Country Profile: 70 Facts & Figures About Canada

Tap water in Canada is held to a higher health standard than bottled water.

52. More Canadian soldiers died from suicide than from combat in recent 10-year war in Afghanistan

53. A man in Canada smuggles Trader Joe's branded groceries from the US to sell in his store "Pirate Joes" in Canada.

54. Terry Fox, a 21-year-old one-legged cancer patient, ran 3,339 miles across Canada in 143 days before dying. He ran the equivalent of a full marathon every day and was the youngest person ever named a Companion of the Order of Canada.

55. Canada has sold hundreds of millions of tons of asbestos to developing and 3rd world countries with no regulations against cancer causing substance with no warning while knowing fully well the dangers of the product.

You can be denied immigration to Canada if you have a health condition that may "cause excessive demands on health or social services".

57. There is a town in Canada called "Redditt". It had a Highway 666 running through it, but a church successfully petitioned to have it renumbered so that their address wasn't on the "highway to hell."

58. Canada has a free service run by volunteers to drive you home if you're too drunk to drive yourself during the holiday season

59. In Canada, text messages to landlines are converted into voice messages, so friends or family members who don't have a mobile phone can listen on a landline. English and French supported.

60. Canada abruptly canceled the development of its own fighter jet (Avro Arrow) in the 1950s in favor of Nuclear missiles (Bomarcs). All the engineers left for NASA thereafter.

Before Vermont became a state they tried to become part of Quebec, but Quebec refused so Vermont joined the United States instead.

62. Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha! in Quebec, Canada, is the only town in the world with two exclamation points in its name.

63. You cannot enter Canada from the USA with a DUI on your record.

64. Scientists have found 1.5-billion-year-old water in a mine 1.5 miles beneath Ontario, Canada

65. Canada built a reservoir within the remnant of an ancient eroded meteor crater. Visible from space, it is known as "The Eye of Quebec".

An experimental program called Mincome existed in Canada in the 1970's and gave everyone a minimum income just for being a citizen. It resulted in slightly fewer hours worked, but saw overall increases in health, happiness, and educational achievement.

67. At 11 a.m. each November 11th at the Canadian War Museum, the sun shines through the window of the Museum's Memorial Hall and illuminates the only artifact in that space: the headstone of Canada's Unknown Soldier.

68. The first Thanksgiving in North America was held in 1578 in what is now Canada which happened 43 years before the Pilgrims arrived at Plymouth Rock.

69. No cow in Canada can be given artificial hormones to increase its milk production. So no dairy product in Canada contains those hormones.

70. California has a larger population than all of Canada.