It is a mug’s game to compare Canadian cities and declare a winner. So it’s a mug’s day.
As we type, it is minus 11 in Edmonton and plus 10 in Ottawa. So there, Eskimo people: we’re still golfing on Nov. 26; be well in your igloos of frozen tar.
A thing to remember about Sunday’s Grey Cup.
Lots of smart sports people think the Ottawa Redblacks will get their bums handed to them in the CFL championship game in Winnipeg, but remember this: win or lose, they still have to live in Edmonton!
The cities are actually similar in many ways. The populations are close (Ottawa 1.318 million, Edmonton 1.328 million, if you count metro-wise) and the mayors have similar-sized twitter throngs (Jim Watson 65.6K followers to Edmonton’s Don Iveson at 69.3K), not to mention cute, short names. They are paid roughly the same: Watson at $168,102 and Iveson at $176,145.
Both cities are capitals. We have more legislators (338 to 87), though the Albertans have more NDP members (53) at the provincial level than Canada does federally (44), which, let’s face it, is pretty damn hilarious for redneck country.
Ottawa is better educated (37 per cent of adults, roughly, have a university degree, compared with 27 per cent in Edmonton), but we make pretty much the same money: Ottawa has a median family income of about $101,000, right with Edmonton at $98,000. Ottawa, it must be true, has more tulips; Edmonton more murders (21 to seven in 2015).
My brother-in-law lives in Edmonton now. During summer vacation, around the campfire, we hear lore from Wildrose Country.
For instance, there are no rats in Alberta. Like, none. Presumably — watch what I’m doing here — there are no rats in Edmonton. The province has this ruthless rat control program, which is so effective hardly anyone in Alberta can recognize a rat anymore. (Except, one supposes, the visiting Eastern Bastards Freezing in the Dark. Oh, it is to pine for Ralph Klein!)
Here is an excerpt from the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry’s website.
“Perhaps the greatest “problem” is that most residents of Alberta still cannot identify rats and rat signs. Hundreds of suspected infestations are reported each year by concerned citizens, but most turn out to be muskrats, pocket gophers, ground squirrels, bushy-tailed wood rats or mice. However, all suspected infestations are investigated, either by local or provincial field staff. As previously mentioned, confirmed infestations are eradicated as soon as possible.”
Miserable pocket gophers. Y’all get fooled every time.
Ottawa, you will know, has rats. In 2010, in fact, there was a rat infestation at Confederation Park and, to answer the obvious, no, the House of Commons was not sitting.
“No one knows what has caused the population explosion,” an NCC spokesman told a newspaper, failing to mention whether the rats had scurried east, in panic, from Alberta.
Many moons ago, I spent 24 hours in Edmonton, on the way to Vancouver. We hitchhiked in from the airport in a pickup. The driver harangued Pierre Trudeau from the minute we set foot in the vehicle, barely taking a breath until we got out.
With Justin in and a lefty woman running the ranch, Albertans must wonder if they went to bed one night and woke up on another planet.
But we digress.
Both cities have had misadventures with mottos. Edmonton’s used to be the City of Champions, a great slogan when Gretzky was around, then forcibly updated to Where No. 1 Draft Choices Go to Die. The official motto on the coat of arms is actually Industry, Integrity, Progress, which is as lame as ours: Advance Ottawa.
(Neither can Edmonton’s Gateway to the North compete with Ottawa’s Gateway to Poutine. But we digress, unable to stop.)
Edmonton’s had some mighty fine sports teams. The Eskimos have won 13 Grey Cups. The Redblacks ancestors have won nine. The Oilers have five Stanley Cups, the modern Senators none, but the old Ottawa teams took home 11.
The Redblacks, clearly, have a better mascot, though his childhood was rough. He was born Big Joe Mufferaw, but complaints about his heritage had him clipped to just Big Joe. He’s a cool guy with big head and a giant axe.
The Eskimos have two mascots, Punter and Nanook, the latter being a bear, a polar bear I guess, but like the skinny white one in the climate change nightmare video. “Dislikes gophers,” his profile reads.
Betcha. And wouldn’t know a rat from a Redblack.
To contact Kelly Egan, please call 613-726-5896 or email kegan@ottawacitizen.com.
