Tar Sands Oil Kills Ducks; TransCanada Spoils Roads

If you still aren't mad at TransCanada for slurping up $10.5 million in tax refunds that South Dakota could have used to fund education and roads (see Rep. Mitch Fargen's duly indignant comments at the Madison Chamber forum last week), how about getting mad at them for poaching ducks?

Well, I suppose it's not poaching, and it's not TransCanada directly, but they are part of tar sands industry that is killing ducks without a hunting license, ducks that you and your law-abiding, South Dakota license-holding pals could joyfully and legally blast from the sky. Reports Plains Justice:

Just a week after paying a CAN$3 million fine for the deaths of 1600 ducks that landed on its tailing ponds in 2008, Canada tar sands extractor Syncrude had to euthanize 230 ducks that landed on its tar sands tailing ponds this week (there was good coverage of the story out of Calgary). To look at their website, you’d think Syncrude was an environmental organization, but they’ve been unable to resolve the lethal combination of highly toxic tailings ponds and a huge migratory waterfowl corridor. In spite of reassurances from industry and the Canadian government that the 2008 event was a mistake that would never happen again, here we are [Carrie La Seur, "230 More Ducks Dead in Tar Sands Tailing Ponds," Plains Justice Today, 2010.10.28].

TransCanada is more directly responsible for some road wreckage here on the Great Plains. Just as has been the case in South Dakota, Kansas officials and residents are struggling with road damage caused by construction last year of TransCanada's Keystone pipeline.

So thanks to our addiction to foreign oil, you'll have fewer ducks to shoot and you'll burn more gas trying to get to those ducks as you detour around wrecked roads on TransCanada's pipeline route.

TransCanada Pipeline a Big Bad Deal for South Dakota

...and for America, Canada, Ducks, First Nations....

Mike McDowell, general manager of Heartland Consumer Power District and my state senator's boss, parrots the corporate line that the TransCanada Keystone pipelines are "good for South Dakota and good for America." McDowell waves dollars and the Hugo Chavez boogeyman in our faces while failing to acknowledge that...

1. South Dakotans don't get many jobs from TransCanada;
2. Any jobs we get will be offset by jobs Canadians lose: refining jobs move south of the border, and the Canadian oil boom inflates the loonie, hurts Canadian exports, and kills Canadian manufacturing jobs (400,000 lost over the last decade);
   
3. China is buying most of TransCanada's tar sands oil;
   
4. TransCanada acts just as dictatorially and socialistically as Chavez in running roughshod over American landowners with eminent domain;
5. Decent American businesses like Walgreens are boycotting the tar sands oil TransCanada wants to sell us;
6. TransCanada still wants to build Keystone XL with thinner pipe with steel from Welspun, a company that supplied lots of defective steel to other pipelines;
   
7. Refiners say the tar sands pipeline system is unnecessary;
8. We could fully replace the capacity of both Keystone pipelines by fully recycling our motor oil (something I learned from McDowell himself);
   
9. Tar sands oil production and transportation threatens our prairie aquifers through industrial consumption and pollution (see also the Enbridge spill in Michigan);
10. Tar sands oil kills ducks (many more than industry data suggest).. and maybe First Nations people.

Ah, yes, our First Nations neighbors, the nice people who have to live with and get cancer from the immediate effects of tar sands oil production. I reported last April that TransCanada is party to genocide against some native peoples in Canada. Last week, some representatives of Canada's and America's First Nations traveled to Washington to press the case that the Keystone XL pipeline will only do more damage to the tribes' way of of life. They complained that while the Alberta government wines and dines American senators who live nowhere near the pipeline routes, First Nations concerns are ignored.

