I want to thank all the Canadians who came out today to wave to me - with all five fingers!
President George W. Bush (during his first visit to Ottawa Nov. 30, 2004)
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.
Former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas
Canada is the greatest nation in this country.
Former Toronto mayor Allan Lamport
Down in Newfoundland, we can hardly sleep for wondering when St. Pierre and Miquelon are going to invade.
John Crosbie (on the state of Canada's military in 1983)
You little fat little chubby little sucker!
Reform MP Darrel Stinson (referring to Jean Charest)
Just as Lake Erie drains from north to south, there is an ongoing drain in terms of our young people.
Former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day (getting the direction of the Niagara River wrong)
My conduct had nothing to do with me.
Former Ontario Speaker Al McLean (defending himself against charges of sexual harassment)
Gentlemen, we all must realize that neither side has any monopoly on sons of bitches.
C.D. Howe (in Washington to resolve a shipping dispute)
The fact is the statements are perfectly consistent, but more importantly, I don't have all the facts.
Prime Minister Paul Martin.
I've been called treacherous, stupid, venal, lazy ..and that's only by the Tories.
Peter MacKay, former Tory leader.
Your majesty, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and Madame Houde thanks you from her bottom too.
Montreal Mayor Camillien Houde (in 1939 to King George VI)
A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (on finding no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction)
We Canadians live in a blind spot about our identity. We have very strong feelings about who we aren't but only weak ones about who we are. We're passionate about what we don't want to become but oddly passive about what we should be.
John Cruickshank (in McLean's Magazine)
As always, Canada will now bury its war dead, just as the rest of the world, as always, will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does. It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance.
Kevin Myers (The Daily Telegraph, London)
The die is cast in Canada: there are two ethnic and linguistic groups; each is too strong and too deeply rooted in the past, too firmly bound to a mother culture, to be able to swamp the other. But if the two will collaborate inside of a truly pluralist state, Canada could become a privileged place where the federalist form of government, which is the government of tomorrow's world, will be perfected.
Pierre Elliot Trudeau
I once drove back through southern Manitoba at night. I was stunned by the beauty the prairies can offer. I remember the sleepy farming towns at rest - a reminder of the legacy of honest, hard working people who built a nation.
Duane W. Berke
I guess Canada is a nice country. I've never thought much about it.
Anon. Cal-State student
A constitution nursed upon the oxygen of our bright winter atmosphere makes its owner feel as though he could toss about the pine trees in his glee.
Lord Dufferin
I'm not an American! I am a Canadian. I come from a "nice", thoroughly unrealistic country.
Matthew Fisher
Canadians are the people who learned to live without the bold accents of the natural ego-trippers of other lands.
Marshall McLuhan
Canadians have an abiding interest in surprising those Americans who have historically made little effort to learn about their neighbour to the North.
Peter Jennings
The great themes of Canadian history are as follows: Keeping the Americans out, keeping the French in, and trying to get the Natives to somehow disappear.
Will Ferguson
Canada is the linchpin of the English-speaking world.
Sir Winston Churchill
Whether we live together in confidence and cohesion; with more faith and pride in ourselves and less self-doubt and hesitation; strong in the conviction that the destiny of Canada is to unite, not devide; sharing in cooperation, not in seperation or in conflict; respecting our past and welcoming our future.
(Prime Minister) Lester B. Pearson
There are no limits to the majestic future which lies before the mighty expanse of Canada with its verile, aspiring, cultured, and generous-hearted people.
Sir Winston Churchill
It is the task of the rising generation of Canadians to create a new confidence and a new sense of cultural and civic duty in Canada. Unless we achieve some success on this front, and I believe we are beginning to do so, the very real attractions of the vigorous society to the South of us may attract too many of our able people. Then the human resources and skills required to shape and direct a complex industrial economy will simply not be available to us in Canada.
Mitchell Sharp
As we enter our centenial year we are still a young nation, very much in the formative stages. Our national condition is still flexible enough that we can make almost anything we wish of our nation. No other country is in a better position than Canada to go ahead with the evolution of a national purpose devoted to all that is good and noble and exellent in the human spirit.
Lester B. Pearson
He shall have dominion also from sea unto sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth
from Psalm 72
After all, we fought the Yanks in 1812 and kicked them the hell out of our country - but not with blanks.
Farley Mowat
The US is our trading partner, our neighbour, our ally and our friend... and sometimes we'd like to give them such a smack!
Rick Mercer
See more at
http://www.canadaka.net/modules.php?name=News_Links&file=category&catid=5
President George W. Bush (during his first visit to Ottawa Nov. 30, 2004)
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.
