Canadian Crossing

Canadian film review: Percy

Based on a true story. What an amazing, actually true story. Not just the saga of Percy Schmeiser, a Saskatchewan farmer on the wrong side of Monsanto, but the thousands of farmers forced to settle with the large conglomerate.

The story is a true David-Goliath saga (Percy is also known as Percy vs. Goliath). Monsanto would be an exaggerated villain if the company didn't exist.

The problem with the Percy film is that the dialogue is so terrible. Yea, yea, you've said that about other films. The New Romantic dialogue was terrible but not on this level.

Christopher Walken can clearly act though the script making good acting rather difficult. Walken feels like a really poor choice for this character but that feels low on the list of complaints.

Fellow American actors Christina Ricci and Zach Braff feel out of place as well. They, along with Walken, do their best. The scene where Ricci's character orders in a diner is best found in Stereotypes 101. Braff's character has a cane, not known if that is based on the actual lawyer character or an offbeat add to the film.

Roberta Maxwell plays Louise Schmeiser, Percy's wife. Maxwell, one of the few Canadians in the cast, has the most awkward, terrible dialogue in the whole film, which is saying something.

Garfield Lindsay Miller and Hilary Pyror wrote the film. We don't know why the dialogue is this terrible, cringeworthy even.

The relatively good part about Percy? The film doesn't waste time in the beginning with an elaborate open. We pretty much are there at the beginning with the start of the story. The film is a blow-by-blow essence of the actual story. We apparently aren't here for character development, except for when Percy buys a large tractor in the beginning of the film.

Clark Johnson, a fine Canadian actor, has directed a few feature films and a lot of television, directed this film. The direction is okay. Not much you can do with the script. Not sure Charles Officer, who directed Johnson in Nurse.Fighter.Boy, could save this film.

If you can get past the dialogue and if you don't know the story, please watch this film. That may seem contradictory but the story is that important. Glyphosate, the primary ingredient in Roundup, is a disaster to the American and Canadian farming industry. You may know the phrase GMO; you will learn a lot more about it in the film.

Canadian actors Luke Kirby and Adam Beach have brief appearances. They have been in much better projects on both sides of the border.

You feel like Monsanto came in and rewrote the script so people won't know this story. Given what Monsanto did and has done, that sounds rather plausible.

Canadian film case study: The New Romantic

The sugar daddy concept making its way into Canadian films

Canadian film review: Nurse Fighter Boy

Your humble narrator would argue that the story of Percy Schmeiser would make an excellent documentary. Explaining the whole Monsanto nightmare requires that level of concentration. Some people who need to know the story might prefer the storytelling motive of a feature film.  

Having large names such as Christopher Walken, Christina Ricci, and Zach Braff draws more attention than a documentary. Some of that potential audience might not care that the dialogue is as terrible as it is. Percy is made for this subsection of a subsection. You will learn. Entertained? Not as likely.

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Percy is available on Crave in Canada and on demand in the United States.

video credit: YouTube/Mongrel Media
photo credit: Percy

Canadian film review: The Pizza City You've Never Heard Of

I've been to Windsor more times than I can count. I've heard a few people from Windsor tell me over the years they have great pizza in Windsor. No one really explained what was so special about Windsor pizza.

The Pizza City You've Never Heard Of is Windsor, just south of Detroit tucked away in a pocket in southwestern Ontario.

George Kalivas has a career in the world of music in Toronto but misses Windsor pizza. So along with director Tristan Laughton and Kalivas as writer, narrator, and host, the film sets out to tell us what makes Windsor pizza so distinct.

The intriguing comparison is New Haven, CT in the United States, a city that has an established pizza identity in a smaller town. Kalivas conveys that Windsor has unique pizza traditions.

• flour crust with cornmeal on the bottom
• sweet sauce using sweeter tomatoes such as San Marzano or tomatoes from California
• Galati cheese company making high fat mozzarella that is stringy when you pull out a slice
• shredded pepperoni
• canned mushrooms

As someone who makes a lot of homemade pizza, your humble narrator sauteed mushrooms before putting them on the pizza. Kalivas and his experts point out that canned mushrooms are used because they never burn, unlike raw mushrooms.

The shredded pepperoni approach is that you get pepperoni in every bite. 

