As I settled down the other day to watch the Calgary Flames take on the Montreal Canadians in the outdoor game at McMahon Stadium in Calgary I was stunned to see they played the American anthem along with “O Canada”. Why? It was two Canadian teams playing our game on Canadian soil. Earlier in the season an outdoor game was played in Pittsburgh and they did not play “O Canada”.
Think about this. In Canada there is no real estate crisis, no bank crisis, no unemployment crisis and we have recovered 3/4 of the jobs lost in the recession. Canada is the only G-8 country expected to achieve a balanced budget by 2015. Our corporate tax rate is 16.5 per cent compared to 35 per cent in the US.
The US has long been regarded as the land of opportunity but it will not be long until our American neighbours look north and see Canada as the land of the future.
It is time for us to stand up and be proud of what and who we are. “O Canada” would have been sufficient before that hockey game which, by the way, Calgary won.
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Our Junior A Oilers hockey team starts its playoff run with two games this weekend. Okotoks Rotary will be collecting items for the Food Bank during the game on March 6 which starts at 7 p.m. Please bring an item or a small cash donation as they use the money to purchase fresh fruit for the hampers. Go Oilers!
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The other day I was standing in line at a fast food outlet with about 30 high school students ahead of me.
No problem with the kids and the line moved amazingly fast, but I was thinking, man when I went to school we took a bag lunch and once in a while a group of us might share an order of fries but that was it. I kinda laughed as I thought of the mothers who work here heating up their leftovers from dinner in the microwave for lunch and their kids are ordering the full-meal deal. We really are becoming an eat-out society eh! Another 50 years and the kitchen will probably be the size of our ensuite.
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A man and his wife are awakened at 3 a.m. by someone at the front door. The husband gets up and finds an intoxicated man standing in the pouring rain asking for a push. “Not a chance,” he says and heads back to bed. His wife asks and he tells her the story. “Did you help him?” she asks. “Not a chance,” he says. She reminds him of the time a few months back when their car broke down and two men helped them. “Okay,” he says, “I will go and help him.” He gets up, gets dressed and heads out into the pouring rain. He calls out in the dark, “Hello are you still here?” “Yes” comes back the answer. “Do you still need a push?” the husband calls out. “Yes please” comes the reply from the dark. “Where are you?” asks the husband. “Over here on the swing set,” comes the reply.
