Things you should know when writing about Canadians!

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Okay so this one might not be as common as most, I see a few authors write about Canadian characters but not much.
I just wanted to mainly give you a little education on Canadians!

First off, us and Americans are actually very different!
Here are some of the categories that I will cover!

Laws/Country Features/Famous People difference

So there are actually a few of these, first off let’s start with drinking age!
We are legally allowed to start drinking at the age of 19-18 instead of 21 (pretty luck, eh?)

Next is that we actually have our medical bills all covered, we don’t need to pay for them!
(Another lucky feature!)

Also I would like to mention that we do have famous actors and singers in our country (Justin Beiber, Shawn Mendes)
So yeah!

Stereotypes!

We don’t drink maple syrup people, yes we love it and it is delicious but we do not drink it!
In fact, some of us actually hate it!

Next, WE DONT ALL PLAY HOCKEY!!
Seriously, my entire community plays basketball and baseball for some unknown reason (I’m a 100% full blood hockey fan)

Things we have and you don't!!! Haha

We have something called “ketchup chips” yup those are the best! Period!

We also have something called maple cookies, it’s like an Oreo but it is filled with maple syrup frost instead.

Hickory sticks!!! Omg these are the best! They are like smoked flavoured French frie chips!!

We also have something called beaver tails and no they aren’t the beaver tails on the animal! They are like a waffle type bread filled with goodness, you have to search it up!

All dressed chips! These are like ranch, salt and vinegar and bbq mixed all on one chip which sounds disgusting but is actually amazing!

We also have something called “coffee crisp” it’s like a latte coffee flavored chocolate bar and they are amazing!!

We have smarties which are actually called rockets for you guys (I think!)

There are so many more but you have to search it up! Lol

What we look like?

We are a mix of so many cultures that we actually don’t have one specific look!
But let’s just say, we like plaid… And we say “eh” a lot. I can’t deny that.

Fun Facts about Canada

Credit to @epi.sophia for these fun facts!

  • We wear toques, not beanies.
  • In Quebec, there is a french holiday called “Carnaval du Quebec” (carnival of Quebec) every year With loads of fun activities and a snowman called ‘Bonhomme’.
  • We spell the word “color” with a “u”, “colour”, Grammarly is annoying for this!
Things to know if you don't want to offend a Canadian or sound "Stupid"

Credit to @epi.sophia for this one too!

  • We have one NBA team, the Toronto Raptors.
  • No, we don’t know your second cousin that lives in Saskatchewan.
  • We don’t live all in igloos. Shocker right!
  • The national sport of Canada is lacrosse, not hockey. (Some would argue that the National Sport should be hockey)
  • Though Him Horton’s is good, we aren’t all obsessed with it and need Tim’s to survive.
  • It’s not always winter here. Summers in Canada are quite beautiful.
  • Idk why I needed to say this but It needed to be said. We don’t live under a rock, we know many american singers, Actors etc…
  • No, not all of us are obsessed with beer and need it to survive. (I’m not hating on anyone who loves beer lol)
  • We don’t say ‘sorry’ all the time.
  • We don’t live in the middle of nowhere. We have beautiful cities!
  • Not everyone speaks french.
  • We are not obsessed with Maple syrup. It’s delicious but we’re not obsessed with it. (Some people love Maple Syrup, i’m not hating)
  • We’re not all obsessed with hockey.
  • We don’t all love bacon.
  • It’s not always cold and snowing. (This may depend where you live but for the most part, it’s not always cold and snowing)
Holidays

Credit to @GRH for this one!
Our national holiday is 3 days earlier, (July 1st, “Canada Day”) our Thanksgiving, a month earlier. (October). November 11th is Remembrance Day. There’s usually one long weekend in each month of the summer, because.

Canadian Celebs (You will be surprised)

Credit to @epi.sophia for the Celebs list!
The Weeknd
Drake
Justin Beiber
Shawn Mendes
Celine Dion
Jim Carrey
Ryan Gosling
Seth Rogan
Avril Lavigne
Mike Myers
Alessia Cara
Tegan and Sara (Band)
Nickleback (Band)
Michael Buble
Justin Trudeau lol (He’s not a Celebrity, he’s our current Prime Minister lol)
Don’t forget that there are definitely a lot more!

I hope you learned a little something from this topic and maybe you will one day come to Canada to try some our odd, yet amazing features!

Feel free to follow me!

@brii_writes_epi on Instagram and feel free to message me for more questions you may have!

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I love this post so much but I just wanted to point out that in Alberta, the legal drinking age is 18
(Pls correct me if i’m wrong, I visited there a few to see my aunt and that’s what they told me haha)

More facts/info about Canada:

Cool facts?

We wear toques, not beanies.
In Canada, Smarties are called Rockets.
We have Ketchup chips.
In Quebec, there is a french holiday called “Carnaval du Quebec” (carnival of Quebec) every year With loads of fun activities and a snowman called ‘Bonhomme’.
We spell the word ‘color’ with a ‘u’, ‘colour’ (This is not how every Canadian spells it, just how it’s taught in most schools)
Same with the word ‘colour’, the word ‘favor’ or ‘favorite’ are spelled with a ‘u’ like this: ‘Favor’, ‘favourite’.(Again, this is not how every Canadian spells the words, just how it’s taught in most schools)

things to know if you don't want to offend a Canadian or sound "stupid"

