 Welcome to Finding Happiness in Hard Times. I'm Ken Burtness and I'm coming to you from Haleiva out at the North Shore. And today we're gonna go further north than Haleiva. We're gonna go way north, because we've got a show on the joy of Canada. And to help me, I've got my guest and friend, Brian Richardson. Welcome to the show, Brian. Thanks, Ken. I think a good place to start, because of course, as you might guess, Brian is born and raised in Canada. And he came to us from the far north and he decided to stay. So I was gonna ask you about that, Brian. What made you come here and what made you decide to stay? Well, so I came here to do a PhD in political science. And I really, I wanted to sort of get away from Canada. I thought it would be good to do a PhD somewhere else. But I didn't necessarily want to go to the United States. And so Hawaii was an obvious compromise. And I had been here before as a tourist as a small kid. And also my supervisor at the University of Victoria was very close friends with the guy who became my supervisor here in political science. And so it was really an academic connection. And I think much like a lot of people who come here, once you're here and you have connections, it's just really hard to leave. I think I would go back to Victoria. I don't know if I would go back to some places in Canada because it's way colder. So yeah, I mean, it's a great place to live. Well, that's interesting. I never knew that you came here for a PhD in political science. That's interesting because I have a degree in political science too. But instead of pursuing it, I switched to psychology which turned out to be a better fit for me, so. I went into library science, so it's yeah. Well, I guess political science is a good place to exit from especially with the politics nowadays, so. Yeah, well, yeah. I'm happy we did so. Tell us a little bit about the joy of Canada because every time I've been to Canada, I've been there a number of times. It's just been a joyous experience. And so can you tell us a little bit about what inspires the joy in you that is connected with Canada? Well, I mean, Canada is a very big place. I mean, I could really talk about Victoria, really. I mean, even Western Canada is huge. I mean, there's so much complexity there. But Victoria itself has a lot going for it. It's actually, I think, very similar to Honolulu in some ways. It's the provincial capital, which means that it has architecture and a lot of people working in government and so on. It also has great hikes. I think we have a picture here of a coastal hike. And there's also just a lot of local nature. I mean, so my mother, for instance, has a hummingbird feeder that's connected to her lanai door. And much of her time, if she's not watching hockey or curling, will spend watching the hummingbirds fight over the hummingbird feeder. So there's a lot of that. Also, in part because I think it's the provincial capital, it has a lot of museums. The Royal Provincial Museum is there. One of the local artists that I love is Emily Carr. And so there are various pictures or museums that have her work. And then there's also her childhood house and things like that. She was part of the Group of Seven, which is actually, she was associated with the Group of Seven, which is quite a well-known Canadian-wide art school movement, I guess. Around the 1900 to 1940, something like that. There's also a really good local pub scene. I mean, there's one of the things when I came to Hawaii, you have bars and you have restaurants. And in Canada, you have a lot of pubs. And so one of the things that you get then is you get like cider, which is very hard to find here. At least good ciders, hard to find here. And then there's also just the strange Canadian food that's made its way over to British Columbia. So one that people, I think, might have heard of is poutine, which is a combination of gravy, fries, and cheese curds, which was first created in Quebec somewhere. I think it was the guy in the restaurant, more or less, so just threw a bunch of stuff together in a bag and gave it to somebody. And that's where it came from. Which, you know, a lot of good food is like that. And then the other is ketchup. So we have obviously a lot of ketchup, but we also have ketchup chips, which... So in this case, this is a picture from a local Scots distillery in Victoria, and they sell Lay's ketchup chips. And apparently Canada eats more ketchup per capita than any other place in the world. I don't know if we're proud about that, but it's a way of marking who we are. So yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on in Victoria. I mean, it's an old city, well, old relative. It's from the 1860s, I think, initially. And it has a lot of great architecture. The inner harbor and so on is just amazing. A lot of 19th century, large brick buildings and so on. You know, that's one of the many times that I've come to Canada is my passion is writing. And so I love to write and I came a number of times up to the Canadian Writers' Work Retreat, which was a week long and just wonderful experience. I've been to a lot of writing retreats, and this was the best. I mean, I've even been to the Iowa School, which was wonderful, but there was something special about the Canadian writing retreat. People just loved what they were doing in the arts. Certainly in my experiences in the writing part of it, it was just joyous. And unlike a lot of other writing retreats, we had open mic at the end of the day. We would do a lot of writing during that day. We'd have lectures, all sorts of things were happening to stimulate us during the day. But at night, we could take our favorite writing and go up and be in sort of a pub atmosphere like what you're talking about. We would be gathered around and there would be an open mic there and anybody who wanted could come up and read what they had written. And the audience was always very pleasant and supportive and gave you a round of applause, whether you deserved it or not. And that was one of the things that I really enjoyed about it. I'd forgot about