As McDowell says, the TransCanada pipeline is a big deal... a big bad deal for South Dakotans, for Americans, for Canadians, and for the First Nations people who have to live with the environmental destruction wrought by the tar sands oil a few corporate mouthpieces pretend is so wonderful.
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Bonus economic query: McDowell contends that the electricity demands of the Keystone pipelines and pumping stations will strengthen our rural electric cooperatives. But co-ops have to build more infrastructure and generation capacity to handle TransCanada's power demands. Ratepayers and taxpayers are subsidizing some of that construction. Once all that new capacity is installed, TransCanada's electric bills should pay back the investment but if the volatile oil market dips, local ratepayers may end up paying for it. And if TransCanada uses all that power, doesn't that mean the rural electric co-ops will be pushed to peak demand more often, have to use more expensive peak generation, and thus send us all higher electric bills?
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But don't worry. As Great Plains Tar Sands Pipelines notes, TransCanada will respond quickly to any spill... if it's not stormy out. And we have keen government oversight from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration... which is run by a former oil company lawyer.

Celebrate Canada Day: Stop Keystone XL

Happy ! Happy Canada Day!

We Marxists can't wait to create the North American Union, since it would achieve our ultimate goal of merging our national holidays into a huge midsummer four-day holiday. But contrary to the fears of some black-helicopter alarmists, we treasonous continentalizers do not want to unite Canada and the U.S. with more tar sands pipelines. In fact, on this Canada Day, we honor our northern neighbors [and someday compatriots!] by calling on the United States to block construction of Keystone XL, a tar sands pipeline that will only feed our fossil fuel addiction at the expense of Canada's environment (hat tip to Robert Pore):

Production of tar sand oils is already the largest contributor of greenhouse gases in Canada, and production is only slated to expand. The mining and processing of tar sands also produces land damage, heavy water use and pollution.

The world’s largest tar sand deposit, in Alberta, covers 54,000 square miles, an area the size of England. Strip mining is used extensively, leaving very large holes.

Another mining method — injecting steam and solvents such as caustic soda into shafts — uses up to four units of water for every unit of oil produced. And after being used, the water is mostly held in tailing ponds and is unfit for human or animal use [environmental historian Francis Moul, "TransCanada Pipeline Threatens the Sand Hills," guest editorial, Omaha World Herald, 2010.06.25].

Trusted White House advisor John Podesta has called tar sands oil "polluting, destructive, expensive, and energy intensive" resource that cannot be made environmentally safe. Tar sands only make Canada messier... and they won't do much for the U.S., either.

Celebrate Canada Day by doing our neighbors a favor: stop TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline.

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p.s.: Or at the very least, if we can't stop Keystone XL, send out some inspectors to make sure TransCanada doesn't build with defective Indian steel.

Canadian Tar Sands Company Liable for Duck Deaths

If South Dakota's sportsmen are concerned about preserving waterfowl for our recreation and tourism industry, they should be concerned about the expanding Keystone pipeline system and the dirty tar sands oil TransCanada will transport. Even if those pipelines never leak and pollute South Dakota's wetlands, the production of the oil they carry has already killed wildlife in Alberta.

I reported on duck deaths in the toxic tar sands tailings ponds in 2008; now an Alberta court has found tar sands producer Syncrude guilty of killing nearly 1600 ducks (well over anyone's limit). Syncrude faces up to 800,000 dollars Canadian in fines for its negligence.

Syncrude initially reported that 500 ducks were killed when it didn't maintain its bird-shooing cannons in working order. The company now admits it lowballed that number: the actual count was more like 1600. Gee, oil companies underestimating the impact of their mistakes... where have I heard that before?

TransCanada Party to Genocide; Repeal Keystone XL Permit Now

So that's why TransCanada so carefully avoided drawing Keystone XL across Indian Country....

The South Dakota Legislature enacted two laws this year empowering the state to use its investment clout to fight genocide, terrorism, and other crimes against humanity. Senate Bill 21 directs the State Investment Council to comply with federal divestiture enactments against companies doing business in countries that are up to no good. The Legislature called for the first enactment of this new law in HCR 1012, a resolution protesting the atrocities in Sudan. Senate Bill 134 directs the State Investment Council to pull money out of certain companies doing business in Iran.