Kalivas starts out at his favourite Windsor Pizzeria. As he takes us to several other places, such as Arcata Pizzeria and Capri Pizzeria (across the street from each other), and Antonino's Pizza, they point out that while the pizzas are similar, people have their favourites from generations back in time.

The documentary traces the story of Windsor pizza back to Volcano in 1957 and how every pizzeria can tie their pizza back to the pizza at Volcano.

One other element of Windsor pizza is the rather large number of toppings. The large super has a lot of toppings though Kalinas does not explain as to what ingredients should go on a large super or whether different pizzerias have unique versions of large super.

For example, Capri defines a super pizza as having "mozzarella, shredded pepperoni, bacon, mushrooms, and green peppers."   

The documentary bounces to different part of the cities but does spend quite a bit of time on East Erie Street, which is the Little Italy section in Windsor.

Cheap pizza is now a thing in Canada

Your humble narrator has an intolerance of mozzarella cheese so pizza isn't high on the call list of potential dinner options. Some New Haven places have a tomato pie type option with Parmesan instead of mozzarella. Indulging in mozzarella produces headaches, so I could try this out for myself.

The super pizza, even with the shredded pepperoni, sounds good. Watching the documentary does make you want to try the pizza.

Kalivas takes us to a lot of pizza choices in a relatively small town. He even interviews Peter Vitti, co-owner of Spago (not that Spago), even though they don't do Windsor style pizza. The film is about Windsor pizza and also about Windsor and food obsession.

Having a pizza obsession in Canada is a bit intriguing because pizza is expensive in Canada. Americans think of pizza as being cheap. This is an expensive obsession in Canada, mostly because of the Canadian cheese being more expensive than cheaper cheese from the United States.

CanadianCrossing.com film reviews

CanadianCrossing.com film coverage

The pace of the film is strong. The presentation is very straight forward. They resist the temptation to bash other types of pizza; the film exists to tell you how good the pizza is in Windsor and why the pizza is unique.

The Pizza City You've Never Heard Of runs 51 minutes. The film ran on the Absolutely Canadian series that airs on CBC television.

video credit: YouTube/Lrg Super
photo credit: The Pizza City You've Never Heard Of

Canadian ads from fall 2022 NHL Center Ice free preview

In my fast food days, I wanted French fries and onion rings. Most places didn't have onion rings. If they did, the fries were often better.

Harvey's allows you to have both French fries and onion rings aka frings. Both look good, based on the ad that ran during the NHL Center Ice free preview of Canadian NHL teams feeds to start the 2022-2023 NHL season.

The preview was not long: 4 days.

Your humble narrator hasn't spent much time in Canada, because, pandemic. Haven't been to a Harvey's in a lot longer period of time. Poutine. Deep fried pickles. Fries with rings. This is not the Harvey's I remember.

Canadian ads from fall 2021 NHL Center Ice free preview

Canadian ads from spring 2021 NHL Center Ice free preview

This Rogers Communications ad came on the heels of the huge outage in July of this year. A outage so huge that Wikipedia literally has a page devoted to the impact of that outage.

The only thing Canadians can agree on is that the large telecoms (Rogers and Bell) suck at what they do.

Does this ad convince you Rogers (or anyone else) will do better in customer service? No. Do the people in these boardrooms think these ads are great? Do workers fear telling their bosses that the ads aren't that great? Absolutely.

Bad apologies are often better than no apologies, up to a point.

Your humble narrator has severely cut down on French fries consumption during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has been especially true at home. The idea of having a bad day and making it a McCain's "fry-day" is cute. Each member of the family has their terrible moment of the day and feels better with frozen French fries baked in the oven. This ad ties in emotions well.

One can celebrate with carbohydrates but do so responsibly.

CanadianCrossing.com territories coverage

CanadianCrossing.com travel coverage

We are a sucker for Canadian tourism ads because the toughest audience of those to see parts of Canada is, well, other Canadians. Some of the Northwest Territories are south of the North of 60. This refers to 60° latitude, ⅔ the way to the North Pole from the equator. 

Hockey Day in Canada in the winter of 2020 was based in Yellowknife, a rare look into the territories. They had a contest to win a trip to the north to Whitehorse (Yukon), Yellowknife (Northwest Territories), or Iqaluit (Nunavut).

