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It was a light-hearted article, but the maple syrup issue made me wonder, so I (unbelievably) did some checking.

The quote about "poutine, Nanaimo bars, and butter tarts" was in the context of "Some words refer to things Americans don’t seem to have:".

But apparently Americans do have maple syrup: "Vermont is the largest producer in the United States, generating about 5.5 percent of the global supply" [1]. Vermont apparently produces more maple syrup than Ontario [2].

Anyway, the majority of maple syrup comes from Quebec, but does it really count as a culinary gift of Canada? Apparently maple syrup is a First Nations' culinary gift that existed before Europeans settlers arrived [3].

On the other hand, recipes for poutine and Nanaimo bars date only as far back as the 1950s, and butter tarts to 1900 (says Wikipedia). For context, consider that Canada became a country in 1867.

So I guess it does make some sense for maple syrup not to make the list.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maple_syrup [2] http://www.maplesyrupworld.com/pages/Top-Regions-Producers-o... [3] https://www.historicacanada.ca/content/heritage-minutes/syru...

Right, maple syrup goes back to colonial times, and we still make enough in Michigan that with a little effort you can always buy locally produced.

At least some Michiganders say "eh", too -- my impression is it is especially common in the UP. It's not at all surprising, the border here has been pretty porous for centuries. When I was a kid, we'd have to cross over to Canada for Chinese food or hard-packed ice cream cones...

I grew up in the UP, but never picked up a strong accent (my parents had moved there). Visiting rural Ontario was a quite amusing experience, the use of eh in the UP is occasional and often ironic, in the area I visited, it was punctuation.

I deal with a lot of folks from very northern New England and NY and I find they usually have some canadianisms in their speech pattern. As you say it's not surprising, it's not like accents stop on a dime when a border is reached

Aw, that's a bit rough. It's a decent article. It talks a lot about the Loyalists, so that's probably what that first passage you object to was referencing.

> WTF? Maple syrup doesn't make the list?

This must be the first maple syrup WTF on Hacker News, though I bet many were uttered after the great maple syrup heist a few years ago.

> the first maple-syrup WTF on Hacker News

I actually checked and yes, if Google can be trusted then it is.

I think the sentence is actually making a reference back to the loyalists which it mentions near the beginning of the article as well. It is talking about Canadians and not Canada. The loyalists did indeed leave what was then known as the 12 colonies so that they could remain loyal to the crown. The sentence is ignoring nuance (like the fact that Canada is made up of more than just loyalists) so it can make a rhetorically amusing point.

>The queen is a total irrelevance in Canada.

Maybe, but new Canadians still have to swear loyalty to the Queen in the citizenship ceremony.

I'm a Brit who moved to Canada and I find it _amazing_ that anyone here supports the queen.

You moved to a new land where you were not serfs. Where you could live free and your children could escape a suffocating class structure. To a land where you elected your own leaders.

Do you want oppression back?

Many Anglo-Canadians - and probably some Francos too - look at the monarchy as a "let's not re-write the whole Constitution" option, at least nowadays. Something that Australia's republican movement has discovered, to the best of my knowledge, to be quite burdening.

They call it "pragmatical monarchism" or similar wording.

That being said, I am similarly amazed - but for quite different reasons - by Brits moving to Canada.

The Canadian Constitution is a huge pandora box no one wants to open.

I'm a bit puzzled about your comment so my apologies in advance if I missed your point.

> I find it _amazing_ that anyone here supports the queen.

I haven't seen too much opposition about the Queen, mostly indifference. What I have seen a lot though is underestimation and lack of understanding of Canadian-born citizens about the amount of power over Canada that the Queen holds (at least on paper).

> You moved to a new land where you were not serfs. Where you could live free and your children could escape a suffocating class structure. To a land where you elected your own leaders.

I am not clear if you are defending the constitutional system here because there are republics that are doing just fine (ie. USA, France, Germany, etc.). Also, I have seen "suffocating" class structures in both systems so I wouldn't say the lack of it is an advantage of either one.

> Do you want oppression back?

Oppresion from who?

I'm not convinced the Queen is doing much oppressing these days...