I approve of both bills, but it is worth noting that the companies targeted under these new laws are only middlemen to evil. We invest in Shell, Shell drills for oil in Iran, Shell pays Iran fees and taxes, Iran uses that money to build weapons for terrorists, terrorists kill our soldiers—Shell is still culpable, but not directly. Divesting in Shell is somewhat like punishing the gun shop owner for selling a gun to a felon, or fining the bartender for selling one too many drinks to the drunk who gets behind the wheel and causes a wreck.

If that level of culpability for atrocities in Sudan and Iran can provoke our Legislature to withdraw state investments, how was the Legislature able to authorize continued tax breaks for Canadian oil company TransCanada, whose actions in northern Alberta have directly contributed to Canada's continued abuse and decimation of the Lubicon tribe?

Overlooked when a treaty was signed with other aboriginals in 1899, the Lubicon were promised a reserve 40 years later that never materialized. They never ceded their ancestral lands or signed a treaty with Alberta or Canada.

Industry laid siege and during the past 25 years, billions of dollars of oil and gas and timber have been taken from their traditional lands, leaving the Lubicon decimated with a compromised water supply, third-world diseases, birth defects and an epidemic of suicides and other social ills.

With unwavering government support, it is proving easier and vastly more profitable for industry to simply continue the siege and wear them down over time than to sincerely negotiate. Yes, a slow genocide-by-attrition is taking place in our so-called "civilized" neighbor of Canada.

A couple years ago, TransCanada Corp. joined the fray with a proposed 42-inch natural gas pipeline across unceded and disputed Lubicon land. It would supply natural gas to cook the vast tar sands for oil - the most environmentally destructive project on Earth. The Lubicon were denied standing before the Alberta Utilities Commission, which ultimately issued the license.

A political-business duopoly rules Alberta, supported for the most part by a compliant Judiciary. Advisors to the Lubicon have their telephone calls monitored, mail opened and e-mails diverted. With the deck stacked against them, the Lubicon appealed to the United Nations.

Three separate U.N. bodies (U.N. Human Rights Committee, U.N. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the U.N. Special Rapportuer on Housing) have told TransCanada to cease and desist and respect international covenants [William M. Cox, "Sever All Ties with TransCanada," Juneau Empire, 2010.03.31].

Review this detailed timeline of the trickery and abuse heaped on this small First Nations group by Canadian industry and by the governments of Alberta and Canada.

The United Nations Human Rights Committee has more than once declared that Canada's unfair policies and industrial exploitation of Lubicon land constitutes a violation of fundamental human rights. Amnesty International notes that oil extraction has had enormous impacts on wildlife and in just one generation has ruined the ability of the Lubicon to provide for themselves through hunting. The World Council of Churches recognized in 1983 that such destruction of traditional economy and violation of legal rights by the Alberta government and several multinational oil companies "could have genocidal consequences."

And here is TransCanada, building a big pipeline right across Lubicon land with little regard for the wishes or legal rights of the people who live there. Hmm... sound familiar, neighbors?

TransCanada does acknowledge the Lubicon land claim... with two sentences:

TransCanada is aware the Lubicon Nation has outstanding land claim issues in the region of the project. While we continue to support and encourage the Lubicon Nation and all levels of government to reach a resolution to the land claim issue, we have no authority to resolve the issue ["North Central Corridor Pipeline Project," TransCanada.com, last updated 2010.02.02].

Nice. They claim no authority to resolve the land claim "issue"... but they'll happily exercise authority to exacerbate it by building a pipeline right across the disputed land.

So South Dakota plans to hand over millions of dollars in tax refunds to TransCanada, a company directly participating in environmental destruction and human rights abuses that some have gone so far as to call genocide. Perhaps our legislators should review the social investment laws they passed this winter. Perhaps they should consider this weekend's conversation about Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Perhaps we should think about the moral obligations we have to all native peoples in the spirit of the Year of Unity declared by our governor.

If we will pull money from companies contributing indirectly to human rights violations by generating revenue for evil governments in Iran and Sudan, we should act with stronger revulsion to withhold our money from an oil company committing direct human rights violations with its business practices.

Legislature, call a special session and revoke TransCanada's tax refunds. Public Utilities Commission, reject the lighter conditions TransCanada wants for Keystone XL... and while you're at it, revoke their permit.

