July 1 was Canada Day. To honour (!) the country of my birth, here are a few interesting items about Canada.
1. Canada (The name "Canada" comes from the Huron and Iroquois word "Kanata" meaning "village".) is the second largest country in the world and became independent on July 1, 1867 (Confederation Day)
2. Canada stretches across 6 time zones and borders three oceans (Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic), thus having the world’s longest coastline.
3. Covering nearly half its land mass, Canada’s forests represent about 10% of the world’s forests.
4. One quarter of the world’s fresh water is in Canada.
5. Canada is the world's leader in the production of potash and uranium, and is the third largest diamond producing nation on earth.
6. The Trans-Canada Highway, running from St. John’s Newfoundland to Victoria, British Columbia, is the longest national highway in the world at 7604 KM long.
7. Canada is America’s largest trading partner (both in imports and exports) and its largest export to the US is petroleum products…over 2,300,000 barrels per DAY…but US soybean imports from Canada were up 152% from 2007 to 2008.
8. Canadian life expectancy at birth is 80.34 years (#14 in the world) while US is 78.06 years (and #45.)
9. Canadians have invented many staples of everyday life: the candy bar, the gas mask, SONAR, IMAX, basketball, garbage bags, peanut butter, and the snow plow. I understand why the last one.
10. In 2007, Research in Motion, developer of the Blackberry, passed the Royal Bank of Canada as the largest company in Canada.
Please let me know if this is of interest to you. I welcome your feedback!
HARD
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