the ketchup though, but that was thanks for reminding me about that. Well, I get made fun of all the time here because when I go out for food here, I'll put way more ketchup on than pretty much the rest of the table combined. So, yeah. Which is a deal, I'd have a hard time surviving in Chicago because apparently you're not supposed to put ketchup on hot dogs in Chicago. Like it's a sin of some kind. So. Oh, that's interesting. I'm cool. Yeah. Let's go to some of the things, the other things. We've already talked about culture, but there are other things that Canada really shines in and Brian and I were talking about this earlier. And one of the areas is healthcare. So, maybe we could talk about that in other areas that Canada really shines and makes it pretty easy to live up there and makes people less anxious than the world is making us now. Yeah. Healthcare, there's always a but here as the sage Peewee Herman once said, all of my friends have a big but. And in this case, I think it's better, but it's not great. I mean, it's not perfect and it's probably gotten worse. I think it certainly has gotten worse over the last 20 years or so, but I think there is this commitment more in Canada to maintain a social network or a social support where you don't get a lot of people going bankrupt because of medical issues. I mean, there's all sorts of things that happen, but yeah, medical issues, there's not that fear of losing medical insurance in Canada, which I think really decreases the anxiety that people have. I mean, they don't have to stay in a job to keep healthcare and things like that. I think that Canada generally is less unequal than the United States, partly because of the taxation system, partly I think just the way that the economy works and because basic social support is better or more equal, whether it's better or not, it's another issue. So I think things like, you just don't have as many people in sort of economically desperate situations, which really contributes to the, just to the overall quality of life for everyone, right? And that's part of it is, you might have a lot of money, but if you're surrounded by desperate people, then you're not necessarily happier. And part of that then is also, I think just the way that schools and the way that education is funded is very different. And that might connect, why writing retreats in Canada might be more successful in a way as well, because I mean, there's, again, still some inequality between schools, but there's so much more sort of broad support for education, going to the university is much cheaper than it is here and so on and so forth. So yeah, there's that sort of social capital that seems to be more pervasive in Canada. Well, I think that that's one thing I've always admired about Canada. And it's something that hopefully we're gonna be working more toward in the future if ours, the United States go. And because it is difficult. And again, going back to the arts, it's tremendously supported. And here right now, we're seeing a lot of States, for instance, who are cutting back a lot of educational systems, cutting back on the funding and the classes in arts, whether it's music or art or writing or whatever. And I think that's a big mistake because that's incredibly important. I know that when we talk about Canada, I always think of the music of Canada and so many of the singers that I love and so much of the music that I love comes from Canada. And some of our great actors and actresses come from Canada as well. So it's really important and it just feels very comfortable when I'm up in Canada to have that. And like you say, let's anxious about what's gonna happen in the future. It's more low key and we'll get back more to that. Tell us a little bit about community because I think that's part of it too. When things are more equal, like you're talking about, communities, it's easier for communities to come together and there's less diversity as far as social economic class and people feel comfortable with one another, certainly in my experiences in Canada. So if we could talk about that and maybe how it contributes to the resiliency of people up in Canada, I think I find the Canadian people much very resilient, which I think is a wonderful attribute. I mean, it helps that we don't have that many hurricanes or earthquakes, but yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I think part of it is that there seems to be more of a social system. There are more open spaces. I mean, I can't compare it to a lot of the places in the US because I just haven't experienced them that well, but things like public transportation is so much more powerful. There's so much more useful in Canada. I mean, the rail could use work, but yeah, I mean, the transportation, there's hiking, biking. There's a lot of social spaces. And I think that's one of the things that hasn't happened in Canada and hopefully won't is really the extreme privatization of social spaces and that the more people are able to join together, the better things are in general. I mean, I remember seeing this picture of Paul McCartney on a train in Britain and how some people were just like, wow, he's taking the train in Britain, but the others were saying, yeah, that's not a big deal. That's what people do in a social country, right? Or yeah, and so yeah, I think the public resources are more pervasive in Canada. And I think, you and I have talked about this. I think that the weather probably has something to do with it. I mean, just in Victoria, part of it is how much it rains in Victoria. I think we have a picture of downtown Victoria here. This is a nice day because it's only slightly overcast and yeah, so there's a lot of that kind of stuff where I think people end up then going in indoors, they go to coffee shops and pubs or whatever. And then also dealing with snow and this is sort of an ongoing joke in Canada because Canada, it snows a lot in general, but not so much in Victoria, right? And so there are really two related jokes. One of them is that if you get a centimeter of snow, which is like less than