You can still find trees in Yellowknife at 62° latitude but the treeline is not far away where trees do not grow. The area is beautiful and quite remote.

Love the cleverness of the campaign to tie in stories with the experience of traveling there.

Canadian government promos in the COVID-19 era

Canadian ads from winter 2021 NHL Center Ice free preview

Sidney Crosby and Nathan McKinnon are excellently talented Canadian NHL players who play for American teams. They have become the spokespeople for Tim Hortons trading cards. 

They don't speak much. Crosby offers to trade his card of himself to a kid. A guy yells out from his truck once the players are outside. "Hey, McKinnon. Where's the Cup?" McKinnon holds up a Tim Hortons cup. The guy in the truck was asking about the Stanley Cup, which McKinnon finally won over the early summer.

I saw a Joe Fresh ad with mindless models wearing okay clothes. I know Joe Fresh sells clothes but I automatically assume Joe Fresh is a grocery store. Even when I know, I still make that assumption.

We hate gambling ads because they are geared toward an audience that knows about same game parlays. Gambling ads are not trying to get the casual person involved. If you know the world, you are invited.

The idea of a guy sitting in a bathroom at a party, obsessing over how to bet. The bathroom is larger than almost any bathroom you have seen. Suddenly, American actor Jon Lovitz pops into the bathroom. Lovitz is louder than the guy wants him to be. Lovitz points to a bet on the guy's phone and tells him to pick that bet.

We don't normally post ads that are terrible but this one needed attention. Most gambling type people likely don't know who Lovitz is. I do know who Lovitz is (he is very talented) and I knew that was a problem for this ad.

Made me miss Jon Hamm doing ads for Skip the Dishes.

Citytv, a Rogers property, is generally fourth among the 4 major Canadian networks. The network produces fewer Canadian TV shows of note and doesn't offer a national newscast.

Citytv+ allows customers to stream content from Citytv, FX, FXX, as well as Omni. All of this is available for $4.99/month through Prime Video.

Canadians can stream Citytv programming for free, just like Americans can do for its over-the-air networks. Then again, most Canadians can't get Citytv with an antenna.

KFC was advertising its Bacon Lovers Sandwich. I loved what KFC was doing a few decades back. While we are not a fan of the Baconator at Wendy's, that was a sandwich that celebrated bacon. A huge, likely tasteless piece of fried chicken with the orange sauce would take away from the presence of the bacon.

Real bacon lovers will stay at home and make a great BLT to appreciate the bacon.

CanadianCrossing.com advertising coverage

Thanks for checking out our collection of Canadian advertising.

photo and video credits: the companies

Canadian film review: Beerocracy

Samantha Bee loved taking potshots at the Beer Store and LCBO in Ontario, and the whole concept of government-run outlets to buy alcohol on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Beerocracy puts us in the middle of the battle between craft beers and New Brunswick, a province that gets buried in terms of knowledge and news.

The documentary tells the stories of these craft brewers and how they want more opportunities to get the beer to people in New Brunswick. The story is told in a low-key fashion. It's not quite at the ASMR level but still a subtle presentation.

This is a hobby and yet they also want to make money off this hobby.

Writers/directors Alex Vietinghoff and Shauna Chase spend their time on those fighting to get more space in those stores for craft beers. The enemy is the the New Brunswick Liquor Corporation, aka Alcool NB Liquor.

The filmmakers note that New Brunswick has the highest adult illiteracy rates and obesity rates in Canada. Young people are moving out of the province to find work. The 750,000 or so population in the province: not all of them will go into craft beer.

Building jobs and businesses in New Brunswick isn't easy, so why not help out the people by allowing them to sell craft beer.

New Brunswick switches out one newspaper monopoly for another one

CanadianCrossing.com New Brunswick coverage

We learn a bit about New Brunswick in the 2017 film. The province gets very little news coverage, especially since the English language newspaper monopoly isn't friendly for sharing stories. This film gives a rare window into the province, especially for English language speakers.

CanadianCrossing.com film reviews

CanadianCrossing.com film coverage

Beerocracy is a good watch if you like beer, have an odd hobby, hate government bureaucracy, live in Maine and are curious about your neighbours to the east, or otherwise interested in Canada's only officially bilingual province.

