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A lot of Americans don't know this, but the winner of the Canadian election will be required live in a small cottage located in the backyard of the palace where the viceroy to the King of England lives. The cottage just recently got a new wifi router, which was very exciting for all Canadians.

The Canadian election is actually 338 local elections. After the votes are counted, the winners will gather in a big room to vote on a ceremonial leader, and then drag him kicking and screaming to sit in a big chair, which is tradition because the King of England used to chop off people's heads.

In Canada, when our head of government needs to make an extremely important decision, we call that "going for a long walk in the snow."

While American political scandals are typically called a "-gate" after Watergate, in Canada we also have political scandals, but we call them a "fuddle-duddle" for reasons I can't really go into right now.

Only a few years ago it was literally illegal to tweet about Canadian election results on election night, because we didn't want British Columbia to know what was happening. People seriously discussed whether the federal government might send somebody to jail for tweeting.

While Canada has 10 provinces and 3 territories, arguably the most important political delineation is "Upper Canada" and "Lower Canada" which is best understood as a sort of national historical dom/sub thing.

Canada has five politically significant islands: - Montreal - Vancouver - Prince Edward - Newfoundland - Cape Breton Each of these islands is confusing in various ways.

The City of Vancouver is not on Vancouver Island. Prince Edward Island is a province but probably shouldn't be. Cape Breton is not a province but thinks it is. Newfoundland is only half a province. Montreal was the biggest city in Canada until some shit happened in the 1970s.

Ok I gotta get some work done, but I will post more Canadian civics lessons throughout the day if I can think of any other important aspects of our rich national fabric that are worth posting about.

A bunch of people have corrected me, that the Canadian election is not 338 smaller elections. It's actually 343 smaller elections. Why did the number change? Because Canada got richer in the past four years, and we can afford five extra so we decided to splurge.

Politically and economically, Ontario is by far the most important part of Canada. But because people have a lot of feelings, Canadian politicians are traditionally expected to pretend that every other part of Canada is more important.

@skyreader.io unroll

@skyreader.io unroll

While the United States only has the four time zones, Canada has five and a half time zones. Also, the province of Saskatchewan flips back and forth between two different time zones because it needed to be interesting in at least one way.

To be fair. Saskatchewan just stays put and everyone else does daylight savings. Kinda like Istanbul and Constantinople.

Canada's flag is red because that's the favoured colour of one of Canada's main political parties, and if you win enough elections you can get away with doing that kind of thing.

It is my understanding that Paul Martin, when PM, had the precise colour of the leaf & bars adjusted slightly so that they would be consistent with the Liberal Red being used at that time.

A lot of Americans don't know that top government officials are actually required by Canadian law to say everything twice — in French and in English. On the rare occasions when the prime minister forgets, people shout "En français, s'il vous plait!" at him.

And the traditional pirouette James, don't forget about the pirouette!!

6 time zones! six! We have our own timezone here! It's not a half time zone! It's a complete time zone! [Now I'm wondering, why did a NL premier call you an arsehole? Was it this timezone thing? Cause we have our own time zone! 6 time zones!]

I spent literally a year of nights and weekends researching the NL time zone. I interviewed Brian Peckford about double-daylight saving time. I read the historical record about Joey trying not once but twice to move Newfoundland onto Atlantic time. I feel qualified to speak about time zones.