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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.

Canada fully legalized marijuana seven years ago, but the Marijuana Party of Canada is still running candidates in the 2025 election for the love of the game. Canada has two communist parties — the Communist Party of Canada and Marxist-Leninist Party of Canada. They fucking hate each other.

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.

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.

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.

The following are all real names of Canadian electoral districts: - Ponoka—Didsbury - West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country - Riding Mountain - Fundy Royal - Nunavut - Cardigan - Pontiac—Kitigan Zibi - Prince Albert

Canadian votes are counted using the metric system.

I still regret that they are called twonies and not doubloons.

Toronto actually contains three of the Top 10 biggest cities in Canada.

My city has a national park that is 75 sq km. It's 23 TIMES larger than Central Park. Shout out Rouge National Urban Park. Truthfully, only part of it is in Toronto. The rest of it is in Pickering & Markham.

There's no territorial hostility like 416 vs 905 hostility.

When you vote in Canadian Federal elections, you LITERALLY MARK AN X IN A CIRCLE WITH A LITTLE PENCIL like you’d get from IKEA. Non-partisan “Elections Canada” runs the elections, not a piecemeal assemblage of state entities.

And the scrutineers cross you name off in a huge binder…using a ruler 📏 and another smallish ✏️ pencil … fascinating 😉🙋🏻‍♀️🇨🇦

While the Americans are having their own debates about trade policy and tariffs, they probably don't know that the biggest policy issue in the Canadian election is a proposal for Canada to negotiate a free trade agreement with Canada.

Ones and Tooze's special Canadian election episode was amusingly incredulous about this

In Ottawa, Canada's capital city, it is possible to ice skate along a canal to commute to work.