half an inch, the whole city shuts down because we're just not ready to do snow. On the other hand, sometime in February or March when Ontario is just blanketed with snow, we have daffodils coming up. And so people will take pictures of their daffodils and send them to their relatives in Ontario saying, hope you're enjoying the winter, right? So we get three of both of those. I think there's a picture of Mount Tommy as well. Just to give you a sense, this is an extreme snowstorm in Victoria. I mean, every maybe seven years or so we'll get more than an inch. And yeah, so this is taken from my mother's balcony or lanai in Victoria. It overlooks a middle school. But yeah, I mean, that's the extreme weather in Victoria. It's way more sort of overcast and dreary, which again, I think brings people together in ways that you wouldn't necessarily get if the weather was nicer and you did stuff on your own all the time. Well, most of my trips to Canada I've been in the summer. So I've not noticed that as much. I'm glad you had some pictures of that because especially at times I've been in Victoria and just some beautiful days, especially when I would go to Bertard Gardens, which I love and that's a great thing. You mentioned public transportation. Well, this may not fall into that, but one of the things that Brian and I both talked about was a love of trains. And one of my things on my bucket list was the Trans-Canada train trip. And I know that you've been interested in that too. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Because that's a wonderful experience that I've yet to have. Yeah, I've never been on it, but it's always been something I'd want to do. I mean, the geography of Canada is obviously very diverse and there's that middle bit that's completely flat that you can just sleep through, I suppose. But the train also then goes through the Rocky Mountains, which the Rocky Mountains are impressive anywhere, but I think they generally are taller and more magnificent, I guess, in the British Columbia area just because they're taller and so on. Yeah, and just going through Ontario and so on, Canada's a big place, and I think it'd be fun to go across. But yeah, as I say, I haven't been. The Empress, is it technically at the end of the Rural Road? Even though it's on an island? Yeah, it's like calling the highways here the interstate, the Eisenhower interstate system, even though Hawaii doesn't really connect much to the mainland. Yeah, it's the same sort of idea. Yeah, you also mentioned that one of the things that you would like to do, because I asked Brian that what places in Canada he left on his to go to list. And one of the places you said was on the East Coast. I think to mention Nova Scotia, the islands over there, the far Eastern end, can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah, I mean, I think Halifax and so on are just very, they're old cities, they've got a really vibrant culture, a lot of really great music and so on. I think actually Quebec would be a neat place to go. It's just the very old town, very European, Quebec was separated from France before the Napoleonic, before the revolution and so on. And so it's got a really different culture. I should have a joke for you about that if you want. So this patron walks into a Montreal restaurant, which is the big city in Quebec, turns on a tap in the washroom and gets scalded by the water. So he goes to the manager and complains, this is outrageous, the faucet was marked C and it gave me boiling water. So the restaurant manager says, but Monsieur, C stands for showed, the French word for hot. You should know that, you live in Montreal. Then the guy says, well, wait a minute. The other tap is also marked C and the manager says, well, yeah, that stands for cold. After all, we are a bilingual city. Anyway, you get a lot of French and English jokes in Canada. So yeah, I think that's sort of the older part of the country. And even that is not that old compared to Europe, but it's, yeah, and the cultures are really very different. The West Coast and Ontario and Southern Ontario and so on. Yeah, I certainly agree. And I certainly enjoyed my time in the 70s. I was able to present a paper, psychological paper up in Montreal. And I really enjoyed that, except when they would yell at me for my French pronunciation. They didn't much care for my efforts at talking French. So, but other than that, they were very welcoming and it was a great trip. I really appreciate you showing some jokes because it leads us into the next area, which is Brian and my history, because we met over 20 years ago at a humor group here on Oahu called Aloha Ha. And that group was hosted by David Swift, who was a professor of sociology out at UH. And we had wonderful times for many, many years of getting together and sharing jokes and cartoons and stories that made us laugh. So we would come in and a couple of hours after the, we were finished, I mean, in a couple of hours when we were finished, we would leave feeling high, without any alcohol helping us because we were just high on laughter and high on enjoyment. So that was a very special thing where Brian and I first met and enjoyed. So tell us a little bit about one of the things that Brian did at that group was he introduced us to Canadian TV, which I had no experience with. And I guess the show that you mostly brought along and showed us little clips from our little episodes from was Corner Gas, is that right? Yeah. Yeah, and it was wonderful. And Brian's very articulate about the differences between Canadian and American humor. So maybe you could tell us a little bit about that. Sure, I don't want to commit to offering a general dissertation on this, but yeah, no, it's, so Corner Gas, it came out in 2004 and it was dead six seasons, I think. And it's just, it's set in this small town in Saskatchewan. A lot of it is situational humor, a lot of language. It's kind of like a Seinfeld thing. And you know, and part of it is it's very, it can be very specific to Canada. And I think that's one of the things that happens with Canadian humor