Rubénerd :)

By themselves these two interest rate stories about Australia and Canada wouldn’t really be worth mentioning here, but when they appeared in my Twitter client together they made for an interesting contrast:

CBC News: Bank of Canada raises interest rate to 0.5% Read more:… http://bit.ly/cAB6Cx

SBS News: Reserve Bank of Australia keeps interest rates on hold at 4.5 per cent http://bit.ly/ag0E4B

WOW! I suppose I should move to Canada and buy an apartment, eh!

A happy Canada Day and Fête du Canada to all those whom this greeting may concern! As I’ve said before here, my father loves your country, he says it’s the most breathtakingly beautiful place on Earth with some of the friendliest people… he did say "warm people" at one point, but given the double entendre regarding climate he changed his wording! I’m determined to visit it myself one day :-).

As for the photo, when my dad came back from Toronto after his last business trip he brought me back a huge flag. Taking a photo of something so lightweight and that’s constantly moving in the breeze was harder than I thought it would be! The white balance is way off given it was taken in the early evening, but I really love the colours as-is.

We Aussies desperately need a new flag as beautiful as the Canadian one. Canada proves you can be a Commonwealth realm (aka: having the Queen) without needing a boring Red or Blue British Ensign as the basis of your national flag.

Peace, democracy and love… keep showing us the way Canada!

For those of you also living in a so called Commonwealth Realm, a jolly good, merry, happy and prosperous Queen’s Birthday to you!

Here in Australia (except for WA) we have the day off on the second monday of June which happens to be today. According to infallable Wikipedia, Canadians have the day off on the 24th of May, people in the United Kingdom have it on the first, second or third Saturday in June, and New Zealanders on the first Monday of June. I suspect many of her other realms have holidays for this:

Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; born 21 April 1926) is the queen regnant of sixteen independent states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize, Antigua and Barbuda, and Saint Kitts and Nevis.

None of these dates though are the Queen’s actual birthday. Don’t you just love living in a commn sense monarchy? :) I know I know, the holiday wasn’t meant for Queen Elizabeth II and is by convention not by her actual birth date, but still!

Ever wanted to see what a severe snow storm radar chart looks like? CalgaryGuru forwarded me to a site from Twitter showing the current weather in Strathmore, Alberta in Canada. Looks like scary stuff.

My dad really loves Canada but he says the weather is the only thing he doesn’t like. Then again he has been stationed in Singapore since the mid 1990s where the weather is 32C every single day of the year. One assumes what you’re acclimatised to would affect your perceptions of weather. For example it doesn’t get cold enough to snow in Adelaide other than the Adelaide Hills, and yet I find it absolutely freezing by comparison!

We kept conversing on Twitter and he directed me to a photo of Calgary with the mountains in the distance:

From http://www.cnam.ca/images/calgary_skyline.jpg, copied here so I’m not hotlinking.

The closest photo I have is one I took in the other direction, a photo of Adelaide from Mount Lofty. Certainly looks warmer if a bit drier!

But back to CalgaryGuru, we all hope you’re okay and are able to get along those roads safely tomorrow.

Canadian Parliament in Ottawa. Photo by Steven W. Dengler

I know people who revel in Japanese culture are Japanophiles, and those who are obsessed with high quality audio equipment are audiophiles, so does that mean people really interested in Canada are Canadaphiles? Or Canadophiles? Or Maplesyruphiles? Mmm, maplesyruphiles. I was trying to figure out how to link this post to my previous post about Canada and how I wanted to visit there, but I just couldn’t figure out how to do it.

Fun introductions aside, there is something much less fun going on right now in Canadian politics. That was a lousy segue.

Just as Australia did this time last year, and the United States did this time last month, Canada is going through the process of weighing up the performance of the incumbent against an opposition who the majority of citizens now support. Unlike Australia or the US though that were both able to relieve their previous governments and make a fresh start, the Canadians are locked in a power struggle.

DISCLAIMER: Alas I really do not know enough about Canadian politics, but Canada’s and Australia’s governments and election processes are broadly equivalent (both being based on the British parliament thingy), so I’m mostly confident I can still comment on it.

If I’ve made a mistake though, I am open to corrections!

As I understand it from reading about this over the last several weeks, the incumbent Steven Harper and his Conservative party are fighting to maintain a minority government having won the last elections. However, the Government’s failure to respond adequately to the economic times and represent the views of the majority of Canadians have resulted in a call for a vote of no-confidence.

