Canada At War Quotes & Sayings

Before this war is over,' [Walter] said - or something said through his lips - 'every man and woman and child in Canada will feel it - you, Mary, will feel it - feel it to your heart's core. You will weep tears of blood over it. The Piper has come - and he will pipe until every corner of the world has heard his awful and irresistible music. It will be years before the dance of death is over - years, Mary. And in those years millions of hearts will break. — L.M. Montgomery

But Canada remains a crucial partner in this global war on terrorism, and we are grateful for that. Canadian naval vessels, aircraft and military personnel continue anti-terrorist operations in the Persian Gulf. — Paul Cellucci

In the course of waging that war, the people of Canada had shown that it was possible for them to maintain nearly a million men in uniform and at the same time expand all the facilities for production within Canada at an unprecedented speed, including building industries which had never existed in Canada before ... and by and large the cost of production in Canada compared favourable with the cost of production anywhere else among the Allies ... All of this was accomplished without any foreign investment, without and foreign loans ... We were quite capable of self-development. — Tim Buck

Coal is a portable climate. It carries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle; and it is the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and Stephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a half-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by rail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its comfort brings its industrial power. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

War with Canada was far less of an enigma to me than what Aunt Evelyn was going to use for a toilet during the night — Philip Roth

I have received your new book against the human race, and thank you for it. Never was such a cleverness used in the design of making us all stupid. One longs, in reading your book, to walk on all fours. But as I have lost that habit for more than sixty years, I feel unhappily the impossibility of resuming it. Nor can I embark in search of the savages of Canada, because the maladies to which I am condemned render a European surgeon necessary to me; because war is going on in those regions; and because the example of our actions has made the savages nearly as bad as ourselves. [in response to Rousseau's "The Social Contract"] — Voltaire

Although much has been written of the exploits of Canadians who answered the call to arms in World Wars I and II, nothing has been written about the young men who flocked to join the Cold War. Thanks to Canada's menacing presence, Russia has never invaded Germany.
The author menaced Russia, as a fighter pilot based in NATO Europe during the 1950s. Much of the material herein is derived from his diaries of that period. Some names have been changed to protect the guilty. Accounts have been embellished. No harm or libel is intended. The harm is to the author's self-image. The diaries reveal that he was brash and intolerant. He considers it one of life's miracles that his friends put up with him. — R.J. Childerhose

I have spent weeks in the desert, forgetting to look at the moon, he says, as a married man may spend days never looking into the face of his wife. These are not sins of omission but signs of pre-occuopation. — Michael Ondaatje

Also, the world contains a lot of people. The statistics of power-law distributions and the events of the past two centuries agree in telling us that a small number of perpetrators can cause a great deal of damage. If somewhere among the world's six billion people there is a zealot who gets his hands on a stray nuclear bomb, he could single-handedly send the statistics through the roof. But even if he did, we would still need an explanation of why homicide rates fell a hundredfold, why slave markets and debtors' prisons have vanished, and why the Soviets and Americans did not go to war over Cuba, to say nothing of Canada and Spain over flatfish. — Steven Pinker

The attendant walked closer. "Where'd you come from, soldier?"
Tree tried to think of a recent war and coudn't, so he said, "Canada."
The attendant looked surprised. "Canada?"
"It was a secret mission," Grandpa said.
"It saved the Republic," Wild Man whispered. — Joan Bauer

My TV show enraged people. I had prostitutes on, and I treated them like real people ... I was fired from Maclean's after I wrote a piece called 'Let's Stop Hoaxing The Kids About Sex'. Now I'm the 'beloved author,' the 'beloved historian of Canada,' an icon. I get standing ovations ... I never set out to be a patriot or a popular historian. I just liked storytelling. [interview promoting Marching as to War (2002)] — Pierre Berton

In 'Off to War, Voices of Soldier's Children,' kids from Canada and the United States talk about what it is like when their mother or father goes off to war - and comes home again. — Deborah Ellis

People all over the world now are following our election. And according to a new international poll that just came out, I think this came out a few hours ago, this is true, people in Canada want Barack Obama to be the next U.S. president. That's what they're saying. In Canada, yeah. That makes sense, because Obama has the support of Canada's anti-war voters, as well as Canada's black guy. He is very excited. — Conan O'Brien

Canada entered World War I as a colony and came out a nation ... — Bruce Hutchison

At this season of the year we draw close to Good Friday. All the eyes of the world will turn back to "a green hill far away, without a city wall," where the founder of Christianity was crucified by those forces of selfishness, greed, and lust for gain that are still at work in the world. It seems to me that unless we do something in Canada about the question of the export of war materials there will be another crucifixion - the crucifixion of a generation of young men, crucified upon a cross of nickel. — Tommy Douglas

I was never the mythic lucky-born after all, the post-war harbinger of hope, peace and progress. That hope and faith grew in parental minds. It all fell apart when we moved to Canada. We brought the War with us, tattooed on our souls. — Kaimana Wolff

The Canadian government continues to say they will not help us if we go to war with Iraq. However, the prime minister of Canada said he'd like to help, but he's pretty sure that last time he checked, Canada had no army. — Conan O'Brien

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose
and you allow him to make war at pleasure ... If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us'; but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I see it, if you don't. — Abraham Lincoln