Beerocracy is available in the United States via Amazon Prime Video.

Canadian film review: Peace by Chocolate

Peace by Chocolate is a feel good film based from a very feel good story. Tareq (Ayham Abou Ammar), a Syrian man arrives in Antigonish, Nova Scotia straight from a refugee camp in Lebanon. "Where's the town?" "This is the town."

The family knows people in Toronto but Tareq ends up a long way from there. His father and mother soon arrive. The father Issam (Hatem Ali) was a chocolatier before his plant was blown up in the civil war in Syria.

Tareq wants to be a doctor; his father wants to be useful.

The town has a chocolate place run by Kelly (Alika Autran). Issam thinks he can do better. With relatively primitive equipment, Issam produces amazing chocolates that their Canadian immigration sponsor Frank Gallant (Mark Camacho) helps sell at the local church.

There are tensions at various points. A lot of the film is centered on Tareq, who is the only one who can speak English in the family, applying to medical schools despite his family's needs to have him around.

Jonathan Keijser (director, co-writer with Abdul Malik) gives the audience a no nonsense presentation of the story. Small tidbits such as throwing snowballs at a target and Tareq refusing to eat the chocolate until he does help enrich the story. A seemingly throwaway line when Frank teaches Issam to shovel snow — "Esposito to Henderson" — is one Canadians of a certain era (Summit Series 1972) will appreciate. Turns out Frank and Issam were both born in 1953.

Liam (Laurent Pitre) is the first employee of the chocolate factory in Nova Scotia.

The story seems male-dominated. Tareq asks his sister Alaa (Najlaa Al Khamri) to help with the family business. She says no because she has to care for her daughter (her husband was killed in the civil war).

CanadianCrossing.com film reviews

CanadianCrossing.com film coverage

The idea of refugees coming to a new place and creating jobs is an important message. The story doesn't start that way with the grim reality that refugees got help for the first year and then were pretty much on their own. Issam and his family get a lot of help from the community but his chocolatier skill is what pushes everything forward.

The film makes good work of actual Justin Trudeau footage as well as CBC News coverage of the refugee camps and other related events.

Peace by Chocolate feels like a reenactment of the basic story telling with dramatic interpretations. The story is important in a film where the whole family can watch.

Peace by Chocolate is available on demand.

video credit: YouTube/Level 33 Entertainment
photo credit: Peace by Chocolate; me

2022 Canada Day notebook

Today is the 155th anniversary of the establishment of the Dominion of Canada with Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. The Dominion of Canada would keep the Union Jack for almost 100 years after the creation of Canada. Older people remember when July 1 was called Dominion Day.

We focus in on a few stories of note in our Canada Day notebook. Celebrate safe, perhaps with a Caesar and a Nanaimo bar.

Canada to finally lift pre-arrival COVID-19 tests for air and land border crossings

CanadianCrossing.com border crossings coverage

American travelers to Canada still need to use the ArriveCan app. This is true for land border crossings, something of great concern for border town mayors on the Canadian side. Ugh.

We have noted the significant difference in naming Kraft Macaroni and Cheese (U.S.) versus KD or Kraft Dinner (Canada). The U.S. version will soon change to Kraft Mac and Cheese.

As far as we know, there is no inherent difference between the products, though the Canadian version is likely made with better made Canadian cheese.

There is a grand difference in Canadian accouterments with KD such as hot dogs and ketchup.

You can see the Canadian version (left) or the new U.S. version (below). Which looks better to eat?

Barenaked Ladies mentioned Kraft dinner in the song If I Had a Million Dollars from the Gordon album from 1992.

We wouldn't have to eat Kraft dinner / But we would eat Kraft dinner / Of course we would we'd just eat more / And buy really expensive ketchups with it / That's right all the fanciest Dijon ketchups mmm mmm

If I were eating Kraft Dinner in Canada, I might use Canadian-made French's ketchup.

Remember the whole French-Heinz ketchup battle? Funny part is that Kraft and Heinz are now corporately married

Feeling more nostalgic than hungry, here is the (temporarily) reunited Barenaked Ladies performing that song at the 2018 Junos after being inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame.

