As a dual Canadian-American citizen who has lived in Canada my whole life I must disagree with your analysis.

1. Canadians are not more polite than the United States. I'm not quite sure where this myth started, but it's a bunch of garbage. If anything politeness is a reflection of urbanization. Busy people don't spend a lot of time talking with strangers. This is true whether it be Toronto or New York.

2. If you spend time in Canada it's not just "boiling just beneath the surface" it's quite evident. Canada openly resents the United States while ignoring the fact that most of its culture is borrowed.

3. Canadian's don't like being under the radar. They think they should and are playing a huge international role. Especially in the moral demension. For example they think we are the model peacekeepers. Canadian superiority believes that we can be a shining example of peace and tolerance ignoring our fragmented history.

Apply the three rules and you'll be sadly dissapointed. I don't know a single Canadian who would genuinely think Canad would have an impact on the presidential race.

Democrats have demogagued the trade issue since at least 1990 (with a brief respite for some during the Clinton era). First it was Japan-bashing, then India Bashing, and now it is Canada and Mexico bashing. If Obama, supports free trade, he should say so. If he doesn't, he should also indicate this. Voters should be able to make an informed decision. Instead, he is trying to get the benefits of publicly being against trade, while privately telling Canadians they have nothing to worry about and then lying about. So much for the "change" candidate. McCain, on the other hand, had the decency to level with workers in place like Michigan. That is the difference between straight talk and the amorphous "change" that Obama speaks of. I guess change means pandering to every demographic in your party. Straight talk means going to Iowa and telling them no more ethanol subsidies.

As for Canadians, they are not more polite than Americans and much of their nationalism centers around being Anti-American. Anyone, who has traveled and by accident did not recognize the maple leaf on a Canadian's backpack and asks them if they are from the United States usually gets a lecture on the benefits of being Canadian starting with their "great" healthcare system. Americans treat Canadians like brothers. Canadians treat us with scorn. Polite or otherwise.

Anecdotal evidence for the first, and possibly the second: A few years ago we took a trip around Gaspesie. If you get within 100 feet of somebody on those long, long roads through logging country, they pull over and let you by. Though, as for the anti-Americanism: as a monoglot American in Quebec City, I found people were friendlier once they realized I wasn't from Ontario, and had an excuse for my ignorance.

As a Canadian who has lived half his life in the USA, I agree mostly with your assessment. Canadians are far more polite and courteous. They do not try to prove themselves to you as being superior in almost every conversation. They say "sorry" when you knock them over. But that politeness can end abruptly when confronted by the Bush-like aggressive behaviour of many Americans. That's why the current Bush-ized Conservative government provokes such divergent opinions about the Canadian relationship with the USA. The media in Canada is largely right wing (Globe and Mail, National Post, Canwest chain, Sun newspapers, McCleans, CTV etc.) and supports ideals that the majority of Canadians abhor. The Iraq war, George Bush, torture, loss of habeas corpus etc are all praised by our media much to the chagrin of the populace. The constant editorializing in favour of our current government and the Republicans is not just a odds with the people of Canada but also at odds at the more balanced media south of its border. This is part of the reason for the short fuse displayed by Canadians when confronted with any sense of aggression from the United States, especially if it is disguised by representatives in our media who love to promote those traits. All this being part of the current reaction to the Dems in Canada. We are told to be very afraid of the Dems as they are out to destroy Canada by their isolationist agenda. Most educated Canadians laugh this off as merely propaganda channeled from Republican operatives through our Conservative government into their media in Canada. In short, it pisses us off but we're too polite to shout it out.

Jymm, you are full of it. I traveled in Australia in 2000 when Clinton was still President. Anti-American sentiment amongst Canadians was widespread.

"Most educated Canadians laugh this off as merely propaganda channeled from Republican operatives through our Conservative government into their media in Canada. In short, it pisses us off but we're too polite to shout it out."

