Canada: the canary in the cultural coal mine. A banana republic with snow.

Here's what been going on up here this week. It matters because it could happen to you.

He headed to Gatineau Memorial Hospital, thinking that doctors would soon figure out what was ailing him and take care of it.

He never imagined the ordeal that would follow: The young man was turned away from five hospitals, got lost in an ambulance and, 28 hours after he was diagnosed, he had a burst appendix removed -- in Montreal.

* Halal food not enough -- Muslim students offended that campus restaurant even has a liquor license. (Note the anti-dhimmi comments below this story in the official student paper, though. If these comments were made by actual U of T students, there may be hope for Canada yet. One of the posters coins the word "Infideliphobia." I'm likin' it.

* Canadian David Frum bemoans our nation's lack of freedom of speech:

"In Canada, regulatory authorities ban political and religious speech from the airwaves. It's not because Canadians are so mild-mannered and averse to controversy that there is no Canadian equivalent of Rush Limbaugh or Keith Olbermann. It's because it's against the law.

"And because the rules governing radio and television speech are so very vague, Canadian broadcasters practise extra self-censorship so as to stay on the safe side of the invisible line. In 2000, for example, Canadian radio stations en masse dropped the Dr. Laura show, hosted by the often-provocative Laura Schlessinger, not because the government ordered it, but because they feared the government might..."

For more stuff that's not just about Canada, visit me at FiveFeetOfFury every day.