Canadian cities are legalizing alcohol in parks (Cross Country Checkup from CBC Radio One)

There are 2 primary images of public drinking. People leisurely drinking wine with a picnic in a park. People drinking out of bottles in paper bags. People want the former but not the latter.

The pandemic set limits on drinking because of the viability of crowded bars being open.

Your humble narrator has seen people in Amsterdam and Rome drinking outside and having that be not a big deal.

Being able to selective drink in public would bring Canada closer to its European cousins and away from the puritanical United States.

We are big fans of @brittlestar, and we are honoured that he sent us a video tribute as Canuckle wraps up! CHECK IT OUT ⬇️🇨🇦👍 #ThankYouEh pic.twitter.com/MNpgxAsPN0

— Canuckle (@CanuckleGame) June 27, 2022

We meant to write about Canuckle, the Canadian version of Wordle. Same concept: 5 letter word, 6 guesses. The Canuckle word would have some tie to Canada. Some days, the word was fun. Other days, words such as "brier" threw me off.

Turns out today is the last Canuckle, at least for now. As you may know from our Twitter feed, we love playing Canuckle. Have been glad to give it some love and hopefully encourage others to learn a bit about Canada through guessing the words. The correct letters showed up in red, which was also cool.

Today's game is Game 142 on Canada Day. You can play the previous games through its archives.

If we get news of a comeback, we would be thrilled to pass that information along to our readers.

Also fans of Brittlestar, if you aren't following him. Really good Canadian sensibility.

2022 CFL Week 4 preview

The CFL is playing on and around Canada Day for the first time since 2019. The BC Lions were in Ottawa, the nation's capital, last night. The Edmonton Elks are in Hamilton tonight to take on the Tiger-Cats. The league is even playing on the night of the U.S. holiday yet the game is not on U.S. TV. Tonight's game is on ESPN+. All the games are on TSN in Canada.

The Toronto Blue Jays are at home for Canada Day, unlike Victoria Day. The team plays Game 2 of a 5-game series against Tampa Bay. Today's game has a 3:07 pm EDT start. Rogers Sportsnet has the game in Canada. The MLB Network has this as the backup game in the United States, meaning Boston and Chicago. The U.S. channel has been reluctant to use the Rogers Sportsnet feed, opting to use YES (Yankees) and NESN (Red Sox), even in Toronto.

Former Toronto Raptors star guard Kyle Lowry will have a street named after him in Toronto. The street will be at Don Mills Crossing, a new development in the northeast section of Toronto. We just celebrated 3 years since the Raptors won the 2019 NBA title.

The Athletic reported earlier this week that Rogers Sportsnet is ending Hometown Hockey after 8 seasons. The pandemic didn't help the situation. The move to Monday night was a noble idea but that didn't help as well. If yyzsportsmedia.com is correct, this is the first of many Rogers Sportsnet changes to NHL coverage in October. 

The Grand Seduction matches up well with Quebecois version

You might have seen The Grand Seduction (2013), the story of a small fishing village that has to draw in a doctor and convince that doctor to stay.

You might have seen La Grande Séduction | Seducing Dr. Lewis, the original Ken Scott film (2003) that is the same story though set in Quebec rather than Newfoundland. Scott co-wrote the English language version of the film.

If you are in Charlottetown this summer, you can catch the new musical Tell Tale Harbour, based on the Quebecois film La Grande Séduction.

Alan Doyle of the band Great Big Sea is in the production. You may remember his acting skills on display in Republic of Doyle (no relation). You can listen to Doyle with fellow Newfoundlander Tom Power recently on Q on CBC Radio One.

The films were pretty similar. Music from that part of the world is amazing. 2 musicals from Newfoundland: Tell Tale Harbour on top of Come From Away.

Thanks so much! What a time we’re having. https://t.co/38HBeuAJIo

— Alan Doyle (@alanthomasdoyle) June 24, 2022

Improving train travel options between the United States and Canada

2022 Canadian TV upfronts highlights

Season 2 of the Canadian TV show Departure involves a high-speed train from Toronto to Chicago. The concept of a high-speed ground option between those cities is pure fiction. Traveling from Toronto to Windsor would involve a infrequent train not much faster than a bus. Getting from Windsor to Detroit is complicated. Then there is the slow magic of Amtrak from Detroit to Chicago.

