Re: Amazing Canada

Darren Osadchuk (dosadchu@SOL.UVIC.CA)
Sat, 28 Oct 1995 17:38:21 PDT

>>In terms of "haves" (provinces that pay more to the federal
>>gov't in taxes than they get in transfer payments) and "have-nots"
>>(provinces that get more in transfer payments than they pay), Ontario,
>>Alberta, and British Columbia are haves, and the rest are the have-nots,
>>which may sound strange - i.e. only 3 provinces out of 10 being on the good
>>side of the equation. And while it certainly isn't the best of all
>>possible worlds, I'm fairly certain that those 3 provinces account for
over >>half of the country's population (by my estimation).
>
>Thanks Darren -- so is Quebec, then, a "have not" or a "have" in simplistic
>terms?

They're a have-not, according to that scheme.

>(Usually it's the "haves" who want to leave the rest -- eg, Northn. Italy
>hates rest of Italy or Wstern US hate rest of US-- so it's contrary to that
>if Quebec is a "have not")

Well, the belief is that they're a have-not because of the rest of the
country has been holding them back somehow.

>>there's some kind of French-English war in there
>>someplace, too.
>
>my brother was telling me that apparently (the?) defining battle, involved,
>some French bastion on a high mountian ? supposedly apporachable on only
>one side (?) .. a regiment of Scots commandos (the Scots invented
>commandos, by the way) took them out by approaching the 'surprise' way in
>the dark of nite, and quietly disabling the cannons. ('spiking the guns',
>ie you drive a soft nail into the bit where you lite the cannon, rending it
>unusable.)

Probably the Battle of the Plains of Abraham.
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Darren Osadchuk dosadchu@sol.uvic.ca http://www.xtc.net/~osadchuk/

In other words, human essence - not human nature in general (which does not
exist) nor the sum total of qualities and shortcomings in the individual,
but the essence of who somebody is - can come into being only when life
departs, leaving behind nothing but a story.
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