hah, ahh, I've not liked just for laughs gags for a while, because they were getting stale, weren't that clever. This one was pretty good though.

Also, they're filmed in Montreal, Quebec, *Canada.

>> ^messenger:

He uses that same joke in every location. I don't know why he picked Alberta. Probably just asked the cabbie what part of Canada he didn't like. If he really wanted a reaction, he should have said Quebec. That would have got the audience going the way he likes it.


coughiagreecough


Oh shit, now I'm in a rut.


Cough.

He uses that same joke in every location. I don't know why he picked Alberta. Probably just asked the cabbie what part of Canada he didn't like. If he really wanted a reaction, he should have said Quebec. That would have got the audience going the way he likes it.

I know the members of the sift come from all over the world and there are only a handful of Canadians here (more than ten to get this sifted) but this is a very interesting debate which plays out differently than a US debate. The spite used in their bickering is entertaining at best. Hidden agenda and lies seem to be the general theme of our politicians. Not representative of the Canadian people.

Have a look and also keep in mind that these men all represent Ontario only (with the exception of Gilles Duceppe, who represents only Quebec) and non of them represents the prairies or western Canada where our votes don't count for anything because we aren't given enough seats to influence any decisions that affect our area of the country.

I will *Promote this in order to get the word out there that Canada's government is just an messed up as the rest of them. Watching them bicker is embarrassing.

>> ^Shepppard:

Indeed just for laughs is out of Quebec, Canada, and yes, they DO chase down the targets and show them the camera.. generally


Everyone featured would have to sign off on being featured in the show but I like the idea of them being unaware for years to come

Indeed just for laughs is out of Quebec, *Canada, and yes, they DO chase down the targets and show them the camera.. generally

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 OTTAWA 001258

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/22/2018
TAGS: PREL PGOV CA
SUBJECT: THE U.S. IN THE CANADIAN FEDERAL ELECTION -- NOT!

REF: OTTAWA 1216

Classified By: PolMinCouns Scott Bellard, reason 1.4 (d)

¶1. (C) Summary. Despite the overwhelming importance of the
U.S. to Canada for its economy and security, bilateral
relations remain the proverbial 900 pound gorilla that no one
wants to talk about in the 2008 Canadian federal election
campaigns. This likely reflects an almost inherent
inferiority complex of Canadians vis-a-vis their sole
neighbor as well as an underlying assumption that the
fundamentals of the relationship are strong and unchanging
and uncertainty about the outcome of the U.S. Presidential
election. End Summary.

¶2. (C) The United States is overwhelmingly important to
Canada in ways that are unimaginable to Americans. With over
$500 billion in annual trade, the longest unsecured border in
the world, over 200 million border crossings each year, total
investment in each other's countries of almost $400 billion,
and the unique North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD)
partnership to ensure continental security, excellent
bilateral relations are essential to Canada's well being.
Canadians are, by and large, obsessed with U.S. politics --
especially in the 2008 Presidential race -- and follow them
minutely (with many Canadians even wishing they could vote in
this U.S. election rather than their own, according to a
recent poll). U.S. culture infiltrates Canadian life on
every level. 80 pct of Canadians live within 100 miles of
the border, and Canadians tend to visit the U.S. much more
regularly than their American neighbors come here.

¶3. (C) Logically, the ability of a candidate, or a party,
or most notably the leader of a party successfully to manage
this essential relationship should be a key factor for voters
to judge in casting their ballots. At least so far in the
2008 Canadian federal election campaign, it is not. There
has been almost a deafening silence so far about foreign
affairs in general, apart from Prime Minister Stephen
Harper's pledge on September 10 that Canadian troops would
indeed leave Afghanistan in 2011 according to the terms of
the March 2008 House of Commons motion, commenting that "you
have to put an end on these things." The Liberals -- and
many media commentators -- seized on this as a major
Conservative "flip flop," with Liberal Party leader Stephane
Dion noting on September 10 that "I have been calling for a
firm end date since February 2007" and that "the
Conservatives can't be trusted on Afghanistan; they can't be
trusted on the climate change crisis; they can't be trusted
on the economy." He has returned in subsequent days to the
Conservative record on the environment and the economy, but
has not pursued the Afghan issue further. All three
opposition party leaders joined in calling for the government
to release a Parliamentary Budget Officer's report on the
full costs of the Afghan mission, which PM Harper agreed to
do, with some apparent hesitation. However, no other foreign
policy issues have yet risen to the surface in the campaigns,
apart from New Democrat Party leader Jack Layton opining on
September 7 that "I believe we can say good-bye to the George
Bush era in our own conduct overseas."

