Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past month, you’re likely aware that the Canadian federal election is being held tomorrow.  If you haven’t recieved your voter card in the mail and haven’t taken the steps to make sure you’re registered, you can still vote provided you bring any of the following;

• Government-issued photo ID with an address (but not a passport).
• Two pieces of ID without a photo, as long as one has your address. These can be bills, a health card or a library card.
• Another registered voter from your district who will vouch for you under oath.

Not sure where to vote?  Visit Elections Canada and pop in your postal code.

Happy voting day, everyone!

I came across this on That British Woman’s blog. I found it very funny. It’s just a joke so please don’t take it seriously:-)

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except Kansas , which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded.

A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

(You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

1. Then look up aluminium, and check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it.

2. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour’, ‘favour’, ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise’. Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’).

4. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

5. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can’t sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist then you’re not ready to shoot grouse.

6. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

(more…)

Buying in bulk is oftentimes a great way to save money.  It’s pretty much a no-brainer.  But what about those products that you go out of your way to buy as minimally as possible?  What’s your anti-bulk?

Example: in recent years President’s Choice has introduced a half-pack of bacon.  Anytime we’ve ever bought a full pack of bacon we cook half of it and the other half goes bad long before we crave it again.  I gues we’re just not bacon people.  So when the half pack came out?  It was a perfect fit for our lifestyle!

While it may technically be more expensive strip by strip, it saves us because we’d just waste the rest.

Do you have any products like this?  Where you buy the small because you know the normal or bulk size would be a crazy move in your world?

This is definitely one of the neater things I’ve come across recently.  Flickr user BorderFilms posted up this image of the Canada-US border in Beebe, Quebec.  On the left side of Canusa Ave?  Canada.  On the right?  America.

Living in Niagara I’m used to long lines and tough security when crossing the border.  Who knew there were places where your children could chase a runaway ball into another country?

With the election looming little more than three weeks away, I’ve been trying to put the smart in Smart Canucks and bone up on my Canadian politics.  Thus far I’ve been focussing almost all of my attention on CBC’s Canada Votes website for news and coverage.  I like that it has an RSS feed and seems to cover every twist and turn along the campaign trail, but I don’t like that I’m getting almost all of my news from one source.

Can anybody out there recommend a good alternative?  Where are you going online to get the skinny on the forthcoming election?

For years I’ve always joked that I wanted to hold my wedding reception at McDonald’s.  Buffet-style McNuggets and big red container full of orange drink for all!  Turns out this couple on Scottsdale Arizona must have been reading my mind.  Here’s a description from the flickr page;

McDonald’s in Scottsdale hosts vintage car shows every Sat night and this couple regularly displayed their cars. So they got hitched. Where? At McDonald’s of course. They contacted me to videotape it. Word got out and TV reporters and a crowd came out too. This is a frame from the video of 12/11/99.

My wife and I still haven’t had a wedding — maybe I can talk her into this.  😉

When people around the world think about Canadians, one word usually comes to mind: polite.  For the most part our SmartCanuckers display that in spades.  With that in mind, I thought it might be fun to take a peek at LifeHacker’s guide to commenting on blogs.

The original post is a little old, but courtesy and common sense never go out of style.  Topic highlights include “Remember that nobody likes a know-it-all,” “Be succinct” and “Be courteous.” It’s a very well written piece and even seasoned bloggers like me can learn a thing or two.

Remember kiddies — a smart Canuck is a polite Canuck.

WHTI, the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, is the US law that’s changing what documentation we’ll need when crossing the border. In partial effect now, it’s going full tilt on June 1st 2009. That’s a little less than a year. What will you need to cross at a border? One of the following;

• a valid Canadian passport or
• a NEXUS card or
• a FAST card (land travel only) or
• an Enhanced Driver’s License (land travel only)

The first two are good at any border crossing — land or air. We all know what a Canadian passport is, but what about a NEXUS card? “NEXUS is designed to expedite the border clearance process for low-risk, pre-approved travellers into Canada and the United States.” So it’s basically EZPass for regular border-crossers. If you work in the states or travel their on business frequently, it might be worth looking into.

FAST cards are for commercial transport, so there’s not much reason to go into too much detail there.

Now for the really interesting one: an Enhanced Driver’s License, or EDL. EDL’s are new driver’s licenses that meet WHTI standards for confirming both identity and citizenship. The only province to offer EDL-approved licenses so far is BC. Ontario Minister of Transportation Jim Bradley believes the new Ontario licenses will meet the requirements as well, however no official word has popped up from the US about whether or not it will be adequate.

So there you have it. Now you have 10 months to prove yourself the “smart” in SmartCanucks. It may not save you money, but it will save you time and frustration.

[Canadian Border Services Agency]

Calling all import tuner car enthusiasts! Importfest is heading to Toronto and right now you can order your tickets online for the upcoming show and save a whopping 9 bucks! Advance tickets are $16 and at the door you pay $25.

