Another 10 things about Canada

11. Our chest of drawers is called Malm. Our desk lamp is named Format. Our couch cover is titled Tacka Lillbo. Our standing lamps are christened Not. Ikea is both cool and strange at the same time.

12. Hamilton buses have special hydraulic lift arrangements that lower to street level to allow wheelchair-bound passengers to wheel themselves right on.

13. Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories. Pretty much everyone lives in Ontario, Quebec, Alberta, British Columbia or Manitoba. Alberta (oil-guzzling cowboys) and Quebec (contrary frogs) hate each other.

14. The Liberal party in Canada is actually liberal (small l), or at least centre-left. The New Democratic Party (NDP), which is a bit like the Australian Democrats, is further left again, and actually wins seats in the lower house. The conservative party are called the Conservative party, and used to be called the Progressive Conservative party but decided to drop the Progressive part. They just got elected to power, and their campaign advisers have previously helped John Howard win elections. We're scared.

15. The federal election system uses first-past-the-post voting to elect members to individual electorates/seats, and the party with the most seats in the House of Commons gets to govern. In spite of this, Canada usually has minority governments because Quebec votes for Bloc Quebecois, Alberta and Saskatchewan vote Conservative, the inner cities vote NDP, and everyone else votes Liberal. These minority governments, while unstable, at least provide protections that the Senate doesn't - Senators are appointed rather than elected.

16. 95% of the Canadian population is crowded to within a couple of hundred kilometeres of the south border with the USA. In Mike Moore's 1995 comedy film "Canadian Bacon", the American government used this fact as part of a propaganda campaign to demonise Canada and start a war.

17. They sell frozen juice here!? You get a 400ml can of juice concentrate that stays in the freezer til you need it, then you mix it with water to get about a litre and a half of juice. And it is pretty much like the stuff on the non-refrigerated shelf we used to lug home in Australia. Very convenient!

18. They sell pre-cooked bacon, and it is scary. It comes frozen and it "looks" like cooked bacon, sort of. You microwave it. However it seems to have far more actual meat on it than the bacon in the fridge aisle which is extremely fatty. Even the bacon from the organic butcher is maybe 50% meat on a good day. (This is to say nothing of the "back bacon" that I had in a bagel at the Magic tournament on the weekend. That was not bacon! That was some weird burger meal patty where I could practically taste the preservatives. Bleagh!)

19. We are getting sun in January because it's unseasonally warm. I'm told we don't usually get this much sun, or any sun at all this time of year, so we are making the most of it. Actually we have no choice because we have no curtains in the living room.

20. Just over a hundred years ago, in response to intelligence suggesting the USA might annex Canada, the Canadian army infiltrated Washington, burned down the White House, and then left again, all as a way of saying "Don't even think about it!" True story! Needless to say, the USA have suppressed this little-known bit of history.