Americans Pay More Tax Per Person Than Canadians

Harvard's Dr. Mankiw diverts himself (and us!) with some casual number crunching. He calculates taxes per person and finds the United States in the middle of the industrialized pack.

Interestingly, he finds that, while Canadians pay a higher proportion of their lower national income into taxes, each American writes a larger check to government than does each Canadian.

Yes, you, Joe Tea Bag, pay more in taxes than Gordon Maple Leaf.

Want to pay less taxes? Move to Canada, our big socialist neighbor with the single-payer health care system. Go figure.

British Columbia Health Insurance Family Premium Rises to $114 Per Month

My wife and I lived in Vancouver, British Columbia for eight months in 2004 and 2005. We bought our health insurance, as required, from the B.C. government. Our couple's premium, paid to Uncle Sam—er, well, in Canada, I guess that would be Uncle Gordon—was $96 a month. Had we been a trio—the divine Miss K didn't join us until 2006—our family premium would have been $108 a month. And that's Canadian dollars, which at the time were about four-fifths the value of Ameribucks.

Health insurance premiums just went up in B.C. Starting Jan. 1, the premium for a family of three in Vancouver, Victoria, Kamloops, etc., rose to $114 a month. That's a 5.5% increase... in five years.

If I'm reading this Kaiser Family Foundation chart correctly, health premiums in the U.S. have risen at least 22% over the same time period. Premiums rose 5% in America just last year.

Think of it: 5.5% increase in premiums over five years. Could that have anything to do with why the Canadian dollar is now at 0.95 of the American dollar? Or with why Canada hasn't had nearly has rough a recession as we have?

But what do British Columbians get for their Canadian health care dollar? A whole lot of nothing. They get no deductible, no paperwork when they enter the hospital, no bill when they leave.

Last year my family paid $300 a month for health insurance with a $7500 family deductible and a lot more restrictions than our old Canadian policy. Does anyone believe we were getting 2.8 times as much health care here as we would in Canada? We don't.

And remember: if we were paying $114 a month for health insurance, we'd have another $186 a month to pump into the local economy. Heck: we could afford to buy cereal at Madison's Sunshine!

The solution is not for my family to go back to Canada (as some of our neighbors will inevitably shout). The solution is to bring the Canadian system here, with its cost savings and greater respect for life.

Canadian Health Care: No Appointment Necessary

Good morning, faithful readers! We just got back from a quick family trip to Winnipeg, Manitoba. No, we didn't go for medical tourism: we just wanted to give Madville Times Jr. a little taste of urban life (skyscrapers, elevators, bus transfers, Walk/Don't Walk... and monkeys and a grizzly bear!).

However, if we had needed to visit a Canadian doctor, the visit wouldn't have slowed down our vacation much:

This clinic was a ten-minute walk from where we stayed. Of course, if we had been too sick to walk...

...we could have gotten house calls. In Winnipeg. Canada.

Contrary to what my Republican friends like to tell me, we saw no waiting lines around Winnipeg's clinics. As a matter of fact, the only long lines we saw were at Tim Hortons. Canadians wait for donuts, not doctors.

Canadian Health Coverage Works!

And more from our friends overseas: learn about Canada's health care system from Monday's Morning Edition. Key points:

• Canada has socialized insurance, not socialized medicine. Canada has simply made the very rational choice to pool risk on the largest scale possible, the whole darn country. Canadians have this odd sense of obligation to take care of each other.
• On preventable death, the U.S ranks last among industrialized nations. Canada ranks sixth. Why is Canada better? Access: people who feel they have some problem coming on can get care without worrying about cost... or bankruptcy.

Listen to the full report here.

Canadian Health System Flawed... But Canadians Say Fix It, Not Nix It

In response to last week's coverage of the superiority of the Canadian health coverage system to America's, an eager reader sends this letter to the editor of the Red Deer Advocate in Alberta. I'm unable to verify the story via independent reporting, but Paula ZoBell of Lacombe tells the disgraceful story of a mother of four who died because of medical incompetence and bureaucracy.