In the opening episode, the high-speed train flows smoothly out of Union Station in Toronto, flows through southern Ontario, and crosses some mythical structure over the Detroit River. The train stops to check passports, something that is often done in Canada before boarding a plane to the United States.

Traveling from Rome to Florence and back on high speed trains was an absolute joy. Getting from Brussels, Belgium to London, England in 121 minutes, like clockwork, was wonderful. That same joy should be found on trains from Toronto to Detroit and Chicago.

The Maple Leaf Train from Toronto-New York City, not nearly as fast, is back in business. The ViaRail service from Windsor to Toronto have recently returned to normal capacity, now 5 trains a day. Megabus is increasing U.S. bus service from Toronto as well as to other Canadian destinations such as Ottawa, Kingston, and Montréal. Megabus should look into a Windsor-London-Toronto route.

I discovered Cross Country Checkup many years ago on CBC Radio. This was in a time where I would be in Detroit, listening to CBC Radio One on AM 1550 (now on FM 97.5). Rex Murphy was the host back then.

The show had been in more capable hands with Duncan McCue and lately with Ian Hanomansing. Turns out Hanomansing is now the permanent host of Cross Country Checkup. He hosts the show from Vancouver where he anchors The National on Friday and Sunday.

The program airs Sundays live coast to coast to coast at 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific, and 5:30 pm Newfoundland time.

You can listen to the program on the CBC Listen app or download the podcast version.

CanadianCrossing.com Canadian TV coverage

CanadianCrossing.com television coverage

NBC is dragging out Transplant to the middle of summer. There is the end in sight. The season finale airs July 16 at 8 pm EDT. Hopefully, Season 3 is a smoother presentation.

Season 2 started 2 months after the CTV premiere in January. NBC gave the show a terrible timeslot and lifted the show for the May sweeps period.

The CW will run the final season of Coroner when the fall starts, but keep in mind that the CW starts fall when the weather is very warm.

CanadianCrossing.com film coverage

Summarizing Kenneth Welsh's acting career would fall embarrassing short. Welsh, who passed away on May 5, had a storied career on both sides of the border. His portrayal of Windom Earle in the U.S. TV show Twin Peaks made a significant impact.

Welsh was enjoyable in recent Canadian films such as Wet Bum (2014) and And the Birds Rained Down | Il pleuvait des oiseaux (2019).

Welsh did 2 episodes of Twitch City and 3 episodes of Due South. He played himself in an episode of Slings & Arrows. Welsh even appears in the final episode of the new season of Kids in the Hall.

photo credits: CBC News; Kraft Heinz Canada; Kraft Heinz; CBC Radio
Twitter captures: @CanuckleGame; @alanthomasdoyle

Youngest Canadian Juno nominee encouraging people to try new foods

The Junos, celebrating Canadian music, is a lofty goal for most Canadian musicians and singers. To get a Juno nomination is impressive.

Imagine being 4 years old and getting a Juno nomination.

Romeo, offspring of Walk Off the Earth members Sarah Blackwood and Gianni (Luminati) Nicassio, is part of a project called Romeo Eats. There are lots of videos where Romeo tries new foods. The family released the album Walk Off the Earth & Romeo Eats, Vol. 1.

Our sibling blog, BalanceofFood.com, appreciates the difficulty of trying new foods. They go more into depth on the project and what that could mean for enjoying food variety.

CanadianCrossing.com BalanceofFood.com coverage

CanadianCrossing.com music coverage

CanadianCrossing.com food and drink coverage

You can find their videos on YouTube.

video and photo credit: YouTube/RomeoEats

CUSMA/USMCA punishes Canada for wanting to export baby formula

That media talks about baby formula shortage w/o knowing whats going on is amazing. Trump's USMCA restricted imports of formula from Canada, so we imported no formula from Canada in 2021, leaving us vulnerable to domestic shock. The shock hit when Abbott plant was contaminated.

— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) May 14, 2022

The United States has baby formula shortages. Canada makes baby formula and would want to increase its exports to the United States and please a top trading partner.

Too bad the dreaded, horrible, terrible USMCA (CUSMA) made this impossible.

