Canadian Politics, eh?

James Orcist Rayner said:
1.)What is Poutine, and why do you eat it?

Do you like fries and cheese? Do you like fries and gravy?
Poutine is fries and cheese and gravy. Oftentimes cheese curds, but the primary difference so far as you can tell is 'the cheese is slightly chewy'.

2.)Do you really have Ketchup flavored chips, and where can I get some?

It's been mentioned, but apparently the closer to the Canadian border you are, the easier they are to acquire. If you want to know, they're basically like a slightly milder salt and vinegar with added tomato.

3.)Is Tim Horton's any good? There's like, a half dozen of em around here in T-Town (That's Toledo.)

Tim Hortons is franchised, so it heavily depends. Their quality's gone down a lot recently since they were forced to move to frozen donuts; a lot of their franchisees are suing to get back the right to make fresh donuts.

4.)Is Canada required to provide any military forces to the UK In times of war that involve England, but not Canada?

Far as I know, no. In practice, when was the last time a war involved Canada? 1812?

5.) Can you get Crisps or other foodstuffs from England? If so, contact me immediately.

I know in my city there's a store that primarily sells English candy. Well, /only/ sells English candy. Yes, including those lavender tasting little tart sugar disc thing what the hell.

6.)Is Weed really legal up there

Good question. In most of Canada: For medical use.
In BC: Not yet, but unless you have a grow-op nobody really seems to care. They're working on legalizing it, but most cops refuse to enforce it because it's too common.

?7.) Does your Govt. ever actually DO Anything, or do they just nag each other?

Ah, okay, here's how it works.

Gordon Campbell is the leader of the Liberal party. (The Liberals are conservative by Canadian standards, so they're roughly American left-wing.) He announces some kind of program. In BC, all government programs pretty much consist of two words, capitalized, with no space inbetween. ActionNow, would be a good theoretical example. GreenStart. Stuff like that.

The NDP, the New Democratic Party, who /used/ to be conservative but turned more left-wing as the Liberals became a conservative party (These aren't even the real left-wing party in BC) will immediately complain that the money is not being put to good use, what the hell.

The Green Party (These guys are the left-wing single platform DAMN THE ECONOMY FULL TREES AHEAD types) will bash whichever party is even thinking that people should have money instead of spending it on trees. They're getting scary amounts of support these days, even by my liberal standards.

The program has only been announced. Now he will announce when it will be put into play. Yes, this is a separate press conference. If the Green Party supported the Liberal initiative, the NDP will now complain that it's not happening fast enough. If they didn't, they will redouble that Gordon Campbell only cares about big business.

The next press conference will announce that a later press conference will explain exactly where the program will be utilized. Yes. It is now being preannounced.

A few more conferences later, the program is put into action. It will have its funding slashed in half in a couple years, regardless of what it is. By that time, there will be a new, almost identical program, with a slightly different name. Mention will be made of pillars of BC's foundation, and the like.

Now, on a federal level, the process works like this.

What province are you spending the money on?

If it's Ontario or Quebec, spend the money immediately. Turn to page 117.
If it's a Western province, and Alberta, change the word 'spend' into 'loan with interest'. Turn to page 43.
If it's a Western province that is not Alberta, declare that it is a Provincial-Federal partnership, and foist it on the province to implement itself. Turn to page 26.
If it's the Maritimes, it's not really Canada anyway, spend the money on Quebec.

So, assuming it's Ontario, ol' Harper, our Conservative (note we're around American moderate) will now announce the money. The federal NDP (Which is somehow a different NDP from the Provincial NDP) will now vote against the bill. It does not matter what bill it is. If it is a bill that will give homeless people shoes made out of diamonds, they will vote against it.

Harper will make a few concessions. It will become a more rational, Canada-helping bill. THEN SUDDENLY

Out of nowhere.

Quebec will rush in and demand to know how this benefits Quebec. It doesn't even matter if it's even remotely related to Quebec. They will make their best attempt to stop it from passing unless it somehow helps them. They will find some excuse to throw some money at Quebec.

We are now six months in from when we were originally going to do the thing.

Ontario and/or Quebec has now improved.

Nobody cares about Western Canada, because our votes are meaningless: The bulk of the Canadian population is in Ontario. The Prime Minister is literally decided a few hours before our polls even open up. Good times, man, good times.