¶4. (C) The U.S. market meltdown has provided some fodder
for campaign rhetoric, with the Conservatives claiming their
earlier fiscal and monetary actions had insulated Canada from
much of the economic problems seen across the border.
(Comment: there is probably more truth in the fact that the
Canadian financial sector does not have a large presence in
QCanadian financial sector does not have a large presence in
U.S. and other foreign markets, and instead concentrates on
the domestic market. The Canadian financial sector has also
been quite conservative in its lending and investment
choices. End comment.) PM Harper has insisted that the
"core" Canadian economy and institutions were sound, while
promising to work closely with "other international players"
(i.e., not specifically the U.S.) to deal with the current
problems. He warned on September 19 that "voters will have
to decide who is best to govern in this period of economic
uncertainty -- do you want to pay the new Liberal tax? Do
you want the Liberals to bring the GST back to 7%?" The
Liberals have counter-claimed that Canada is now the "worst
performing economy in the G8," while noting earlier Liberal
governments had produced eight consecutive balanced budgets
and created about 300,000 new jobs annually between 1993 and
¶2005. The NDP's Layton argued on September 16 that these
economic woes are "the clearest possible warning that North
American economies under conservative governments, in both
Canada and the United States, are on the wrong track," but
promised only that an NDP government would institute a
"top-to-bottom" review of Canada's regulatory system -- not
delving into bilateral policy territory.

¶5. (C) On the environment, Liberal leader Dion, in
defending his "Green Shift" plan on September 11, noted that

OTTAWA 00001258 002 OF 002

"both Barack Obama and John McCain are in favor of putting a
price on carbon. Our biggest trading partner is moving
toward a greener future and we need to do so too." PM Harper
has stuck to the standard Conservative references to the
Liberal plan as a "carbon tax, which will hit every consumer
in every sector" and claimed on September 16 that, under
earlier Liberal governments, "greenhouse gas emissions
increased by more than 30 percent, one of the worst records
of industrialized countries." NDP leader Layton argued
that, on the environment, PM Harper "has no plan" while
"Dion's plan is wrong and won't work," unlike the NDP plan to
reward polluters who "clean up their act and imposing
penalties on those that don't," which he said had also been
"proposed by both U.S. Presidential candidates, Barack Obama
and John McCain."

¶6. (C) NAFTA? Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative?
Border crossing times? The future of NORAD? Canada's role
in NATO? Protection of Canadian water reserves? Canadian
sovereignty in the Arctic and the Northwest Passage? At
least among the leaders of the major parties, these issues
have not come up so far in the campaigns, although they seize
much public attention in normal times. Even in Ontario and
Quebec, with their long and important borders with the U.S.,
the leadership candidates apparently so far have not ventured
to make promises to woo voters who might be disgruntled with
U.S. policies and practices. However, these may still emerge
as more salient issues at the riding level as individual
candidates press the flesh door to door, and may also then
percolate up to the leadership formal debates on October 1
and 2.

¶7. (C) Why the U.S. relationship appears off the table, at
least so far, is probably be due to several key factors. An
almost inherent Canadian inferiority complex may disincline
Canadian political leaders from making this election about
the U.S. (unlike in the 1988 free trade campaigns) instead of
sticking to domestic topics of bread-and-butter interest to
voters. The leaders may also recognize that bilateral
relations are simply too important -- and successful -- to
turn into political campaign fodder that could backfire.
They may also be viewing the poll numbers in the U.S. and
recognizing that the results are too close to call. Had the
Canadian campaign taken place after the U.S. election, the
Conservatives might have been tempted to claim they could
work more effectively with a President McCain, or the
Liberals with a President Obama. Even this could be a risky
strategy, as perceptions of being too close to the U.S.
leader are often distasteful to Canadian voters; one
recurrent jibe about PM Harper is that he is a "clone of
George W. Bush." Ultimately, the U.S. is like the proverbial
900 pound gorilla in the midst of the Canadian federal
election: overwhelming but too potentially menacing to
acknowledge.

Visit Canada,s Economy and Environment Forum at
http://www.intelink.gov/communities/state/can ada

WILKINS

Epic Meal Time guys are from Quebec, *Canada

>> ^budzos:

I have to admit that passage was not well thought-out. "Dregs" was not a good choice of words at all as it has a very negative connotation attached, which was not intended. I should have used "disadvantaged" or something else that implies a low socioeconomic status and a lack of options (or the perception thereof). My bad, I should not have used that word. It certainly clouded my point.
Try reading what I said with your thumb over the word "dregs". My point was I get annoyed at the thought of a young person joining the military for a leg up in life, who ends up getting killed in some pointless conflict that is absolutely not about freedom (I didn't mis-speak about that, those "wars" are horse-shit), and then their corpse is part of some bullshit glee-club feel-good bonding. "Highway of Heroes"... wow real dignified... print it on a T-shirt why don't you (as if they haven't).
>> ^calvados:
Such hubris. Dregs of society, eh? Many of the best people I've ever met are from my 12+ years in the army reserves. I've met a great number of men and women who are selfless, intelligent, and thoughtful, and it's this abundance of quality people that has kept me onboard. These good ones have absolutely outnumbered the ones you'd call dregs.
Of course there are less desirable types in the military and I have met my share of them. And I agree that there is hyperbole in broadly referring to all our war dead as heroes (--I am sure that all or almost all of them would insist that they were not). But your rant is way off.