From Fortune magazine:

"As part of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), negotiated by President Donald Trump to replace the North America Free Trade Agreement in July 2020, Canada agreed to impose an additional surcharge of $3/kg if the total volume of its global formula exports—not just exports to the U.S.—broke a certain threshold. That threshold is currently set at 40,480 metric tons for the current "dairy year" of August 1 2021 to July 31 2022.

"The new duties seemingly closed off Canada as a source of infant formula. The U.S. imported a grand total of zero tons of baby formula from its nothern (sic) neighbor in 2021, yet has shipped tons of domestic formula into Canada. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, U.S.-manufactured infant formula made up the largest component of U.S. dairy exports to Canada in 2021, accounting for 22% of all northbound dairy trade."

The crybaby toddler who somehow had a lot of power was rather vindictive toward Canada on multiple fronts. We didn't factor in baby formula.

Abbott accounts for nearly half of the domestic production of the U.S. baby formula market. The U.S. makes 98% of its formula domestically.

That is a problem with a February recall of Abbott Nutrition formula contaminated with bacteria from its Sturgis, MI factory. 4 infants became sick with bacterial infections; 2 of them died.

The irony is that United States standards are much more lax than Europe or Canada in terms of the quality of the formula. This isn't a matter of Canada or Europe formula meeting those standards because their formula exceeds the U.S. standards.

Podcast: Sarah Palin, Michelle Obama, and the politics of breastfeeding (BalanceofFood.com)

The United States lags behind the Western World on maternal elements, such as leave. Improved standards for women might encourage more breastfeeding. As much as we (and our sibling blog, BalanceofFood.com) endorse breastfeeding, there is a reality for baby formula that needs to be addressed.

Cheap pizza comes to Canada but at what cost

Canada milk producers threatened with invasion of cheaper American milk

Canadian milk holds a higher standard on milk, not allowing recombinant bovine somatotropin (rBST), an artificial growth hormone allowed in American milk. The anger by the crybaby toddler is over this difference in milk. If this were a baby formula shortage in Canada, importing formula from the United States would be a concern over bringing rBST into Canada.

Canada secretly passes heavily flawed CUSMA during the COVID-19 corornavirus pandemic

NAFTA 2.0, er, USMCA is a nightmarish trade deal for Canada

The party of the crybaby toddler is the party that is trying to take advantage of the political ramifications of the baby formula shortages. As little as we think of Canadian journalism, U.S. journalism is the grand leader of cluelessness. Kurt Eichenwald being a grand exception as noted in the top of the column.

Balanceoffood.com Canada food policy coverage

Trade deals can be tricky when all involved parties are acting in free will. The CUSMA/USMCA trade talks were a shambles and the complete opposite of an ethical trade deal process. Innocent people get hurt when a trade deal goes this poorly.

Would Americans get an abortion in Canada?

We noted that Americans might drive to Canada to get an abortion. We can't condone, under any circumstances, the illegal importation of any product from Canada into the United States. We can point out that they sell baby formula in Canada.

American mothers who rely on baby formula should be able to access quality products without a monopoly and heavy-handed political tactics.

Twitter capture: @kurteichenwald
photo credit: Dairy Farmers of Canada

Cooking Channel picks up Back in Time for Dinner

The Back in Time for Dinner phenomenon started in the United Kingdom. The CBC ran its own version in 2018. The Canadian version featured a Canadian family with how Canadians ate in each decade from the 1940s through the 1990s.

Host Carlo Rota guided the Campus family: mother Tristan, a registered nurse, father Aaron, a multimedia designer, 18-year-old daughter Valerie, 17-year-old daughter Jessica, and 15-year-old son Robert.

The Canadian version seemed an obvious choice to work its way to the United States, even if that took until late 2021 and early 2022 to arrive on the Cooking Channel.

Canadians had to deal with more abrupt changes, compared to Americans, in their diet during World War II due to war rations. The war also started in 1939 for Canada and most of the countries fighting the war. The United States didn't join the war until after the Pearl Harbor attack in late 1941.

They have to work with kidneys in the early part of the 1940s episode. By they, we mean (sadly) the women. Tristan does the vast majority of the work with occasional help from daughters Valerie and Jessica. Though Aaron does a lot of the cooking in the modern version, he and Robert are banned from helping in the kitchen for the initial episodes.

