What are these guys?" He whispered"Canadians," Percy said. Frank leaned away from him. "Excuse me?""Uh, no offense," Percy said. "That's what Annabeth called them when I fought them before. She said they live in the north, in Canada.""Yeah, well," Frank grumbled, "we're in Canada. I'm Canadian. But I've never seen those things before.
Nonsense. Everyone knows Canadians are a peaceful people.” He was laughing now.“Tell that to the White House circa 1812,” I told him.“Oh? Why?”“Because that’s the year the peace-loving Canadians burned it to the ground.”Dominick grabbed an empty bottle and jumped onto his chair. The room got silent in an instant as everyone paused to look at him. “Cheers to 1812.” He lifted his empty bottle.The whole room whooped and raised their full glasses, howling in unison.I could barely hear over the sound of my own laughter.
I suppose the half-breeds in Manitoba in 1870 did not fight for two hundred forty acres of land but it is to be understood there were two societies who treated together. One was small but in its smallness it had its rights. The other was great but in its greatness it had no greater rights than the rights of the small because the right is the same for everyone.
One man out of every five who lands on our shores is a foreigner- i.e. non-Anglo-Saxon. He comes here with a foreign tongue foreign ideals foreign religion with centuries of ignorance and oppression behind him often bringing with him problems that the best statesmen of Europe have failed to solve.
Beneath their work the moral core of Canadian nationhood is found in the fact that Canada is a monarchy and in the nature of monarchial allegiance. As America is united at bottom by the covenant Canada is united at the top by allegiance. Because Canada is a nation founded on allegiance and not on compact there is no pressure for uniformity there is no Canadian way of life. Any one French Irish Ukrainian or Eskimo can be a subject of the Queen and a citizen of Canada without in any way changing or ceasing to be himself.