as well as with music is that like in Corner Gas, one of the episodes was all about a Daryl Sittler rookie card. And if you don't know hockey and you don't know who Daryl Sittler was, it doesn't mean anything to you. I mean, it would be, I don't, it would be like having a Joe Namath rookie card or something like that, I guess, right? And so yeah, there was a lot of specific humor there. And like the first joke in Corner Gas was some guy from Toronto got out of a car and looked around and said, I can't see anything, right? Because this is Saskatchewan, which is all flat. And then they get into this argument about, well, no, you can see forever. There's nothing in your way. And so then it's like, well, what am I looking at anything? Cause he wanted to see mountains. He wanted to see trees. He wanted to see something. And it's basically just flat prairie land. And that's a lot of the sort of humor is kind of dry situational stuff. It sort of takes on, like it's kind of a combination, I think of British and American sources. Like we, my generation grew up on Monty Python amongst others or faulty towers. And so there's an element, there's also like an element of self-deprecating humor, I suppose, but also kind of passive aggressive, right? So like one standard joke is what's the difference between a Canadian and a canoe and a Canadian tips, right? And if you've ever worked in restaurants in Hawaii, one of the things that people say about Canadians is that we tend not to tip very well. On the other hand, one of the jokes is in what way is the U.S. better than Canada? And the U.S. has nicer neighbors. And yeah, so that's sort of, yeah. I mean, so it's, there's an edge to it, but it's not the comic edge that you sometimes are often will get with American comedians. Like there was an example, one of the shows that came out of Canada was Kids in the Hall, which was a sketch show. And they would often dress up as elderly women, much like Monty Python did, right? But they were always very kind of loving and maybe a little, I don't know, eccentric I suppose. But I remember reading an interview with the kids in the hall and they said, you know, we basically just dressed up like our mothers and then had conversations like they would have with their friends, right? So kind of plays on the stereotypes, but it's not, like they weren't mean, you know, it wasn't that kind of like English humor, I think can be mean. And yeah, and Canadian, I mean, some of it, obviously, but not a lot. So a couple of quick ones here. So how do you get 50 Canadians out of a swimming pool? You say, please get out of the swimming pool. And that's part of the stereotype of, you know, being nice, you know, or how do you get a Canadian to apologize? You step on his foot. Or the other one, and this was a bumper sticker, is someday Canada will rule the earth and then everyone will be sorry. Sorry. And in a way, like I think the whole country is just a series of dad jokes, you know, just sort of blame kind of funny, but yeah. Well, I can see from the clock that we're running down and it's hard to leave that humor. I've always loved humor, whatever, wherever it comes from and it was always a joy watching a corner gas and some of the stuff that you brought to Aloha. But since we're running a little short of time, usually what I do is I ask my guests to make some recommendations are some thoughts for the audience. The subtitle of the show today is back in the saddle again, back on the road again. And after the pandemic, I think a lot of people in this country are really interested in traveling and getting out of the house and getting out of the restricted spaces that we've been in. And hopefully a lot of these people are thinking about coming and vacationing in Canada, which is a wonderful vacation spot because it's so much like us and it's not as expensive as going some place further away and the people are really, really pleasant. So thoughts or recommendations for the audience who are thinking of coming up to Canada where they might go and what they might do. I mean, part of it is unless you like overcast skies go in the summer, there's skiing around, but not in Victoria, you have to go up up Island and so on. Gardens, as you had mentioned, is great. Having high tea at the Empress is not cheap, but it's very good. And there's the Provincial Museum, there's a lot of used bookstores, a lot of antique shops, there's great chocolate. Rogers Chocolate has been there since the 1920s, I think. They make wonderful chocolate. And there's Ciders, there's a great Scotch distillery. There's a lot of American tourists, which is not necessarily good unless you're an American tourist and want to be, want to want to hang out with them. I mean, basically, it's a nice place to hang out. It's not high energy, that might be the logo for Canada. It's a nice place to hang out. No, that's great. And we can certainly use some hanging out and some relaxation with all the stress we've been on and the anxiety and the depression that a lot of people find themselves in with the state of the world today. So it certainly fits in with the program of finding happiness in hard times or in this case, in recent times. So I really appreciate you coming on the show and sharing with me and Brian. And Canada is a place I love and it's... And I love my Canadian friends. And I really appreciate that and all the time we've spent together. I can see we've run out of time and I just wanted to thank everybody. I think Dick Hawaii, I wanted to thank Jay and Michael and Taley and Carol and that for helping and supporting us. And I'd certainly like to thank the audience for tuning in and finding a smile with us and finding a laugh which Brian really helped us today with his Canadian humor. And in a couple of weeks, we'll be back again and we'll still be going north. I've been orientated toward north and that's not uncommon being living on the North Shore. We won't go as far as Canada, but we will go north to Oregon next time. So you'll be able to see some of the joy that Oregon has to offer us as well. Until then, aloha.