Meat arrives in the 1950s along with some odd food trends of the day. Reading about how housewives put a salad in a gelatin mold is interesting; watching someone do this offers a broader perspective.

Tristan and Val made yoghurt with a yoghurt maker. They had to do this with conversion in the 1970s episode. This was the time in Canada where the country transitioned from imperial (the U.S. system) to metric.

They figure out converting litres to cups (a litre is slightly more than 4 cups) but had trouble with the temperature of heating the milk. They had difficulty converting 45°C to Fahrenheit. Tristan is a nurse in real life, where you would know that 37°C (98.6°F) is the body temperature. Rota adds a voiceover to say 45°C was 113°F not the figure they got.

The U.S. audience would learn, if they didn't already know, that some Canadians get their milk in a bag.

The ladies also have to work without the modern technology of a dishwasher, as an example.

The Back in Time for Dinner episodes have improvements within the episode so the end of the 1950s episode is closer to 1959 than 1951.

CanadianCrossing.com food and drink coverage

CanadianCrossing.com Canadian TV coverage

CanadianCrossing.com television coverage

Food is a key portion of the program mixed in with history and social impact. Tristan has a surprisingly good attitude toward having to be the dominant cook of the times. Valerie and Jessica are much less enthused to being there. In the 1950s episode, Valerie disappears for most of the episode. Then when she finally returns, Jessica isn't in that scene.

The men have more of a role in the kitchen as the episodes progress. Everyone involved has trouble adjusting to the technology of the past.

The program does present heightened trends as being "everywhere." A lot of people weren't eating quiche in the 1980s.

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U.S. fans can catch up on previous episodes from the Cooking Channel. The U.S. channel airs the 1990s episode on Thursday at 10 pm Eastern. Canadians can watch the episodes via CBC Gem.

photos credit: Back in Time for Dinner/CBC

Stanley Tucci has plenty of love for Toronto

Full Release with Samantha Bee, the podcast not the TV show, doesn't mention Canada too often. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee loves its sarcastic Canadian references, mostly because the TV show is about comedy and current events.

Stanley Tucci, who has shown his love for Italy thanks to his CNN series Stanley Tucci: Searching For Italy, was on the podcast with Samantha Bee some time ago (a little slow catching up for your humble narrator).

About 10 minutes into the podcast episode, Bee talked about growing up in Toronto around Italian families though not Italian herself. She loved the liveliness of the dinner table in those homes.

"Toronto's really interesting. I love Toronto. Actually, if I were to move back to North America, that's where I would live. ... It's an amazing city."

Tucci said he thinks Toronto has the highest concentration of Italians outside Italy (4th behind São Paulo, Buenos Aires, and New York City). There are Italian pockets in Toronto: College Street West is the most prominent but certainly one of several areas, including Pelmo Park-Humberlea and Maple Leaf as well as Corso Italia on St. Clair Avenue West.

Stanley Tucci — Full Release with Samantha Bee (Earwolf)

Tucci mentioned Brothers, a tiny place near where he was staying to make a film about 4 years ago. Brothers Food & Wine did close in 2020 but that team is behind a new place called Restaurant 20 Victoria. Amusingly, the new space is even tinier than the old establishment.

Bee wraps up the talk about Toronto by asking Tucci about whether he loves Kensington Market. Tucci agrees with how great the neighbourhood and the city is for him.

Samantha Bee might be channeling Anna Maria Tremonti in her new podcast

Where to visit Canada in 2022

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Vancouver gets a lot of love for the weather and outdoor activities. Montréal gets a lot of love for its amazing food and cultural aspects. Toronto doesn't get as much love. Tucci lives in London so maybe he is biased toward Toronto or has done movies in Toronto. Toronto is a great gateway city, especially if you are an American who has never been to Canada.

Despite the food havens that are Vancouver and Montréal, Toronto deserves some travel love for its food and culture options. Toronto is a very cosmopolitan city. Kensington Market is very cool. Travel wherever you want in Canada. Don't dismiss Toronto without a bit of research.

Full Release with Samantha Bee comes out on Tuesdays. Full Frontal with Samantha Bee returns Thursday on TBS and CTV Comedy Channel at 10 pm Eastern.

photo credit: Full Release with Samantha Bee