 EST
References: <192@fornax.uucp> <638@watcgl.UUCP>
Distribution: can
Organization: School of Computing Science, SFU, Burnaby, B.C. Canada
Lines: 59

> 
> While John Chapman writes about Canadian Characteristics, many of
> his items only illustrate differences with the US.  We are very
> poorly informed about European day-to-day life in this country,
> and do not realize how similar they are to us.
> 
> >1. Canada is one of the few (perhaps only) countries which has had
> >   the ability to become a major nuclear power and yet we have
> >   resisted the temptation to stockpile or even manufacture nuclear
> >   weapons.
> 
> Several EEC countries are in this group.

I would like to know who Peter - just out of curiousity.

.
.
<Peter provides some interesting info>
.
. 
> >6. We apparently have a reasonably high regard for the worth of human
> >   life in general as evidenced by our broad system of "safety nets"
> >   in the social services area.
> 
> Typical for EEC countries and other Western countries.

I think that must depend a lot on how you are defining "western"
as I think there are a lot of "western" countries that have
comparable systems.

<... more stuff>
 
> My point here is that Canadians, when comparing themselves to
> other countries, always think only of the US.  We think that our
> dollar is currently doing well when in acutal fact, if you look
> at currencies other than the US$, it is just going down more

That is often the case - in fact for years people concentrated
on our dollars decline against  US funds yet we were doing quite
well against every other major currency.

> slowly than its American counterpart.  We think we are doing well
> in all the items listed above, well in fact we are in the same
> league as many other countries.  It is not just the abundance of
> American media in this country that contributes to this problem,
> but our own is woefully inadequate in its dealings with the rest
> of the world.

Peter you have provided some useful information here so thanks.  I
don't know if you intended your points as some sort of rebuttal to
my original points or not (since they don't seem to contradict many of my
statements).  I had not intended my list as a "this is how we are
superior" statement (although I can see how it would be interpreted
this way when compared only to the US :-) but rather as "this is what
we do and say - how is it the same/different compared to other countries?".

john

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