Having entertained two sets of Canadian visitors in the last couple of weeks and discussed plenty of social and political issues, I was quite interested to see this New York Times article, as offered by Yahoo! News:
Canada's View on Social Issues Is Opening Rifts With the U.S.Recently, while musing about his retirement plans, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien said he might just kick back and smoke some pot. "I will have my money for my fine and a joint in the other hand," he said with a smile. The glibness of the remark made it nearly impossible to imagine an American president uttering it. But in a nation where the dominant west coast city, Vancouver, has come to be known as Vansterdam, few Canadians blinked. [more]
I've chosen the most sensational paragraph to lure you over to Yahoo!, of course. Thanks to Canadian writer Michael Libling for sending me the article. You can find his most recent short story, "My Father's Club," online at SciFi.com's SciFiction, where it is currently the featured original.