Former Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas
Canada is the greatest nation in this country.
Former Toronto mayor Allan Lamport
Down in Newfoundland, we can hardly sleep for wondering when St. Pierre and Miquelon are going to invade.
John Crosbie (on the state of Canada's military in 1983)
You little fat little chubby little sucker!
Reform MP Darrel Stinson (referring to Jean Charest)
Just as Lake Erie drains from north to south, there is an ongoing drain in terms of our young people.
Former Canadian Alliance leader Stockwell Day (getting the direction of the Niagara River wrong)
My conduct had nothing to do with me.
Former Ontario Speaker Al McLean (defending himself against charges of sexual harassment)
Gentlemen, we all must realize that neither side has any monopoly on sons of bitches.
C.D. Howe (in Washington to resolve a shipping dispute)
The fact is the statements are perfectly consistent, but more importantly, I don't have all the facts.
Prime Minister Paul Martin.
I've been called treacherous, stupid, venal, lazy ..and that's only by the Tories.
Peter MacKay, former Tory leader.
Your majesty, I thank you from the bottom of my heart, and Madame Houde thanks you from her bottom too.
Montreal Mayor Camillien Houde (in 1939 to King George VI)
A proof is a proof. What kind of a proof? It's a proof. A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it's because it's proven.
Prime Minister Jean Chrétien (on finding no Iraqi weapons of mass destruction)
We Canadians live in a blind spot about our identity. We have very strong feelings about who we aren't but only weak ones about who we are. We're passionate about what we don't want to become but oddly passive about what we should be.
John Cruickshank (in McLean's Magazine)
As always, Canada will now bury its war dead, just as the rest of the world, as always, will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does. It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance.
Kevin Myers (The Daily Telegraph, London)
The die is cast in Canada: there are two ethnic and linguistic groups; each is too strong and too deeply rooted in the past, too firmly bound to a mother culture, to be able to swamp the other. But if the two will collaborate inside of a truly pluralist state, Canada could become a privileged place where the federalist form of government, which is the government of tomorrow's world, will be perfected.
Pierre Elliot Trudeau
I once drove back through southern Manitoba at night. I was stunned by the beauty the prairies can offer. I remember the sleepy farming towns at rest - a reminder of the legacy of honest, hard working people who built a nation.
Duane W. Berke
I guess Canada is a nice country. I've never thought much about it.
Anon. Cal-State student
A constitution nursed upon the oxygen of our bright winter atmosphere makes its owner feel as though he could toss about the pine trees in his glee.
Lord Dufferin
I'm not an American! I am a Canadian. I come from a "nice", thoroughly unrealistic country.
Matthew Fisher
Canadians are the people who learned to live without the bold accents of the natural ego-trippers of other lands.
Marshall McLuhan
Canadians have an abiding interest in surprising those Americans who have historically made little effort to learn about their neighbour to the North.
Peter Jennings
The great themes of Canadian history are as follows: Keeping the Americans out, keeping the French in, and trying to get the Natives to somehow disappear.
Will Ferguson
Canada is the linchpin of the English-speaking world.
Sir Winston Churchill
Whether we live together in confidence and cohesion; with more faith and pride in ourselves and less self-doubt and hesitation; strong in the conviction that the destiny of Canada is to unite, not devide; sharing in cooperation, not in seperation or in conflict; respecting our past and welcoming our future.
(Prime Minister) Lester B. Pearson
There are no limits to the majestic future which lies before the mighty expanse of Canada with its verile, aspiring, cultured, and generous-hearted people.
Sir Winston Churchill
It is the task of the rising generation of Canadians to create a new confidence and a new sense of cultural and civic duty in Canada. Unless we achieve some success on this front, and I believe we are beginning to do so, the very real attractions of the vigorous society to the South of us may attract too many of our able people. Then the human resources and skills required to shape and direct a complex industrial economy will simply not be available to us in Canada.
Mitchell Sharp
As we enter our centenial year we are still a young nation, very much in the formative stages. Our national condition is still flexible enough that we can make almost anything we wish of our nation. No other country is in a better position than Canada to go ahead with the evolution of a national purpose devoted to all that is good and noble and exellent in the human spirit.
Lester B. Pearson
He shall have dominion also from sea unto sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth
from Psalm 72
After all, we fought the Yanks in 1812 and kicked them the hell out of our country - but not with blanks.
Farley Mowat
The US is our trading partner, our neighbour, our ally and our friend... and sometimes we'd like to give them such a smack!
Rick Mercer
See more at
http://www.canadaka.net/modules.php?name=News_Links&file=category&catid=5
