Posted on 04/21/2003 7:59:23 AM PDT by doc30
Poor Margaret Atwood.
Here she is, not only Canada's best-known writer but the most visible of the many Canadian critics of the War on Iraq, and she has to choose this month to release a new novel.
She might not care to hear Oryx and Crake tagged a "product," but that's the word the entertainment industry uses -- and, as of this past weekend, we now know America wants as little as possible to do with Canadian products.
According to a new survey by Fleishman-Hillard Canada and Wirthlin Worldwide, 48 per cent of Americans now say they are "very likely" or "somewhat likely" to turn their backs on anything that comes from France, Germany and Canada in favour of an alternative from any of the U.S.-led coalition of some 40-odd nations.
This would include, we have to presume, Atwood's new novel as well as a boycott on any future edition of the Canadian-invented Trivial Pursuit that might ask players to name more than three members (United States, Britain, Australia) of that coalition.
Such an anti-Canadian backlash is difficult to grasp by this particular Canadian, having just spent a month travelling through the United States and encountered only one American with a bone to pick with Canada -- and that a woman so peeved with the Montreal hockey-game booing of the American anthem that she regretted naming her dog Jacques.
Yet, according to this most recent survey, the American resolve is hardening, with 15 per cent saying they've already moved to eliminate such French products as wine and cheese.
As well, 8 per cent say they've substituted for Canadian products -- but had a more difficult time naming any actual Canadian products. About 79 per cent knew that Canadian Club whisky might be Canadian -- raising intriguing questions about the remaining 21 per cent -- but after a specific brand of whisky and perhaps maple syrup, they were pretty much lost when it came to Canada.
It's hard to have a boycott when you don't know what you're supposed to turn your back on.
We therefore offer up, free of charge, a handy list for quick reference:
Lay down your cell phones. Canadians brag endlessly about Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone in Brantford, Ont., so Americans could not only take a little revenge but make movies more enjoyable and highways safer at the same time.
Switch off the playoffs. Both professional hockey and pro basketball are winding up their endless seasons. A Canadian, James Naismith, invented basketball. No one knows who invented hockey or even where the first game was played -- but it's pretty much a given it wasn't the Mighty Ducks in Anaheim, California.
Start sleeping in. The only reason West Coast day traders rise at dawn to dump their high-tech mistakes is because some Canadian, Sir Sanford Fleming, invented time zones way back before there were even digital clocks to tell us what time it is. No way a Canadian clock should rule American lives.
No more laughing. The only funny people still hanging around Hollywood these days are Canadians like Jim Carrey, Mike Myers and assorted Second City and Saturday Night Live graduates, so switch off the national laugh track and see how funny Canadians find that.
No more divas. Celine Dion, Shania Twain, Sarah McLachlan, Alanis Morissette, Diana Krall, Nelly Furtado, Avril Lavigne all have one more thing in common than high Billboard charts -- they're all Canadian. Tune them out and give Cher and Madonna a chance to come all the way back.
Turn off the radio. Talk radio may be the main comfort zone of the Bush administration, but how many Americans realize it was a Canadian, Reginald Fessenden of East Bolton, Que., who is the true father of the radio (Marconi came later) and another Canadian, Ted Rogers, who came up with the vacuum tube that put a radio in every kitchen? Rush Limbaugh would understand.
Stop travelling. There wouldn't be Caribbean cruises if a Canadian had never come up with the screw propeller. Going back to wind would be a severe blow to Canadian self-worth. A Canadian also came up with variable pitch for propellers, but what's the use of killing air travel when it's already dead anyway?
Quit drinking. That Canadian whisky label is only the beginning. Not only are the best beers sold in the United States from Canada, but it was a Canadian who invented the tuck-away beer case handle that made long weekends possible. Put an end to it.
Stop taking out the garbage. The Man from Glad might look American, but the truth of plastic garbage bag lies in a handy little device that Harry Wasylyk and Larry Hansen came up with a half century ago for the Winnipeg General Hospital.
Canada thinks the United States won't raise much of a stink?
Just let 'em wait a couple of weeks.
Our economy is not sinking, it's been outperforming your in job growth, housing starts, our dollar is rising, our unemployment is down, and the Bank of Canada has already raised interest rates twice this year in order to slow the Canadian economy down.
It may be time to start boycotting them.
GD - While I am in the midst of moving from one part of the state to another, and thus don't have a lot of time at the moment, but I've given a little thought to this and I offer it up for what it is worth.
A lot of our Canadian imports come from extractive industries - oil, gas, lumber etc - yielding fungible commodities which are inherently difficult to differentiate in terms of national origin once they are inside our borders. The Canadians also have transplanted factories, sort of like the ones in Mexico just south of the border, which turn out goods for American companies, such as automobiles. There are, I think, some conglomerates up there into a variety of things, alcoholic beverages being one of them. They, no doubt, have some other products, of which I am, at this moment, blissfully unaware. And finally, there is, I believe, quite a bit of cross-border North American tourism, along with some at-destination shopping.
In other words, for boycott purposes I think their economy is similar to the French economy in the sense that there are a few easily identifiable products, such as Molson's beer, but their biggest immediate vulnerability is tourism. I live in a tourist area (SW Fla), and one thing I've learned about it is that it is almost all profit for the destination, primarily because there is no cost of manufacture. The impact of a cut in tourism is not diluted by being spread out, in dollar terms, over suppliers and insurers and so forth - a cut goes directly to the bottom line. Empty hotel rooms, empty restaurant tables, and so forth. In addition, there is no time lag - is goes directly to the bottom line right now, not when the US supplier doesn't order more Molson's a few months downstream because he can't sell what he already has on hand.
So, until a list can be drawn up of Canadian goods to boycott, the easiest and quickest way to hit them squarely in the pocketbook is to simply stop going there and spending money.
Bass is English.
I thought that Bass was British, and yesterday a somewhat liberal friend who is doing a big about face due to Iraq, who is a Bass drinker, told me that he was not sure about the Bass we buy and drink in America.
AGREE!!
That is a matter of opinion. I find the best beers to be those made in Wisconsin.
There are more holes in the argument of this article than swiss cheese.
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