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The Canadian Horse is a little known national treasure of Canada. This hardy breed descended from horses originally sent to the “New World” by King Louis XIV of France in the late 1600’s. These Norman and Breton horses were felt to be of Arab, Andalusian and Barb ancestry – traits of which can still be recognized in the Canadian Horse today.

 

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That is all the fault of the US making it necessary for us to have one to visit... fair dues....

 

 

Side note....

 

Subject: British news paper salutes Canada

 

 

 

 

 

This is a good read . It is funny how it took someone in England to put it into words...

Sunday Telegraph Article

From today's UK wires: Salute to a brave and modest nation - Kevin Myers, The Sunday Telegraph

LONDON - Until the deaths of Canadian soldiers killed in Afghanistan , probably almost no one outside their home country had been aware that Canadian troops are deployed in the region. And as always, Canada will bury its dead, just as the rest of the world, as always will forget its sacrifice, just as it always forgets nearly everything Canada ever does.

 

It seems that Canada 's historic mission is to come to the

selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and

then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored.

Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the

hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance. A fire

breaks out, she risks life and limb to rescue her fellow

dance-goers, and suffers serious injuries. But when the hall is

repaired and the dancing resumes, there is Canada, the wallflower

still, while those she once helped glamorously cavort across the

floor, blithely neglecting her yet again.

 

[ That is the price Canada pays for sharing the North American

continent with the United States , and for being a selfless friend

of Britain in two global conflicts. For much of the 20th century,

Canada was torn in two different directions: It seemed to be a

part of the old world, yet had an address in the new one, and

that divided identity ensured that it never fully got the

gratitude it deserved.

 

Yet its purely voluntary contribution to the cause of freedom

in two world wars was perhaps the greatest of any democracy.

Almost 10% of Canada 's entire population of seven million people

served in the armed forces during the First World War, and nearly

60,000 died. The great Allied victories of 1918 were spearheaded

by Canadian troops, perhaps the most capable soldiers in the

entire British order of battle.

 

Canada was repaid for its enormous sacrifice by downright

neglect, its unique contribution to victory being absorbed into

the popular Memory as somehow or other the work of the "British."

The Second World War provided a re-run. The Canadian navy began

the war with a half dozen vessels, and ended up policing nearly

half of the Atlantic against U-boat attack. More than 120

Canadian warships participated in the Normandy landings, during

which 15,000 Canadian soldiers went ashore on D-Day alone. Canada

finished the war with the third-largest navy and the

fourth-largest air force in the world.

 

The world thanked Canada with the same sublime indifference as

it had the previous time. Canadian participation in the war was

acknowledged in film only if it was necessary to give an American

actor a part in a campaign in which the United States had clearly

not participated - a touching scrupulousness which, of course,

Hollywood has since abandoned, as it has any notion of a separate

Canadian identity.

 

So it is a general rule that actors and filmmakers arriving in

Hollywood keep their nationality - unless, that is, they are

Canadian. Thus Mary Pickford, Walter Huston, Donald Sutherland,

Michael J. Fox, William Shatner, Norman Jewison, David

Cronenberg, Alex Trebek, Art Linkletter and Dan Aykroyd have in

the popular perception become American, and Christopher Plummer,

British. It is as if, in the very act of becoming famous, a

Canadian ceases to be Canadian, unless she is Margaret Atwood,

who is as unshakably Canadian as a moose, or Celine Dion, for

whom Canada has proved quite unable to find any takers.

 

Moreover, Canada is every bit as querulously alert to the

achievements of its sons and daughters as the rest of the world

is completely unaware of them. The Canadians proudly say of

themselves - and are unheard by anyone else - that 1% of the

world's population has provided 10% of the world's peacekeeping

forces. Canadian soldiers in the past half century have been the

greatest peacekeepers on Earth - in 39 missions on UN mandates,

and six on non-UN peacekeeping duties, from Vietnam to East

Timor , from Sinai to Bosnia .

 

Yet the only foreign engagement that has entered the popular

on-Canadian imagination was the sorry affair in Somalia , in which

out-of-control paratroopers murdered two Somali infiltrators.

Their regiment was then disbanded in disgrace - a uniquely

Canadian act of self-abasement for which, naturally, the

Canadians received no international credit.

 

So who today in the United States knows about the stoic and

selfless friendship its northern neighbour has given it in

Afghanistan ? Rather like Cyrano de Bergerac , Canada repeatedly

does honourable things for honourable motives, but instead of

being thanked for it, it remains something of a figure of fun.

 

It is the Canadian way, for which Canadians should be proud,

yet such honour comes at a high cost. This past year more

grieving Canadian families knew that cost all too tragically well.

 

**** ****

Please pass the on to any of your friends or relatives who served

in the Canadian Forces, it is a wonderful tribute to those who

choose to serve their country and the world in our quiet Canadian way.

 

 

 

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What is bullshit?

 

Needing a passport to visit Canada and that the Canadian Soldiers are not given the respect and honor that are deserved by their selfless acts.

 

Thanks for clarifying my muddled mind.... ;)

 

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