Before you defenders of the creaky American status quo leap to the conclusion that a public health coverage system kills moms, take a close look at the letter and the responses in the comment section that follows it. Nowhere does ZoBell call for an end to public health coverage in Alberta. She lays her blame not on government paying medical bills but on the conservative provincial government not giving rural medical services enough money. She blames procedural restrictions that put money over lives (the same critique I've laid against the American private insurance system that denies people coverage and makes treatment unaffordable).

ZoBell's call to action is about making universal coverage live up to its name:

Please call or e-mail your MLA and the premier and tell them that every person deserves acute primary care, no matter where they live, and access to timely transportation to large hospitals.

The commenters respond with laments about the deterioration of the provincial health care system, but not one of them calls for scrapping the system and adopting American-style health care. They talk instead about voting out the Ed Stelmach government and making the system work.

Gee, if only we had the option of voting out the heads of private insurance corporations and replacing them with leaders who care about people more than profits. That would be accountability!

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Update 12:45 CDT: By the way, the strong public option proposed by Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) in his Americare Health Insurance Act (HR 193) would get 100% coverage and reduce costs! Tell your Congresspeople!

Health Care: Canada Cares for People, U.S. Cares for Profits

Our county Dems chair Joan Stamm told me the other day about some cable ads she's seen (perhaps these?) where supposed Canadian citizens tell the camera that the American health care system saved their lives.

Ah, yes, the great American health care system, where my neighbor John Hess just got a 30% premium increase from Blue Cross Blue Shield... and he's not the only one (see also here...). I suspect BCBS must be trying to lock in high rates now in case they have to follow up on those promises to President Obama to control rate hikes in the future. Jack rates 30% now, and rate hikes of "only" 6% the next few years will make them look like angels.

Maggie Yount, nice Canadian girl, car crash survivor... mortal threat to American insurance industry profits.

[Photo courtesy Los Angeles Times]

And ah, yes, the great American health care system, which won't cover Maggie Yount, a healthy 24-year-old woman who survived a coma, brain injury, and 13 broken bones in a horrific crash caused by a drunk driver. She spent three months in a Halifax, Nova Scotia, hospital, receiving "phenomenal" treatment, rehab, the works. She didn't go broke. She didn't have to take out a loan or have her family throw a fundraiser. She'd already paid the bill in full, through her taxes. The government picked up the tab, as it does for every Canadian citizen.

She's in pretty good shape—after an accident like hers, you might say miraculous shape. She says she still struggles with some short-term memory loss... but hey, don't we all? her broken bones have all healed, and she needs no more acute care. Last year, she moved to California and married her American fiancé. Responsible young woman that she is (Canadians are like that), she started shopping for health insurance. No one would cover her. Aetna rejected her because of her " history of traumatic brain injury with multiple fractures treated with hospitalization." Anthem Blue Cross did the same, saying her pre-existing conditions "present uncertain medical underwriting risks." [Read the full story: David Lazarus, "Canada's Healthcare Saved Her; Ours Won't Cover Her," Los Angeles Times, 2009.05.27.]

As David Lazarus points out, in Canada, you do wait for nonessential treatments. But Maggie Yount didn't lie in the road for a week waiting for a doctor. When you get hurt in Canada, you get the care you need. You don't sign forms. You don't end up bankrupt or uninsurable. You get treated like a human being, not a drag on profits.

A single-payer not-for-profit health system treated Maggie Yount like a person. That's what she deserves. That's what Americans deserve. That's what American values demand. President Obama, put single-payer back on the table.

Mexican Universal Health Coverage Working?

I love it when commenters get me thinking and reading. My suggestion yesterday that universal health coverage is a reasonable preventive response to future pandemics drew its own rash of responses, pro and con. Among them, the Palin/Rand fan Alexa drops in from D.C. for a quick round of fallacia, saying that Mexico has a universal health program, so all of my arguments are invalid.

