Hardly Relevant

I've had all I can stands, and I can't stands no more....

I live in Canada. Canadians do not like Americans....fact. DO NOT believe anything to the contrary. Want proof? Read this piece in Saturdays Montreal Gazette . My reply to this clown follows. In fact, were going to do a little experiment here. I will sample and post here a different US bashing article everyday for the next week and you can draw your own conclusions.

My reply to the author of the article and the editor of the local section of the Gazette -

Mr. Freed

I’ve just read your article “Grilled at the crossing: Canadian chicken runs afowl of paranoid U.S. regulations”, Montreal Gazette, March 11, 2006. Um…yeah. I’ll preface this by saying that I am in fact a citizen of the “Excited States of America”, and quite frankly, you’ve really pissed me off. Before I begin, a little housekeeping. Please don’t use the name of my nation for parody, it’s insulting to us as citizens and you loose points right off the top as just another smug, condescending blowhard from “Cantada” (not too funny is it?). And before you retort with “come on you thin skinned American, I was taking aim at the policies of your government and the DHS under Bush”, I feel compelled to call attention to the fact that you use very specific language in your piece. To wit, “Americans are chicken when it comes to chicken” and “Ultimately, I think the poultry crackdown brings together two big terrors of American life: fear of food and fear of terrorism”. It’s always good comedy to marry food and well earned concern over further mass murder on our own soil…good stuff, really good stuff. It’s obvious that you and the newspaper that you contribute to don’t like the US or Americans and any opportunity that presents to lampoon us, you jump on. This is evidenced by the fact that your article appears on page A6 of the Gazette and not the OP/ED page where it probably belongs. Apparently, the editors of the Gazette feel that this is in fact news that the citizens of Montreal need to be in possession of. On a sadly ironic side note, I was having a conversation with a friend in the States yesterday (who lives some distance from the border), when he asked if anti-Americanism is as rampant in Canada as you hear about in the US. I replied that you usually can’t get through the first section of any major newspaper here without running into an article blasting any of the following, Bush, Iraq, Afghanistan, US Foreign policy, Americans, our pets, our language, our sports, our history, our air, our water etc…etc…etc. Whereas I defy you to be able to do the same in any US daily with regard to Canada (I know, you never do anything wrong). Low and behold, thanks to the Gazette for proving me right….the very next day.

Now, the content of your article. I apologize that you feel that as a Canadian, you were unduly questioned at our border. On behalf of the Citizens of the United States of America, please accept our regret that the agencies that are charged with ensuring that undesirable public health threats are kept from our food supplies are doing their jobs. I suppose the reason that we are a tad extra vigilant with regard to Canadian meat and poultry is directly related to the fact that you did in fact import mad cow disease into our beef supply. Is the Canadian beef supply safe now? Probably so, yes. But it did happen, and the beef did come from Canada. I suppose however you would prefer that we forget that fact, and proceed as though it never happened. By the way, speaking of silly and paranoid border regulations, in 2003 a single case of mad cow was detected in the US. Following the discovery, the Canadian Government banned beef imports from the US for a time. Where did the cow that the beef was rendered from originate? None other than (insert drum roll here)…..Alberta. As Canada’s largest customer, it’s probably wise to ensure that we are getting what we pay for and not Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. While it may seem silly to you that you were questioned about bringing regulated products into a foreign county, I’d like to borrow a page from Paul Martin’s speech book….butt out. Further, your article is intellectually dishonest and out of context to say that Canada has no “restrictions on US poultry”. I’d offer this from the Canadian Border Services website –

“Canada has complex requirements, restrictions, and limits that apply to importing meat, dairy products, fruit and vegetables, and other foodstuffs. Visitors can avoid problems by not bringing such goods into Canada. If you intend to bring animals, plants, agricultural, and food products into Canada, you should be aware that fees now apply to some inspection and quarantine services provided by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA).”

So it seems that Canada also cries “fowl” when a visitor arrives with his chicken nuggets or grandmas’ chicken soup. Another funny story for ‘ya….This summer while living in Montreal with my wife (Canadian), I had to transit the border daily to get to work in Vermont. While reentering Canada, I was asked by the border agent if I was bringing any Cuban cigars in to the country. Sorry? Come again? Where in the US would I purchase a Cuban stogie? And last I checked, they were legal in Canada. Strange. Anyway, the border is the border and we both play our little “games”. The bottom line is that both of our nations allow commercial inspected meat into their borders. They just don’t allow a boiled hen with an Asian passport to arrive in your passenger seat, as some persons from far flung nations are sometimes wont to do. And I don’t have a problem with that. Do you?

You posed the question, “What will happen next? Will they stop Canadian geese and ducks from flying south for the winter?”. Nope, no one has beef with Canadian beef, geese or ducks. We do however want to ensure that the two legged Canadians who fly south for the winter aren’t bringing things they shouldn’t. Just as you ensure that Jethro and his drooling, war mongering, hayseed chewing kin aren’t bringing daddy’s squirrly rifle to Canada when they arrive to observe indigenous Canadians in their homes made of ice (you guys really love that stereotype, so I thought I’d work it in for you). Look, if your intent was to inform Canadians of the perils of bringing poultry into the US, fine then do that. Just do it in the form of an actual news item without the smart-ass commentary. And why is it that you feel so comfortable spouting anti-Americanism in a “legitimate” news outlet? You wouldn’t do it about any one else would you? I suppose that’s because it’s always open season on Americans, and it’s time that we recognize our relationship for what it really is, unfriendly. You don’t like us very much and you’ll do what ever it takes to let us know it. Fine, so be it. Let’s boot Canada out of NORAD, stop buying Canadian products, end tourism to Canada, pull every last US dollar out of the Canadian economy and file the divorce papers. You can have Alaska, we keep Pamela Anderson. Not a very good idea? I don’t think so either.

Oh yeah, the terrorist thing. Ahmed Ressam. Name ring a bell? Or perhaps “Millennium Bomber”? Should sound familiar, he was the al-Qaeda connected Algerian terrorist that lived here in Montreal for years, who was given $500 per month by the Canadian government as a refugee, and plotted to bomb Los Angels International Airport (LAX). He was apprehended on the US side of the border by a soon to retire female Customs agent, with enough explosives to blow a crater the size of a small nation in L.A., although I don’t believe he had any poultry in the car. As we all now know, no 9/11 terrorists entered the US from Canada. But you’ll forgive us if in light of the Ressam incident, some fingers were pointed north. But I guess you would have it that we forgot about Ressam and the fact that you “sent” him as well. And please, the softwood lumber debate is in no way attached to some all encompassing American imitative to get “tougher and more paranoid” with Canada and Canadians. You know damn well that it has everything to do with big business interests and their well financed lobbyists clashing over an arguably under priced commodity entering a foreign market. You can feel how you will about the issue, but please, unless you’re willing to go to lower Manhattan, proclaim that they need to get over what happened there and stop picking on Canada, leave 9/11 and it’s victims out of it. It’s tacky, insulting, and in extremely poor taste.

And you Gazette, leave this stuff to the OP/ED page, because it’s that at best. It sure as heck isn’t news. I also find it a little funny that your paper finds it perfectly permissible to allow an article that is highly critical and insulting of the US to be reported as “news”, yet you published an editorial that criticized Paul McCartney for coming to Canada to speak out against the baby seal hunt. What’s the message? It’s perfectly permissible for us to do, but how dare you pick on us?

I look forward to your response, and I hope I get one. I’m sure it will be colorful.

Regards,

Jim
myemail@myisp.yep
Ph. - xxx.xxx.xxxx

posted by Hardly Relevant @ 7:19 AM