james_davis_nicoll

Would it be for Canada to assimilate, oh, 100,000,000 people over a few year? Saskatchewan went from 91,279 people in 1901 to 492,432 in 1911 and going from 40,000,000 to 140,000,000 is a proportionately smaller jump.

Could be tricky explaining to newcomers why there are Leafs fans.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

redbird

I think the explanation there is something like "it's like Cubs fans, it runs in the family."

From:

james_davis_nicoll

My explanation is that the Leafs are to hockey as the Eucharist is to Catholicism.

From:

bolindbergh

Most other teams didn't have Salming.

From:

kraig

He retired nearly 30 years ago, as great as he was I think that's still a tricky explanation.

From:

patrick_morris_miller

Are there such a thing as gluten free Nanaimo bars?

I'm afraid what would really break me is the short winter days at Canadian latitudes. If I ask real nice, would you invade instead?

From:

james_davis_nicoll

Unfortunately, one of our soldiers has Covid and the other one has a wedding to attend.

From:

jessie_c

Red Green:
Well, I'm not gonna be calling the U.S. Air Force, Harold. What do I say? We've got a missile? They take that as a threat, we're in real trouble.

Harold Green:
Well, then, contact the Canadian Air Force.

Red Green:
Harold, it's after six; he's gone home.

From: (Anonymous)

The only major Canadian city north of me in the English Midlands is Edmonton. Most Canadian cities are in more southerly latitudes that England as a whole, with latitudes corresponding to France, or northern Spain and Italy.

From:

patrick_morris_miller

I lived in Seattle for a year and I barely survived, but thanks for yourexperiencesplaining.

From:

philrm

It wasn't until I moved to the Netherlands for two years as a post-doc in the late 1980s that I gained an appreciation for how far north northern Europe is. I grew up just outside of Boston, which is the same latitude as Rome. London and Amsterdam are ten degrees further north. I enjoyed my time there, but man, December and January were really hard to take.

And of course, thanks to the Gulf Stream and the Mediterranean, Western Europe and the UK have far more temperate climates than anywhere in Canada aside from the west coast of BC.

From:

patrick_morris_miller

And of course, thanks to the Gulf Stream and the Mediterranean, Western Europe and the UK have far more temperate climates than anywhere in Canada aside from the west coast of BC.

They're working on that.

From:

dormouse1953

And of course, thanks to the Gulf Stream and the Mediterranean, Western Europe and the UK have far more temperate climates than anywhere in Canada aside from the west coast of BC.

Although I have seen it suggested that the jet stream is also responsible.

For the record, here in the south of England I haven't seen more that a flurry of snow for over ten years and there has been no frost this year. Temperature currently 12C.

From:

kathmandu

I would welcome our new Canadian government and bake them cookies.

If we get the land naturalized too, nobody has to move north!

From:

kithrup

On the other hand, there would be super-long summer days, practically guaranteed to be vampire free!

From:

scott_sanford

Canada has a warship. Do you think they'd need more than one?

From:

patrick_morris_miller

And I'm in a land locked state, more's the pity.

From:

dsrtao

I'd think three would be appropriate. One on the West Coast, one on the East Coast, and one as backup.

From:

patrick_morris_miller

Plus one to keep Hans Island Canadian, surely.

From:

fred_mouse

There must be such a thing as gluten free Nanaimo bars, because I got fed them last we visited the Canadian relatives. What I don't know is if they were home made, because they came out of the freezer (that relative keeps a lot of interesting things in the freezer, for the same reason I assume I will in years to come -- once the teenagers finish growing and leave home, it takes a while to get through a batch of something)

From:

jessie_c

Didn't something proportionally similar happen with the united empire loyalists?

From:

frith

They all moved to Sherbrooke, built factories and somehow managed to make a very nice city on a bunch of very steep hills. Imagine San Francisco with nine feet of snow in a winter that goes from November to April. Now imagine trying to drive on those streets in the winter, let alone walk.

From:

patrick_morris_miller

And then a letter of marque came from the King?

From:

jessie_c

To the scummiest vessel I've ever seen?

From:

jazzfish

GODDAMN YOU ALL

From:

topaz_eyes

(Here from network...)

Proportionately smaller jump, sure. Otoh some (many) Canadians are already complaining bitterly about the just over 1 million immigrants that arrived in Canada in 2023 (437k permanent and 604k temporary workers), compared to the 2023 total population of 40 million. (Ironically, I had to look that up just today.)

From:

kaylarudbek

Is it time for the Canadian Army to dust off its invasion plans?

From:

patrick_morris_miller

I would be willing to say Gilles Villeneuve was a better driver than Ayrton Senna. I'd even watch curling on TV.

From:

fred_mouse

Would you be willing to change (or pick?) hockey allegiance?

From:

patrick_morris_miller

I'm open to the idea. Probably best to wait until I know whether the liberating forces will allow us to keep our existing hockey infrastructure (such as it is, I live pretty far south) or establish an entirely new league.

Edited Date: 2024-11-13 01:59 pm (UTC)

From:

fred_mouse

I'm only a hockey fan-by-marriage, so I don't particularly have a horse in this race. But I'd be there to watch the bun fights that would occur over a new league. I want them to all have fabulous names, like the Kraken do.

From:

conuly

Canada has a huge proportion of North America's freshwater reserves. I'd recommend anybody trying to get out of the USA to go a little further - no point moving to Canada only to find you have to move on again later.

From:

dewline

To our shared distress, this point of fact is very real and very dangerous to Canadians in general right now. Same for the oil reserves up here. If the Vulgarian decides to order a smash-grab-and-take-over...well, I have nightmare about us learning what Poland was like from 1939 to 1945...and perhaps beyond 1945.

From:

conuly

I don’t want to be too alarmist, but you have 20 citizens for every US service member. Of course, it’s take some time to get the sort of loyalty that’d impel them to invade Canada, but in the long run we have more time than water and oil.

From:

violsva

Now now, some Leafs fans were alive the last time they won the Stanley Cup.

From:

julian

Well, I mean, *I* sure wouldn't mind.

From:

frith

Comedian Martha Chavez was in this evening's broadcast of Laugh Out Loud. In it she rightly pointed out that it should be the Maple Leaves and that the spelling error is the cause of the Toronto team's misfortunes. Also that fans of the Leafs are very forgiving of both shortcomings.

Um, triple the population? Unlike Saskatchewan, they'd all end up in the cities. Maybe if we stopped exporting all our raw materials and tariffed the bejesus out of all things not made entirely in Canada. The dollar would crater but that could be useful.

From:

jsburbidge

When handling a new immigrant meant allocating them a plot of undeveloped (potential) farmland, an axe, a bit of cash with which to buy livestock, and a plow,and did not involve providing services like sewers and running water, absorbing new immigrants was a rather different matter...

From:

armiphlage

I'd say it is a bit easier today - even if standards are far more sophisticated, we have existing companies, equipment, and trained personnel to expand existing infrastructure. In worst-case scenarios of mass migration, we'd have millions sleeping on cots in chilly-but-livable hockey rinks waiting for the ground to thaw to dig foundations, eating boring but plentiful food, rather than freezing on a mat of pine boughs in drafty tents deciding whether or not to eat their seed corn.