Really? Thank you, Alexa, for getting me reading. First some logic, then some links, copied and expanded from my earlier comment:

1. What Alexa says invalidates nothing in this post. I never claimed universal health care means no pandemics. I claim universal health care can mitigate the impact. To invalidate anything in the original post, you need to get rid of swine flu, dismantle the Mexican public health coverage system, reintroduce swine flu, and see how many people die.
2. Mexico, with less than a third of our population and a third of our per capita GDP, passed its "Seguro Popular" program to provide public health insurance to cover catastrophic illness for 50 million citizens who lacked coverage. Citizens pay an income-based premium, with the lowest 20% of earners exempt. The program has been a smashing success at reducing catastrophic health care costs for poor families. Boy, talk about ¡Sí se puede!
3. (New!) By the way, Mexico's universal coverage isn't universal yet: President Vicente Fox signed it into law in 2003, and it's still being expanded. Then Minister of Health Julio Frenk projected a completion date of 2010.
   
4. Interestingly, Seguro Popular has not caused an increase in utilization. That might invalidate my original argument... but it also invalidates Anon's hearsay about those darn Indians (that's what Anon is thinking) and government health care causing overutilization. However, this source gives links saying Mexico has seen an increase in mammography tests and pap smears, an immense decline in tuberculosis, and an overall improvement in the quality of rural health care.
   
5. Mexico's health care system has been drawing all sorts of "medical tourism" from Americans who can't afford care here. U.S. hospital chains are building facilities in Mexico to cash in on medical tourism. Not that anyone's going to fly south for an appendectomy this week... but I hope you take the point.

This point from Alexa does get me thinking: The only folks who seem interested in keeping America's patchwork private ration-by-wealth system are the rich people who don't have to worry about it, insurance companies making money off it, and folks trying to protect their ideology by ignoring evidence about it.

But what about Canada, the U.K., France, and all the other industrialized countries (remember, that's all of them except the U.S.) that have universal health coverage: If all the commenters' claims here were true (they're not, but entertain me for a moment), what would be motivating those countries to keep such atrociously ineffective systems? Whose interest in Canada is served by keeping a system that doesn't work? Who would be the nexus of political pressure that keeps such bad policy in place?

And what about Mexico? With the opposing models of the U.S. and Canada to choose from, why would Mexico move toward something more like Canada than the U.S.? Whose interest does universal health care serve?

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Update 10:00 CDT: Seguro Popular has improved treatment for high blood pressure.

Canadian Conservatives Fear Obama Bounce, Call Early Election

Afraid the slowing economy and Obama's message of change south of the border, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper dissolved Parliament this weekend and called an election for October 14. A national election in five weeks?!? Now that's the way to run a country!

The call for an election finds Harper's Conservative Party holding up a mirror to our own dark politics:

The Tories [that's what they call Conservatives up north] expect to make this campaign about leadership, hoping to bank on Harper's popularity.

Harper is "a minivan-driving hockey dad from the suburbs" and "the most middle class prime minister this country has ever had," the aide said.

In contrast, [Liberal Party leader Stéphane] Dion is "an elitist professor whose leadership is marked by indecision and dogmatic adherence to ideological theories" such as his Green Shift carbon tax plan [Mia Rabson, "Tories Focus on Bashing Dion," Winnipeg Free Press, 2008.09.06].

A conservative politican facing economic troubles and promising a campaign focusing on personal image. Imagine that.

One Rotten Oily Apple Doesn't Spoil the Canadian Barrel

I've been a little mean this year, calling names while raging against the "thievin' Canucks" at TransCanada (and some country-club Republicans) who think that the fact that their pipeline will produce more tax dollars than alfalfa or corn entitles them to take South Dakota land through eminent domain.

As penance, and in the spirit of the holidays, I present my list of Eleven Great Things About Canada!

Universal Health Care. Canadians aren't nearly as overtly religious or even as rich as their southern neighbors, but somehow they find it in their hearts and wallets to pay for each others' medical bills... and even those of foreign visitors. A number of our American friends have been visiting in Canada, had an owie, and gotten fixed up in the Canadian hospital, no paperwork, no bill. Mighty nice folks, those Canadians. Their health care system isn't perfect, but it beats the pants off ours.