We have one NBA team, the Toronto Raptors.
No, we don’t know your second cousin that lives in Saskatchewan.
We don’t live all in igloos. Shocker right!
The national sport of Canada is lacrosse, not hockey. (Some would argue that the National Sport should be hockey)
We don’t say ‘Eh’ after every word.
Though Him Horton’s is good, we aren’t all obsessed with it and need Tim’s to survive. (No hate to those who love Tim’s, I do too lol)
It’s not always winter here. Summers in Canada are quite beautiful.
Idk why I needed to say this but It needed to be said. We don’t live under a rock, we know many american singers, Actors etc…
No, not all of us are obsessed with beer and need it to survive. (I’m not hating on anyone who loves beer lol)
We don’t say ‘sorry’ all the time.
We don’t live in the middle of nowhere. We have beautiful cities!
Not everyone speaks french.
We are not obsessed with Maple syrup. It’s delicious but we’re not obsessed with it. (Some people love Maple Syrup, i’m not hating)
We’re not all obsessed with hockey.
We don’t all love bacon.
It’s not always cold and snowing. (This may depend where you live but for the most part, it’s not always cold and snowing)

General Canadian knowledge

Canada became a country on July 1st, 1867.
Our National Anthem is O Canada!
Our National Colours are Red and white
Our National Symbols are a Maple leaf, red and white flag, maple tree (national tree) and beaver (national animal)
The population of Canada is around 37 million.
We use the Celcius temperature unit.
We don’t have one or two dollar bills, we have coins. Loonies (One dollar), and Toonies (Two dollars).
Our school season (at least where I live) goes from September to June.
the Capital city of Canada is Ottawa.
The national animal of Canada is a beaver.
We live in Provinces, not States.
We don’t have a President, we have a Prime Minister.
We have Premiers, basically Prime Ministers of Provinces.
Like the creator of this post said earlier, we have free healthcare! You don’t need to pay medical bills if you go the hospital because we pay taxes that go towards that.
This one isn’t that important but if someone campaigns or is elected as the Prime minister, Premier or a mayor, they are allowed to run or be elected for the selected position as many times as they want. Not just two terms.

Canadian celebs

The Weeknd
Drake
Justin Beiber
Shawn Mendes
Celine Dion
Howie Mandel
Jim Carrey
Ryan Gosling
Seth Rogan
Avril Lavigne
Mike Myers
Alessia Cara
Tegan and Sara (Band)
Nickleback (Band)
Michael Buble
Justin Trudeau lol (He’s not a Celebrity, he’s our current Prime Minister lol)
There are more but that’s all I felt like writing :rofl:

If any of you have questions or saw an error in this post, please feel free to PM me!
That’s all from me. Bye!

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I love this information!! Definitely bookmarking this!!! :blob_hearts:

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Hey! I’m from Québec !
Isn’t the legal age 18 ? At least in Québec it’s 18 (although I think I’ve heard it’s 19 in Ontario…).
I think people forget too often that Canada has multiple francophone communities around and not only in Québec or New Brunswick. These communities might not be as big, but they’re still there. We don’t all have an English heritage and that’s sad that people only have this image of Canada.
Canadians can have any features and any skin colours as it’s not an ethnicity.

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Yes, the legal drinking age varies by province but is generally around 18 or 19.

Our celebs are generally only celebrities when they’re famous somewhere else.

We aren’t all nice and polite. In fact we have problems with racism too, and some dark moments in our history.

We have free medical care, but a lot of stuff like medications and therapies you still need insurance or pay out of pocket. There are free options but you have to wait a long time. However, we don’t have to “decide if you’re REALLY sick” before seeking medical attention.

We have the Metric system (mostly… lots of people use one system for measuring one thing and another for the other. My wife insists on Fahrenheit for temperatures, I prefer Celsius. ) and it’s on our packaging, alongside the imperial measurements and our two official languages, English and French (we learn some in school but lots of people are not bilingual, although you’re required to be to work in the government.)

We generally don’t own guns but that varies. Americans have more mass shooting incidents in a year than we do in decades. An infamous one was in a university in Quebec in 1989 were the shooter specifically targeted women. A recent one in Nova Scotia the shooter disguised himself as a cop (RCMP) and went around shooting random people. It’s a big deal when it happens here.

And Tim Hortons chain, although started by a former hockey player of the same name is no longer Canadian owned. It’s just that they’re EVERYWHERE (like McDonald’s, only there are more of them) and they have an effective marketing strategy playing on our patriotism. Ignore what they say on Tik Tok.

We spell things with the U included. Colour, neighbour, honour. We’re sort of halfway between Britain and America in many ways.

Our national holiday is 3 days earlier, (July 1st, “Canada Day”) our Thanksgiving, a month earlier. (October). November 11th is Remembrance Day. There’s usually one long weekend in each month of the summer, because.

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Tysm! I forgot all about the toques, what the hell is a beanie??!!

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Ty!! I will add in some of these!

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Yeah, I’m an Ontario girl so yeah LOL!
Quebec is so beautiful though and they have THE BEST poutines.

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Awww thanks!

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And there’s no bagel as good as a Montreal bagel.

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Lol! Very true.

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As someone from Michigan, I feel like we should have been apart of Canada instead :sob:

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:joy: I wish

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Thank you!! This information is extremely helpful! :sparkling_heart:

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No problem!! Glad I could help!! <3

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thank you! I had to block one “fanmail” once because I’m Canadian and they said
A writer should know that it’s favorite not “favourite” and they proceeded to call me illiterate

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Omg, that’s awful!!! I am an author too and I had one person tell me that I need to spell “colour” as “color”.

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It was also stupid because my story was literally based in Canada :rofl:

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LOL!!! Yeah exactly!

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oh and the age of consent is 16 depending on what Province you live in.
I saw an author get hate because a 16 and 18 year old were dating but the story was based in Toronto, Ontario, which is allowed.
The US isn’t the only country :no_mouth:

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