Edited sentence: "Canada is a Northern European welfare state in the worst sense of the term, and very proud of it."If you've read any of the official propagandas, you've come over the border and entered a bilingual country."In terms of the unemployed, of which we have over a million-and-a-half, don't feel particularly bad for many of these people."The NDP could be described as basically a party of liberal Democrats, but it's actually worse than that, I have to say."The establishment came down with a constitutional package which they put to a national referendum."Then there is the Progressive Conservative party, the PC party, which won only 20 seats.- Conservative leader Stephen Harper, then vice-president of the National Citizens Coalition, in a June 1997 Montreal meeting of the Council for National Policy, a right-wing American think tank.And forgive me jesting again, but the NDP is kind of proof that the Devil lives and interferes in the affairs of men.But this city is extremely atypical of this country... So it's basically an English-speaking country, just as English-speaking as, I would guess, the northern part of the United States.Canadians make no connection between the fact that they are a Northern European welfare state and the fact that we have very low economic growth, a standard of living substantially lower than yours, a massive brain drain of young professionals to your country, and double the unemployment rate of the United States.In this particular city, Montreal, you may well get that impression.It should... They were in favour of gay rights officially, officially for abortion on demand.Now, the term Progressive Conservative will immediately raise suspicions in all of your minds.Officially -- what else can I say about them.Officially for the entrenchment of our universal, collectivized, health-care system and multicultural policies in the constitution of the country.The package included distinct society status for Quebec and some other changes, including some that would just horrify you, putting universal Medicare in our constitution, and feminist rights, and a whole bunch of other things.They don't feel bad about it themselves, as long as they're receiving generous social assistance and unemployment insurance