A tribute to Canadians and Canada
- 86 per cent of Canadians believe they live in the best country in the world.
- We live a long time: Canadians born today will live an average of two years longer than the global average (close to 82 years in Canada versus 80). Meanwhile, 89% of Canadians reported being in good health, 20% above the average world-wide.
- We truly are nice: At least on Twitter. Researchers from McMaster University looked at how Canadians and Americans engaged on Twitter and found that Canadians use much nicer language. While Canadians commonly used words like “favourite”, “gorgeous”, “great”, and “amazing”,
- Canadian retirees are the happiest in the world, second only to those in Mexico.
- You can grow old here comfortably: Canada was ranked 5th best out of 91 countries for elderly treatment, ahead of Switzerland, New Zealand and the U.S.
- We’re well educated: Two-thirds of Canadians have a post-secondary degree or certificate, compared to the average of 40 per cent for the developed world. That puts us third, after Japan and Korea, for most educated population in the world.
- We drink responsibly: Despite our reputation as beer guzzlers and whisky swiggers, Canadians’ drinking habits are more tame than the global average.
- We’re inclusive: Canada is the third most gay-friendly country, after Germany and Spain, according to a Pew Research study. In Canada, 80 per cent of people said society should accept gays and lesbians.
- Canadians are generous: Roughly 64 per cent of Canadians donate money to charities—more than all other countries, aside from Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. But compared to the front-runners, more Canadians are willing to help a stranger in need.
- We have better work-life balance: Less than 4% of Canadian employees work more than 50 hours a week, far below the average of 13% across OECD countries.
- We have the most most livable cities: Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa, and Toronto—they all made it into the top 25 on the 2017 Mercer list of most livable cities in the world. Taken together, that means half of all Canadians enjoy some of the best city living there is.
- Our banks are sound: In Bloomberg’s annual ranking of the world’s strongest banks, Canada clinched four of the top 10 spots.
- We have more social mobility: The Conference Board of Canada gave us an “A” in intergenerational income mobility, meaning that if you’re born into poverty in Canada, you have a decent shot at becoming a high-income earning as an adult.
- We’re responsible for some of the most prominent literary authors of our time: Margaret Atwood, Alice Munro, Miriam Toews, Yann Martel, Lawrence Hill, Emma Donoghue, and the list goes on.
- We’re big gamers: Roughly 20,400 people now work in Canada’s gaming industry, making it the third largest in the world behind the United States and Japan. That also means it’s the largest gaming industry in the world on a per capita basis.
- Just For Laughs is the biggest comedy festival.
- We invented the egg carton: The simple design is the genius of Joseph Coyle of Smithers, B.C. who, in in 1911, settled an ongoing dispute between a farmer and hotel owner over broken eggs consistently showing up in the hotelier’s order. More than 100 years later, the cardboard carton has barely changed.
- We invented the telephone: While the landline is verging on obsolescence, it revolutionized communication and remained virtually unchanged for more than 100 years after Alexander Graham Bell invented it.
- We beat Edison to the light bulb: Thomas Edison may get all the credit, but the invention actually belongs to Henry Woodward. The Toronto medical student patented the first incandescent lamp, which featured an electric light bulb, and sold the rights to Edison who refined the invention.
- Canada is the best place to ride out any impending climate change. UCLA geographer Laurence Smith has argued that by 2050 warming will unlock vast new resources and transform Canada into an economic superpower.
- Canada boasts some of the most beautiful skies in the world, with the Aurora Borealis lighting up the nights from August to April. The northern territories offer the most brilliant and frequent viewing opportunities, but it’s possible to catch occasional glimpses of the Northern Lights in nearly every province.
- We have the highest tides in the world: The Bay of Fundy, between Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, sees the most dramatic tides in the world, with the difference in high and low tide reaching 16.3 meters.
- Dinosaurs lived here: Not only did archaeologists uncover the largest-ever bed of dinosaur bones near Medicine Hat, Alta., in 2010, since then scientists re-examining old fossils identified a new species of spiky-headed dinosaur called Xenoceratops foremostensis—or “alien horned-face from Foremost.” Canada is also home to the number one place on earth for sheer number of dino discoveries: 37 species have been found in Alberta’s Dinosaur Provincial Park.
- Canada has more lakes than the rest of the world combined, with fresh water accounting for 9% of the country’s total area. There’s nearly one lake for every ten people in Canada, and that’s just counting freshwater bodies bigger than three square kilometres.
We are a great nation, filled with amazing people, amazing weather, amazing scenery, and amazing cities. We astonish the world with our creativity in politics, science, arts, and technology.
Canadians, we are fantastic!!
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Editor’s note: most of the facts in this tribute come from Maclean’s Instant Articles, from the June 30 2017 article. The last paragraph is mine.