NDP Leader Jack Layton, left, shakes hands with Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion, centre, and Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe on Monday after signing a coalition agreement on Parliament Hill. From CBC.ca

The group calling for this vote is a an unprecedented new coalition of the Liberal and NDP parties with the support of Bloc Québécois. If the no-confidence vote is successful, the current minoroty government would be forced into opposition and this new coalition which has the support of over 60% of Canadians (a majority!) would form Government.

ASIDE: How am I going so far Canadians? Which of the mistakes I’ve made so far is the worst? :)

But there’s a problem. As with most Parliamentary systems of government, the Prime Minister can advise the Governer General to "prorogues" parliament which is essentially a stall tactic. And what a surprise, he did. This means a vote of no-confidence can’t be introduced until next year, which means any attempt by the new Liberal/NDP coalition to form government and work on economic policy — which the majority of Canadian people are so desperately calling for — is already dead the water.

Given Steven Harper’s party and government are in minority, this all does seem awfully un-democratic. It also could explain why there have been so many protests and such an outpouring of anger and dismay over the decision. The Australian media has even started running stories about it, and I’ve been told the paper in Singapore has reported it. This is big news.

If I’ve understood what’s going on, I am willing to show my (hopelessly irrelevant!) support for this new coalition who are supported by all my Canadian friends and internet friends. Steven Harper and the Conservative party should not be allowed to do this in a democracy.

ASIDE: I vote for the Aussie Greens and generally support Green parties and ideals… any chance the Canadian Greens can get into this party? :-)

I’m not a Canadian, but I will be showing solidarity for the cause. Now I just need to create a "Aussies for the Liberal/NDP Coalition" or "Aussies for Canadian Democracy" badge just as I did with the "Aussies for Obama" during the American elections. With a global medium such as the internet this makes much more sense than renting out ad space in an Australian or Singaporean newspaper for example!

According to my server logs, a disproportionately large number of the people who visit this site and subscribe to my feeds are Canadians. To you guys, I hope this whole mess gets sorted out and you get the Government you’re calling for. If you guys have any links to other information, news stories or opinions I’d love to read them. And feel free to correct me if I’ve made any mistakes here.

Coalition Yes! Coalition Oui!

In both languages. From nupge.ca

Okay, I just wanted an excuse to post this picture. I thought it was sort of funny in a weird way… or weird in a sort of funny way!

Given my dad’s interest and positive talk about Canada especially in the last few years since he started consulting for several firms there, I thought I’d broaden my horizons and subscribe to the primary CBC News RSS feeds in Google Reader, and @CBCNews on Twitter.

Canada and Australia have a heck of a lot more in common than I could have imaged. Both were former British colonies. We both peacefully federated/confederated from Britain. We have Queen Elizabeth as our head of state, represented by a Governor General. We have her mugshot on the observe side of all our coins. We call them solicitors not attorneys. Our landmasses are huge, and close to another member of the Anglosphere. We use "dollars". We’re in the Commonwealth and compete in those Commonwealth Games things. The makeup and structure of our economies and our exports are scarily similar. We have "lively parliaments" with question times and verbal jousting. We use SI units of measurement (mostly!). We have Prime Ministers. We have states with elected Premiers and royally appointed and largely useless Governors. Our judges and barristers wear those ridiculous woolen wigs. We have indigenous brothers and sisters who are fighting for recognition and dignity. Our names have three "A" letters in them. We both have similar hearty, self depreciating senses of humour :).

That’s not to say we don’t have our differences. For one thing Canada is somewhat colder than Australia and has somewhat different landscapes (no, really?!). Canada has upwards of 30 million people when Australia has upwards of 20 million. Australians aren’t so good at hockey, Canadians aren’t so good at cricket. Australian’s drive on the proper side of the road, Canadians drive on the incorrect side of the road. A large minority of Australians can’t speak French. Canada doesn’t have cuddly marsupials and monotremes. Australia no longer has an incompetent, unpopular Prime Minister who has lost the confidence of Parliament and his or her people. Ooh, I can see the topic for another post surfacing! Update: done!

Some day I’d love to travel to Canada, detouring of course to visit Alaska first. Something tells me I’ll need much more winter clothing and gear… and a lot more money!