This comment demonstrates that you are not nearly as educated as you think you are, but definitely more pompous.

here's the deal;canadian nationalism is based on being anti american.we need to distinguish ourselves as being "not american" as opposed to being canadian.
There is no Canadian identity outside of being "not american"
Also canadians have this smugness of being morally superior to americans. its very easy to be this way when you have big brother who looks after your security.
the irony in all of this is most canadians admire ,respect and are jealous of americas accomplishments.
canadians who "make it" are only recognized as succesful if they make it in the usa

here's the deal;canadian nationalism is based on being anti american.we need to distinguish ourselves as being "not american" as opposed to being canadian.
There is no Canadian identity outside of being "not american"
Also canadians have this smugness of being morally superior to americans. its very easy to be this way when you have big brother who looks after your security.
the irony in all of this is most canadians admire ,respect and are jealous of americas accomplishments.
canadians who "make it" are only recognized as succesful if they make it in the usa

Dan,

I agree with several of your points. But the insecurity about the United States is largely an attitude prevalent in southern Ontario. I am a native Montrealer who has lived in three Canadian Provinces and five US states. The ambivalent attitude about the US, I think, is most obvious in Toronto and its environs and promulgated in the Toronto Star and the CBC. For several years I taught Canadian politics in three Canadian and one US university (SAIS) and I was struck by how the attitudes of students varied depending on the region in which they lived. Most Canadians will note that they have gun control and national health care. But I would submit that residents of the Canadian Prairies and the US upper midwest share very similar values. Both are extremely different from Quebecers and Newfoundlanders, for example.
For what its worth, Mildred Schwartz wrote a good book on this topic.

You know, this really begs the question...

Since when did Canada have exploitative and unfair labor and environmental laws? Do fair traders really think Canada is oppressing its workers and devastating the environment moreso than the United States, or is NAFTA just a code word for "Mexico?"

Canadians are easy and fun?

Actually, that pretty much jibes with my experience.

People like Jymm are the reason Canada is off our vacation list.

Went to Toronto and then Vancouver last summer (two different trips, long story) and ran into several of his type in each place! They would see that we were Americans (dress styles, license plates, accent), walk up unbidden on the street or in a restaurant and ask if we were Republicans...if we said "Yes", they began loudly dressing us down for supporting Bu$Hitler. If we said "No", they still wanted to commiserate together about the fact that the US is actually Nazi Germany II, pressing for agreement on every radical anti-US point. One guy (Jymm?) walked up to us in the parking lot of the ROM and started by saying "come up here from some real culture...Bushland must get hard to take, eh?".

Most Canadians were just normal folks, of course, and several apologized for the Jymms, but these smug dirty hippies really just cast a pall an otherwise nice trip.

The US is no Paradise, but we don't generally just walk up to tourists to berate them about their govt.

FYI, we weren't wearing "USA #1" t-shirts or anything, and we aren't loud folks. Just a middle aged couple in an Accord...not even any bumper stickers. But the Jymms don't care, they just have to spew their rage.

I find Canadians considerate of US citizens. In fact they used a Scott Joplin tune as their national anthem, the Maple Leaf Rag.

DPT: I have a theory

;)

DPT: I have a theory

;)

Dan,

You wrote:

So to answer Noam's question: the Canadians are doing what they're doing because they don't want any Americans taking Canada for granted. But they'll do it as politely as possible.

That's probably true, but in an interview of Radio-Canada last night Foreign Affairs Minster Bernier said that in no circumstances would Canada re-negotiate NAFTA.

It is entirely possible that even Canadian diplomats ,normally a pretty calm group of people, are quite upset by the Democrats pandering on the question of trade.

That makes a lot more sense as an explanation of why this affair became public than some conspiracy theory about Canadians trying to entrap a Democratic candidate.

dan,

i once compared per capita murder rates between the US and Canada, disaggregated into stabbings, beatings, and gun deaths. canadians and americans were almost identical in per capital likelihood that they would beat or stab someone to death, but americans were about 10 times more likely to shoot someone to death. the difference? i can only guess it is because of stricter gun control. so canadians aren't more polite or more restrained or more internationally responsible than americans. they're just smarter.

dan,

i once compared per capita murder rates between the US and Canada, disaggregated into stabbings, beatings, and gun deaths. canadians and americans were almost identical in per capital likelihood that they would beat or stab someone to death, but americans were about 10 times more likely to shoot someone to death. the difference? i can only guess it is because of stricter gun control. so canadians aren't more polite or more restrained or more internationally responsible than americans. they're just smarter.

Thais are the most passive aggressive people on the planet by far. Canadians don't come close.

aij,

There is a lot more to crime rates than the method of murder. Years ago, when Canada had very lax gun laws, it still had much lower murder rates than the US.

