AS both French- and English-speaking Canadians bid adieu to 2007, we now take a look at what’s happening in one of the largest countries in the world in area for the remaining days of the year. Canada is a peculiar country since it shares the largest unguarded border in the world with the United States and in itself has caused one eccentric natural reality – the city of Windsor in Ontario is the only city in Canada where you must go north to reach the Michigan side of the United States. In fact, you can see the Detroit skyline from the Detroit River but since Detroit is located north of Windsor, the United States can only be reached north. And its peoples are divided too in terms of the languages they speak – French and English. No wonder there are lots of English language institutes in French-speaking Canada and French schools in the English-speaking parts of the country.

There is only one pasttime that binds them both – hockey. Speaking of hockey, Canada has just won the world junior championship held at the Czech Republic. This just goes to show that they are really serious in their game. In fact, NHL was founded here in 1917 and even though there are only six Canadian hockey teams in the current NHL lineup as compared to 24 in the United States, it is in the passion of the fans which matter as well as the reputation of the teams of course. No United States NHL team has come close to beat any Canadian NHL team whether in regular tourneys or in exhibition games.

Even as the United States is currently experiencing a mortgage crunch, Canada has remained to be bullish all through these trying times. In fact, now is being considered to be an opportune time to invest in the country. Recently, a group of elite Canadian billionaires have agreed to put in a total of $33 billion to revive a paper manufacturing firm.

One of the goodwill deeds Canada is doing as part of bidding goodbye to 2007 is to simplify adoption proceedings of children who are from overseas. Adopting parents need not apply to petition their adopted children to Canada as well as petition for a permanent residency status here in the country. Under hte new policy, the children in question can even obtain their Canadian passports while they are still in their country of origin.

As Christmas goes and Canadians usher in the New Year, the whole country will also experience the peak of winter. With that, many travel agencies are now poised to offer humongous discounts to visitors here who come not only from neighboring United States but as far as Spain and France. They love to be in here because Canada is the capital of wintry sports in the world. This is compounded even more with the reality that hockey is so popular and well-known in this country.