From the outset of the war, the Canadian people have clearly shown that it is their desire to help in every way to make Canada's war effort as effective as possible. — William Lyon Mackenzie King

I wouldn't choose conscientious objector and I wouldn't go to Canada. I did what Hap did and almost went to prison. I think the threw me a bone as the war was winding down, and I think they accepted my sincerity for being against that war. — Joe R. Lansdale

I believe we could see a North American Union formed. Why else are our borders with Mexico and Canada being left wide open some six years into a War on Terror? — George Noory

Victoria Park looks like every other inner-city park in every other city in Canada; a large and handsome memorial to the war dead surrounded by a square block of hard-tracked grass and benches where people can sit and look at statues of politicians or at flower beds planted with petunias and marigolds, the cheap and the hardy, downtown survivors. — Gail Bowen

There are those who are trying hard to do something about these threats, and others who are acting to escalate them. If you, this future historian or extraterrestrial observer, looked at who is in each group, you would see something strange indeed: those trying to mitigate or overcome these threats are the least developed societies - the indigenous populations, or the remnants of them; tribal societies; and first nations in Canada. They're not talking about nuclear war but environmental disaster, and they're really trying to do something about it. — Noam Chomsky

During the last war when there was a market for everything that could be produced, the production capacity of Canada and the United States, which were outside the battle area, increased one hundred percent. — John Boyd Orr

There's a big thing in Canada that parents need to talk to their children about drugs and sex. I don't think talking to your kids about war is any less important than that. — Deborah Ellis

At that time a lot of young men didn't want to go to the war and kill. This guy that I fell in love with was one of those so he escaped to Canada and I followed him. — Ann Wilson

While the very inhabitants of New England were thus fabling about the country a hundred miles inland, which was a terra incognitato them, ... Champlain, the first Governor of Canada, ... had already gone to war against the Iroquois in their forest forts, and penetrated to the Great Lakes and wintered there, before a Pilgrim had heard of New England. — Henry David Thoreau

England would be better off without Canada; it keeps her in a prepared state for war at a great expense and constant irritation. — Napoleon Bonaparte

Another part of the global war on terrorism that Canada and the United States are working on together is in helping failed states, states like Afghanistan, where people have no voice. — Paul Cellucci

I'm a Canadian. Outside Canada I carry the flag. Canadian nationalism isn't as insidious as American nationalism, though. It's good natured. It's all about maple syrup, not war. — Feist

The increased consumption of alcoholic beverages in Canada since the outbreak of war is one evidence of this. — William Lyon Mackenzie King

In the twelve months immediately preceding the outbreak; of war, the quantity of spirits, both domestic and imported released for sale in Canada, amounted to over three and a half million proof gallons. — William Lyon Mackenzie King

I move countries every three or four years. I was born in London, and we lived in Canada. Then we lived in Saudi Arabia until the Gulf War broke out, when we were forced to leave. Then we hop-scotched for a while from Holland back to Canada back to Saudi Arabia. Then there was D-day, so we had to get out again. — Hannah Simone

Mexico is sex and Canada is mind. There is much about Canada that I find admirable - the treatment of immigrants, for example, particularly those from Central America during the recent civil wars there. But there is confusion too: I know of Croatian Nazis who are subsidized by the Canadian government to maintain their racist culture. There is Canada, trying to sustain diversity without knowing exactly what it's doing. — Richard Rodriguez

Then we can help these failed states turn around and give their people a better life. This, too, is a critical part of this global war on terrorism, and Canada and the United States are together. — Paul Cellucci

Between 1939 and 1945 you produced weapons and war equipment valued at thirteen billion dollars, 70 per cent of which you shipped to your allies. The same process is going on today in Canada's much larger and growing industry. — Arthur Hays Sulzberger

Canada is lacking two things. It's true. Don't make me say it again. The first is Olympic Heroes [ ... ] The second thing that Canada is lacking is Memorial Day, which is today by the way, where we in the States celebrate our war heroes by having barbeques . And I realize here in Canada you can't have barbeques because you'd probably be attacked by a moose, or caribou, or even a grizzly. — Kurt Angle

Napoleon didn't take Moscow, the Nazis got within 21 miles in 1943, but in a war of a different kind, Team Canada conquered Moscow. — Dick Beddoes

Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada, you were safe unless someone came and hauled you back. That was also true during the Vietnam War for draft resisters. — Margaret Atwood

In any democracy, there is always a tug-of-war between policies to achieve equality and policies to promote excellence. I am certain that Canada can achieve both equality and excellence. — John Turner

Churchill is the very type of a corrupt journalist. There is not a worse prostitute in politics. He himself has written that it'sunimaginable what can be done in war with the help of lies. He's an utterly amoral repulsive creature. I'm convinced that he has his place of refuge ready beyond the Atlantic. He obviously won't seek sanctuary in Canada. In Canada he'd be beaten up. He'll go to his friends the Yankees. As soon as this damnable winter is over, we'll remedy all that. — Adolf Hitler

But not all Gaza residents were committed to the war. A reporter asked one of the Arabs what he most wanted. He was a taxi driver, father of ten. All he wanted was 'to eat and to work.' What did he think of Nasser? 'Nasser is good, Israel is good, America is good, Britain is good, Canada is good, India is good, Anything is good. — Robert John Donovan