Want to check it out a bit before you decide to go? Click here to check out the site, and purchase tickets!

Hope to see ya’ll there on September 6th!

Over the last few years a lot of small tweaks have been occurring at McDonald’s restaurants across Canada. One of the most satisfying of these changes for me and my wife has been the inclusion of a recycling option rather than just trash bin. But while our McDonald’s offers seperate containers for paper, plastic and waste, Sweden has kicked it up to the next level.

Pictured here are the 8 seperate compartments of a Swedish Mcdonald’s recycling center: cans and bottles, drinks and ice, straws and plastic lids, cups, burger boxes + cardboard, trays, food leftovers, and everything else.

It might not seem like a big deal, but taking a peek under the lid of a Canadian McRecycler will show some people don’t know what to do. They’ll toss cups with lids and straws into paper as well as boxes with foodwaste. It’s great to see that kind of problem being solved somewhere.

And the microwave? That’s for warming baby food you bring from home. Yet again more proof that the Swedes are kicking our tooshies when it comes to the things that matter.

[via PSFK]

Over the past few years, Canadian television has really kicked things up a notch. The ball got rolling with Corner Gas, and since then people have been keeping a closer eye on homegrown TV. Everything from Little Mosque on the Prarie to Billable Hours has developed a surprisingly large audience. So what tricks does CBC, Canada’s largest and oldest network have in store for us this year?

Nothing. Nada. Bupkiss. The only changes in the fall line-up will include the addition of Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Two CBC mini-series — Celine, the story of the Quebec chanteuse, and Everest, the tale of a 1982 attempt on the world’s highest peak by a Canadian team — will be popping up this year as well.

It may seem like a surprisingly negative turn for the network, but if you really think about it this may be a good thing. No new shows means that old shows are still performing quite well. CBC originals like The Border and Dragon’s Den, exclusive imports like Doctor Who and The Tudors, old favorites like The Nature of Things and the Rick Mercer Report — they’re all doing well enough to leave on the air. If their ratings were low they’d surely be switched out with something else.

Considering the major US networks will only be offering 16 new shows between them, it looks like 2008 is going to be the year of the established series. Anybody out there looking forward to anything this fall? Personally I’m frothing at the mouth for the US version of Life on Mars. The BBC original is in my top 5 all time shows, so I’m dying to see what they’ll do with it.

I was browsing through the CBC Digital Archives this morning like a good Canadian nerd should, and I came across something a little bit bigger than myself: the atomic bomb.

Cold War Culture: The Nuclear Fear of the 1950’s and 1960’s offers a great sampling of original CBC programming from half a century past, all of it detailing the Canadian reaction and happenings surrounding an event that cast a shadow across the world for more than 50 years, all of it for free.

There are only three things in this world that are truly global — war, religion, and McDonald’s.

Ok, ok — I admit, the word “business” probably would have been a little more apt than McDonald’s, but it’s still pretty accurate.  One can’t help but raise the question: are the global nature of war, religion and business inextricably connected?

Thomas Friedman seems to think so.  In his book The Lexus and The Olive Tree, Friedman offers up this bizarre little tidbit: no two countries have gone to war with each other after acquiring McDonald’s franchises.

So why do I bring this up now?  Georgia had to go and wreck Friedman’s theory this past weekend by declaring war on Russia.  Now where’s a brother supposed to go for a Big Mac in the Eastern Bloc?

Well, to the winners, obviously.  But what about after that?  What about all the money spent on losing tickets that doesn’t go back out to repay the winners? 

The Ontario Lottery Gaming Corporation website has a top-level (and therefore, kinda vague) rundown of where that money ends up;

Every day, Ontario residents gain both directly and indirectly from OLG activities. By creating jobs, stimulating tourism and supporting hospitals, charity groups and cultural and recreational services, OLG is fulfilling its mandate to maximize economic benefits for the people of Ontario.

Since 1975, OLG lotteries, Casinos, Slots, and Resort Casinos have generated more than $23 billion for the benefit of the Province of Ontario. Gaming proceeds support Ontario’s hospitals, amateur sport, recreational and cultural activities, communities, provincial priority programs such as health care and education, and local and provincial charities and non-profit organizations through the Ontario Trillium Foundation.

2% of the annual gross revenue from slot machines at OLG Casinos and Slots has been allocated to the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care for problem gambling research, treatment, prevention, and public awareness. This is more than any jurisdiction in North America.

So there you have it — hospitals, education, NPO’s — it looks like buying a losing ticket can still make you a winner.  Now if only we could use it as a charitable donation on our T1’s.  😉

A few months ago we posted about Five Inventions You Didn’t Know Were Canadian.  Lately that post has been getting a lot of traffic again, and on the heels of that we have the following link shared up by reader Fresca.

Culture.ca, the now defunct Canadian culture site run by the federal government has an extensive list of Canadian Inventions and Discoveries — everything from Ginger Ale to IMAX films.   Definitely a fun and interesting read.  Now if only we could invent some kind of meat-flavoured broccoli.