No, you're right, but I think branchless' comment was referring to the Queen in the context of her role, not the person herself. Her role is that of, among others, a high-profile figurehead for the upper class. And the prominence and cultural importance of the role is certainly a factor in the oppression.

The UK is plenty oppressed. We still have all the same problems with economic rent extracted via land ownership.

Every country - republics included - has that problem.

Although the reason that a relatively high proportion of resource extraction revenues in Canada are redirected to public welfare is, perhaps ironically, because the vast majority of Canada's territory is classed as Crown Land...

Which is as it should be - that land belongs to all Canadians.

In the UK Queenie gets 15% of crown land to spend on the their lavish lives. I wonder how much rent she takes out of Canadian schools and hospitals. Any idea? Google failed me.

Not anyone, I don't support non-democratic "foreign" institutions. Most people don't care as in they don't realize about something that's been there all the time.

> You moved to a new land where you were not serfs.

This MUH FREEDOM metanarrative belongs more to the US. For example, freedom of speech in Canada is very much unlike the US -- hate speech and similar things have never been protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

People did not come to Canada to escape English or French monarchic oppression. Even Quebeckers feel a historical sorrow to have been forgotten by France, but never staged any sort of revolt against France. They still use the same French Fleur de Lys as their symbol, just like the rose is used by Anglophone Canadians to symbolise their attachment to England.

I'm pretty happy having a powerless figurehead, especially if the alternative is presidential elections.

What about the Canadian armed forces?

Yeah... that's even worse... All new recruits have to swear to the Queen too, and she is the Command in Chief of armed forces. But to be fair she delegates most of the power to the General Governor of Canada which is appointed by the recommendation of the Prime Minister which is indirectly elected by the citizens.

Balance of Power in Canada is very tricky and obfuscated, but here is a fairly accurate (and fun to watch) explanation by Rick Mercer :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi1yhp-_x7A

Yes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Allegiance_(Canada)

http://canadiancrown.gc.ca/eng/1332788662861/1332788724918

>> But look to the UK, to the BBC, and you won't find any

I see a few. Comedians Stewart Francis and Katherine Ryan are regulars on panel shows and DJs Heidi and B-traits present shows on BBC Radio 1. It may not be that many but I enjoy the ones that are here!

> The queen is a total irrelevance in Canada

Not to everyone:

http://www.monarchist.ca/

Although you are right that many people do not care for the Queen, there are still pockets here and there who do, and she's obviously acknowledged everywhere in government, as a tour of Parliament Hill will attest. Newspapers report the prosecution of a criminal trial as "the Crown", and land that belongs to the government is called Crown property.

I have yet to meet a Francophone who has any love for the Queen, though. Some must exist somewhere.

I've always figured that the reason why even NDP-ites in Toronto (people who I'm thinking of as the most leftist Canadians) aren't republicans is a desire to stay different from the US in some way. Its simply a way to retain a different Canadian identity.

More likely, it's that the queen is inconsequential in day-to-day governance, and absolutely no one wants to reopen that can of worms that's the Constitution. Especially not after Meech Lake.

I do not see what you speaking of...

https://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/2009/06/19/trudeaus-pirou...

;)

The Queen was and is a big thing in the part of Canada I grew up in. People descended from United Empire Loyalists sometimes write 'U.E.L.' after their names, you see a lot of Queen Elizabeth memorabilia in shops, tourists go on 'loyalist tours', and the biggest bit of pomp and circumstance from my childhood was when the Queen's local representative, the lieutenant-governor of Ontario, visited town. I wasn't particularly impressed and made the mistake of sarcastically saying 'wow, what an honor' when one of the local farmboys was going on about the handshake he'd received from 'the Queen's representative'. He backhanded me hard enough to knock my glasses thirty feet.

Canada, like the United States, is a little too large and varied to easily generalize about.

> American culture IS canadian.

Yeah right, buddy.

> But look to the UK, to the BBC, and you won't find any.

As other have pointed out you find a few there. However this is more easily explained by two things: (1) for Canadians working in the US is hell of a lot easier than working in the UK, (2) For acting, the US pays far more than the UK.