From: wales@kona.cs.ucla.edu (Rich Wales)
Subject: Re: Canadian Culture Shock?
Reply-To: wales@CS.UCLA.EDU (Rich Wales)
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Fri, 18 Dec 92 06:22:23 GMT

Chris Hawley asked about major differences one would encounter living
and working in Canada, since he's applying for summer internships at
several Ontario newspapers.

Aside from what Gerald Olchowy mentioned (more use of the metric system,
differences in money, a certain amount of English/French bilingualism),
here are a few others which would be particularly interesting to Chris.

The Canadian governmental system is rather different from that of the
US.  It is based on the British parliamentary model, so if you know how
the British Parliament works, you have a good start.  Note, though, that
the provinces have unicameral (one-house) legislatures, and whereas the
federal government leader is a "prime minister", the provincial leaders
are called "premiers".  When the prime minister and the premiers get
together (something they've done quite a bit of late in connection with
recent failed efforts at national consensus), such meetings are called
"first ministers' conferences".

One should, needless to say, become familiar with the major Canadian
political parties and their basic philosophical stances.

The American terms "felony" and "misdemeanor" correspond to the Canadian
"indictable offence" and "summary conviction offence", respectively.
Also, when Canadian authorities formally submit a criminal accusation,
they are said to "lay" (not "file") charges against the accused.  The
criminal justice systems of Canada and the US are pretty similar (since
both have roots in English common law).  One notable difference is that,
even though Canadian law has prohibitions against "double jeopardy",
a Canadian judge or appellate court can overturn a jury's verdict of
acquittal and declare a mistrial, if the verdict is determined to have
resulted from a legal error.

If Chris is going to be covering contemporary Canadian politics, he
would do well to familiarize himself with recent developments and
debates relating to Quebec's status within (or possibly outside) Canada,
the rights of native Canadians, the Canada-US Free Trade Agreement,
the Goods and Services Tax (GST), reform of the federal Senate, and the
recent emergence of the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois on the
national political scene.  Despite the recent rejection of the "Char-
lottetown Accord" in a nationwide referendum last October, the question
of Quebec autonomy is unlikely to go away anytime soon.

Speaking of the GST, Chris should be aware that most purchases he makes
in Ontario (other than basic groceries) will get slapped with 15% in
sales taxes (7% GST + 8% provincial tax).  One pleasant exception is
books, which are exempt from the Ontario PST, though not the GST.  There
has been a proposal around for a while whereby Ontario (and any other
interested provinces) would revise their PST's to be completely uniform
with the GST, in return for which Canada Customs would collect PST on
privately imported goods instead of just GST, but I haven't heard if
Ontario is going to agree to do this.

A trip or two to any large bookstore in Canada, and perusal of the sec-
tion on Canadian history, politics, and current events, would of course
be very useful.

The above is not (nor do I claim it to be) a complete list, but it'll
probably be a good starting point.

-- 
Rich Wales <wales@CS.UCLA.EDU> // UCLA Computer Science Department
3531 Boelter Hall // Los Angeles, CA 90024-1596 // +1 (310) 825-5683
Xref: sparky soc.culture.canada:9357 soc.culture.african:7008