And now for something completely different, eh?

Bruce 9/26/2025

I just recently completed a short, rare, vacation in a foreign country. Aside from the scenic beauty and the rather discourteous welcome from the border guard, the trip revealed a lot about the policies of this once great country. I talked with people, visited a few businesses and dined out often. My first impressions were that this country sells their gasoline by the metric liter, originally proposed by the French, instead of by the English System they created. During the course of travel there were many times that “speed limited” heavy trucks clogged up the traffic on mountain highways while nearby Indian “First Nation’s lands” prohibited whites from trespassing”, of course those lands were adjacent to Nature Conservancy lands owned by rich white elitists who also don’t allow trespassing. I guess “First Nations” is a glorified buzzword describing previously isolated and perpetually warring “tribes”.

Well in between camping on restricted lands we saw “fire suppression crews” clearing trees from the highway right of way next to, but not in the forests while also shutting down any forest camping areas within 30 miles of any size fire, this, in an area where one could easily drive 20 miles and not see an area unburned from previous “suppressed fires”. Now, camping in the burned-out forests is entertaining, but you have to protect yourself from starving bears with “official, approved, bear-spray” at $94 a can, because you “can’t have firearms for self-protection”.

I also saw numerous government dope stores that, as one old, local, hippie put it, “Where created by Trudeau once the “home-grown”, that was once grown by hippies, had reached the “billion dollar point in sales”. Speaking of business, it was really difficult to find a convenience store not run by Sikhs or other India nationals. In the same respect, numerous economy chain-hotels and motels were generally run by Chinese “immigrants”. Of course, in places like this country’s capital, immigrants form 40% of the total urban population!

Eventually one gets hungry and restaurants have the government VAT (Value Added Tax) for dining in, which just brings the price of an average lunch or breakfast for one to about $22 US dollars. Of course, if you try and save money by buying a gallon of water from a discount store that gallon is further “enhanced in value” by the 16 cent “government environmental fee”, and while the VAT tax on food varies (and this is ALL food and is a separate tax from the dine-in fee tax) you can be sure you will be taxed multiple times. Oh, there is also a 25cent government grocery bag fee as well. By the way, the value for a liter of gasoline is set regionally, at about $4 a US gallon, and price competition by gas stations is not allowed.

Well after a long day, you can get a coffee or soda, but no straws, so you are faced with a child’s sippy cup which just seems reasonable for a socialist nightmare called British Columbia, Canada.