OK, I take a lot less issue with your revision, here. You do however seem to be suggesting that those who join up are going into it blindly, and I daresay that the average recruit's eyes are more opened to the horrible possibilities of war, and their own injury or death, than you evidently believe they are (especially those who join up after hostilities have already begun, as is the case now and as has been the case since early 2002 for Canada).

I do take issue with "glee-club feel-good bonding" and perhaps you will agree, again, that you are misspeaking here. What I see in the nation's response to a soldier's death in these times, exemplified on the overpasses of the 401, is a manifestation of sorrow and respect for sacrifice. Glee and good feeling are conspicuously absent.

That said, I agree that the specific name "Highway of Heroes" is reductive and borderline jingoistic. There is a stretch of Quebec's Autoroute 20 (from the ON/QC border to just west of downtown Montreal) which has been designated "l'Autoroute du Souvenir" (Remembrance Highway), marked with the familiar green/white highway signage and emblazoned with a poppy. I would actually have favoured that name for the stretch of the 401 in question. But as I indicated on another such submission about the HOH (http://videosift.com/video/The-Trews-Highway-of-Heroes), I am moved by and appreciative of the gesture, itself, of the renaming.

One more thing: remember that citizens were gathering on the overpasses to greet the fallen long before it was decided -- in 2007 -- to change the name of that stretch of road. It was, and is, a grassroots movement, not something cooked up by politicos.

You (and anybody, regardless of political stripe or opinion on the war) may well appreciate this CBC documentary, "We Will Remember Them" (Nov 2010), full streaming: http://www.cbc.ca/documentaries/doczone/wewillrememberthem/video.html

Tags for this video have been changed from 'autoquad, rac, car leap, leapfrog, quebec, canada' to 'autoquad, rac, car leap, leapfrog, quebec, canada, calvaire' - edited by calvados

Tags for this video have been changed from 'police, montebello, demonstrators' to 'police, montebello, quebec, demonstrators, infiltration, agents provocateurs' - edited by kronosposeidon

Tags for this video have been changed from 'G20, riot, protest, Toronto, police, military' to 'montebello, quebec, north american leaders summit, protest, police, infiltration' - edited by kronosposeidon

This story is actually from 2007 - It happened at the North America Leaders' Summit, in Montebello, Quebec. Here is the story about the police infiltration: http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2007/08/23/police-montebello.html

>> ^garmachi:

Good lord, who was holding the camera for her, Michael J. Fox?


I know, I know. I'm sorry. But you laughed, so you're just as bad as I am.

Hey Winston,
Sorry a couple of points I was trying to make got a little muddled and mashed together in my last comment during editing before I rushed out to work. Including my math on 6x10.

What I told youabout my friends building a house and being off the grid is true. I know because they did it, and I've seen it. Their house is in Quebec, not some backhills somewhere. I've been there. They made me pizza.

Yeah, I'm sure that they're paying some interest on the loan they got to pay for it all up front, but they did it for less than $11,000. And fully installed by electricians. They're fully off the grid for electricity. They use a gas stove instead of electric, and they don't have a microwave, in order to cut down on power drain. But they have a fridge, lights, hot water, computers and everything else you would expect a family home to have.

I don't know where you got the rest of your figures. All I can tell you is what I've seen with my own eyes. And that the tomatoes on the pizza were grown in their vegetable garden, the pepperoni sausage came from the meat shop a 10 minute drive away, and it made for a memorable meal.



>> ^Winstonfield_Pennypacker:

600 square feet of panels is two 6'x5' panels on a rooftop--that isn't very big.
Elementary geometry says you need TWENTY 6'x5' panels to get 600 sq feet. Regardless, the issue is not the surface area per se but the COST to cover that much surface area. Photovolt panels are expensive, highly inefficient, and use toxic elements. They need maintainance, replacing, repair, and have a lifecycle. Same with the VERY expensive batteries you need to buy.
And it doesn't cost $50,000 per household.
Many estimates put the installation of a fully functional solar powered home at well over $50K. 660 sq ft costs $10,853 just for the panels using the cheapest product I could find. Then there is wiring, connectors, inverters, batteries, mounts, control panels, and monitors... The backhills of Alberta may be different, but in the U.S. it is highly illegal to install your own electrical system... You're looking at thousands in licensing, regulatory, and labor. $10K? Not on this planet.
But let's say you're super lucky and manage to get the whole shebang installed for only $25K somehow. [...]