Feist -- "1 2 3 4." Kid-tested, Mom- and Dad-approved: All three members of the Madville Times household love Feist -- born Amherst, Nova Scotia, has lived in Regina, Calgary, and Toronto -- her music, and the whimsy (I hope she won't mind that term) of her videos, especially this one. No hoochie-mama outfits, no crass sexualization, just a bunch of artists having a lot of fun with music and dance. That's what pop music is supposed to be. (And if I were directing one-act this year, we'd be staging some version of this video, guaranteed.)



Edmonton, Alberta. I lived in this fine city for a year and a half. I bicycled to class on snow-packed streets through two straight weeks of -40 (Celsius and Fahrenheit) temperatures. I loved every moment. Even in that cold weather, people still got out to cross-country ski and jog. The prevailing Edmontonian philosophy seemed to be, "Life's too short to sit inside all day." And with tree-lined neighborhoods, great bike trails, and the majestic North Saskatchewan River valley, who'd want to stay inside? And of course, even you don't like the outdoors, there's the biggest mall in the world, the West Edmonton Mall. (Canadians can beat us at health care and crass consumerism, when they set their minds to it.)

Barenaked Ladies. Show me an American band this fun. Every first day of school, watching the new freshmen amble anxiously down the hall, I would sing to myself, "This is me in grade 9, baby." And the classic "If I Had a Million Dollars" -- K-Cars and Dijon ketchup indeed... but not a real green dress, that's cruel! Oh! And that reminds me:

Kraft Dinner. Not mac and cheese -- it's dinner. And let's not forget the 2 kilo bags of pirogies at the grocery store. Mmmm.

Prince Edward Island. Not just for Anne of Green Gables (her house is there -- really!) should one visit this beautiful little island. Cross the huge (12.9 km) Confederation Bridge. Go on Canada Day: swim at the beaches, see fireworks in Summerside, and visit Charlottetown, the "Birthplace of Confederation." By the way, compare the difference in national origins: We American colonists got mad at King George and Parliament, picked up our guns, and started shooting people to gain independence. The Canadian colonists stuck with Britain, gave us a whoopin' in 1812 (they'll mention that if you visit), and waited until 1864, when they had a nice meeting with the Crown in Charlottetown and said, "Say, what would you think of us maybe becoming a separate country, eh?" All they had to do was ask politely.

Kids in the Hall. Funnier, sharper, and weirder than SNL in the good years.

The Québécois French Accent. After a few months of listening to Jean Chrétien on the news, my French accent morphed into that slightly growlier frontier French spoken by the rough-and-ready settlers of the New World. (And you know, I get the impression that in Canada, the people can keep their politicians a little closer to them.)

William Shatner. Another Quebecker! Captain Kirk, born in Iowa, embodiment of the space cowboy, central character in the mythos pillar of my worldview -- brought to life by a Shakespearean-trained Canadian (all great captains know Shakespeare). It takes a Canadian -- close neighbor, yet outsider -- to fully grasp the American swagger and write it large across the galaxy.

CKUA. South Dakota Public Radio is getting better. They can dream of being as good as CKUA, the finest radio station in the world. CKUA started broadcasting in 1927. Financial rapscallionery knocked the station off the air for five weeks in spring 1997, but a huge public outpouring of support put the station back on the air and raised one million dollars in two weeks to keep it alive. You want to broaden your musical horizons? You want to hear DJs who play music they know and care about?

My friend Megan, to whom I happily dedicate this ode to Canada. She gave me a splendid tour of Nova Scotia and PEI, including Lunenberg, Peggy's Cove (see photo), Cape Split, and the biggest personified blueberry in the world. She flew all the way to South Dakota just to be in charge of the guest book at Erin's and my wedding. She still sends me news, family photos, and e-Christmas cards from the Atlantic. And she loves her country as much as I love mine. Thank you, Megan!

Now, if we could just get Megan and her friends to arrange a domestic boycott of TransCanada... ;-)