A prominent think-tank that's often critical of government spending policies says Canadian families spend more than two-fifths of their total income on taxes.

The Fraser Institute says its annual Canadian Consumer Tax Index calculated that taxes ate up 41.7 per cent of the average family's income in 2009.

That's up from 1981 when taxes accounted for 40.8 per cent of a family's income, or 33.5 per cent in 1961 when the Fraser Institute first compiled the index.

===

Just so you don't think Americans are the only people being raped ... oopsy, I mean reaped by their government tax system.

Starting today, Canadians flying to the U.S. can take two carry-on bags and personal items with them on a plane.

Restrictions on carry-ons were imposed after a botched Christmas Day terror attack on a flight to Detroit from Amsterdam. Canada quickly banned carry-on luggage, then allowed U.S.-bound passengers one carry-on bag and some personal items in January.

===

More booga booga.

A student supporter of Israel at Carleton University and an Israeli engineering student at the university say they are lucky to have survived an attack with what they say was a machete near a Gatineau bar early on Monday.

Lev. 25:44 states that I may indeed possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can't I own Canadians?

The Canadian dollar rose to one-for-one footing with the U.S. currency on Tuesday, hitting its strongest level since July 2008, boosted by rising commodity prices and expectations for higher domestic interest rates.

At 7:38 a.m. (1138 GMT), the Canadian dollar was at C$1.0008, or 99.92 U.S. cents. Earlier, the currency rose to C$0.9999 to the U.S. dollar or $1.0001.

===

The Canadian Air Farce (comedy program here in Canada) did a hilarious skit on this situation. It took place in a "dollar store" everything was a dollar. And next week's special was $1 US and 1 US dime for $1 Canadian.

OH, HOW SWEET IT IS!

Canada avoided a housing crisis, the progenitor of the U.S. banking crisis. It did so by having sounder banking and housing policies. Above all, it had no Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac.

Canada isn’t a free-market paradise. But it beats the U.S. in banking and housing policies.

The Canadian dollar rose sharply on Friday after data showed Canada's annual core inflation rate unexpectedly rose in February, increasing pressure on the Bank of Canada to raise interest rates.

The Canadian dollar hit a session high of C$1.0100 or 99.01 U.S. cents, up from about C$1.0168, or 98.35 U.S. cents just before the report.

===

Wow! And to think the Loonie was at 50 cents US a few years ago. I don't think things are any better here. They're just that much worse in the US!!!!!!!

William A. Cook recounts how Canadian Zionists, in the form of B’nai B’rith of Canada, cast aspersions on his personal and professional character because he had dared to highlight the genocidal actions of former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his successors.

The revelation that Canada's spy agency interrogated captured Taliban fighters raises the spectre of a Canadian rendition program in Afghanistan, opposition critics said Monday.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff raised the R-word and quickly backtracked, but NDP Leader Jack Layton categorically questioned whether the activities of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in Afghanistan made it complicit in the torture of battlefield combatants by less trustworthy Afghan authorities.

The Liberals and NDP agreed that a report by The Canadian Press shedding new light on the shadowy activities of CSIS in Afghanistan makes a full public inquiry into the detainee affair all the more imperative.

===

If you find the video won't start when you click on the start arrow, try sliding the box on the progress bar slightly to the right.

Also available from here: http://www.ohcanadamovie.com/

QUEBEC — Starting in December, some passengers on Canadian airlines flying to, from or even over the United States without ever landing there, will only be allowed to board the aircraft once the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has determined they are not terrorists.

Bank of Montreal (TSX:BMO) had a $657-million profit in its latest financial quarter as revenue increased by 24 per cent from a year earlier, with its Canadian operations providing much of the lift.

BMO's overall revenue in the three months ended Jan. 31 increased by $583 million from the comparable period a year before, rising to $3.02 billion - in line with analyst estimates.

===

It's "nice" to know the banks are doing well :-|

You can pretend that the Canadian political, corporate and media elite who actively promote the Racist JNF to Canadian adults and children aren't aware of the true nature of the JNF, however that won't erase the archived reports of JNF racism and complicity in ethnic cleansing that have been published by major Canadian newspapers, the Canadian Jewish News, the United Jewish Appeal of Toronto and in a domestically and internationally known TV documentary by Canadian Crown Corporation CBC's Fifth Estate in 1991. You can act as if the well documented paper trail of all this which is departmentally stamped and legally filed in the official records of the Canadian Human Rights Commission along with a departmentally stamped and legally filed reply from the Canadian Government proving its full awareness of the Racist JNF Tax Fraud and unintentionally confirming bureaucratic malfeasance on this issue will somehow disappear, but it won't.

(To view article, click on link and then scroll down to Item 4)

Junior Foreign Affairs minister Peter Kent is suggesting Canada stands ready to throw its full military weight behind Israel, telling a Toronto publication that “an attack on Israel would be considered an attack on Canada.”

The Harper government is promising to address criticism that a Montreal-based rights agency is anti-Israeli.

A civil liberties coalition says racial and religious profiling has become a fact of life when crossing the Canada-U.S. border.

Ecotex Healthcare Linen Service Inc. operated in the United State in the mid-1990s, before the weak Canadian dollar drove it back north of the border.