Crime rates in both the US and Canada vary by region, by race, by ethnic background within races, etc. For example, African Americans commit about half of all murders in the US, despite being about 13 percent of the population. Similarly, the murder rate for aboriginal Canadians is about 7 times the overall Canadian rate. The US murder rate for whites is still higher than than that for Canadians, but both are pretty low.

Given that you can find populations in Canada whose murder rates exceed those in the US, and US populations that have lower murder rates than Canada, I don't think that "smart" has anything to do with it. The Canadians are fortunate to be endowed by the luck of the historic draw with relatively peaceful populations in a climate and a population density that are not conducive to murder.

Last time I was in Ottawa, they were having a conference... lot's of professor's running around. I got cornered in the hotel bar by some of them.

After running down Bush and all the lost freedoms in the US for about 10 minutes they started talking about how American is ruled by evangelical Christians. I couldn't help but laugh out loud at them. They didn't receive it so well.

I then asked them how many evangelical Christians they actually knew. That pretty much ended the conversation.

Also, I agree with the poster above that talked about the differences in the different regions. I work all over the US and Canada. Our societies are not a homogenous as we like to think.

Alot of Canadians have a very simplistic perspective of our Cuba policy. Last time I was there they were very put out when I said that choosing to vacation in Cuba was a moral issue for me. I said I just can't give my money to someone who oppresses their own people. That ended that conversation too.

But to sum up, I love going to Canada and think Canadians are great people.

"All of the commentators above seem fixated upon stereotyping
Canadians and Americans. One size does not fit all, so to speak. Not so.

What I am confident about is that eastern Canadians dislike, even
hate, western Canadians. Also, a majority of Albertans and Bristish
Columbians would welcome becoming the 51st and 52nd States of the US."

Dan's 3 points make for some odd reading; there is the unmistakable tongue-in-cheek-ness of lines like "Canadians are the most polite people on earth... it's just embarrassing at times" and "Canadians are also the most passive-aggressive nationality on earth." Yet I think it is really quite true that we're schizophrenic about America, and American attention - there's some truth beneath the irony.

I find some of the comments here a bit off-base. It's obvious that there's far more regional variation in attitudes, norms, and beliefs within each of our countries than between two similar regions in each. Montrealers who've come to Toronto have commented on how cold and impolite Toronto feels; Anglophones who visit even urban areas in Quebec are likely to get the same impression. Rural Canada is a whole other world for urbanites. New York, held up in popular culture if not in anecdotal experience as one of the less-polite-cities in North America, seems completely normal to me, a Torontonian.

On Canadian "nationalism," such as it is, I think it's trivially true that we build identity in contradistinction to a generic perceived American other, but this is going to be true for any national identity (no matter how thick). I think this is fairly well established in social psychology and accepted by many political scientists, though the implications underdetermine actual behaviour. Since Canada has a prominent, obvious, and proximate other, our identity-building may tend to focus on it.

On Canadian "anti-Americanism," I concur anecdotally that many Americans I know have the experience of being talked down to with regard to the actions of their government, especially since 2003. This is an unfortunate metonymy; it means that some Canadians are substituting an individual for the state. But isn't there also a grain of truth in the attacks, not on the individuals but on the state? There's a lot that is wrong with this country, and it doesn't take knee-jerk anti-Americanism to point it out.

But how does any of this affect how "Canadians" would view the American election?

"So to answer Noam's question: the Canadians are doing what they're doing because they don't want any Americans taking Canada for granted. But they'll do it as politely as possible."

Probably (though I wouldn't call this kind of behaviour "polite"), yet with a different party occupying the Cabinet and the Prime Minister's Office you would not have had the press leak. The Harper PMO runs a tight, very tight, ship, and there is no question that the leak was deliberate. I doubt they're trying to influence the election itself, but want to zero in on the free trade issue. The government is clearly against any re-opening of NAFTA, a debate that would complicate its own fortunes at home.

On the NAFTA issue I think both of the major political parties in Canada are likely to view the Democrats' pandering with suspicion - a Conservative government brought in the original Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement and a Liberal government brought in NAFTA. For better or for worse, a broad swathe of the political landscape up here (or there, I should say, since I'm currently living in Ohio) has a pretty benign view of NAFTA. As some posters have commented, it must seem pretty strange to Canadians that a trade deal with Canada is giving America a bad shake - our labor and environmental standards are not so far out of line with one another. Moreover, the agreement (it's perceived) gives America privileged access to Canadian natural resources (including energy and water - sore sticking points for those who do oppose the agreement).

Vive le Quebec libre!