Global Dispatches: Canada—Always the Bridesmaid

In Canada we used to have a television comedy sketch making fun of how insular they [Americans] are.
Global Dispatches: Canada—Always the Bridesmaid
A statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's founding prime minister stands on Parliament Hill in Ottawa just in front of some of the best parking in the neighbourhood. (Flicker user Neil Carey, Nov. 3, 2002)
Matthew Little
8/10/2010
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/MacDonald_statue_Ottawa.jpg" alt="A statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's founding prime minister stands on Parliament Hill in Ottawa just in front of some of the best parking in the neighbourhood. (Flicker user Neil Carey, Nov. 3, 2002)" title="A statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's founding prime minister stands on Parliament Hill in Ottawa just in front of some of the best parking in the neighbourhood. (Flicker user Neil Carey, Nov. 3, 2002)" width="320" class="size-medium wp-image-1816277"/></a>
A statue of Sir John A. Macdonald, Canada's founding prime minister stands on Parliament Hill in Ottawa just in front of some of the best parking in the neighbourhood. (Flicker user Neil Carey, Nov. 3, 2002)
My American friends are always a little hurt when I tell them in Canada we used to have a television comedy sketch making fun of how insular they are.

It was called Talking with Americans and consisted of host Rick Mercer traveling the United States asking Americans ridiculous questions about Canada and getting them to take him seriously.

He would ask them to congratulate us on legalizing VCR’s and staplers, getting our first university and joining North America. Sometimes he would take his gag to U.S. universities and get students to sign petitions to stop us from abandoning our elderly on ice floes or stop the Toronto polar bear hunt. Polar bears live in the arctic, thousands of miles north of Toronto, which is a two-hour drive from Buffalo and the fourth or fifth largest city in North America depending on who you ask.

Mercer played his gag on vice presidents, governors, university professors, and the man on the street. The questions, petitions and congratulations always changed, but the theme remained: Americans know nothing about Canada and that makes them kind of dumb.

It was a humorous boost to our paradoxically humble sense of superiority. But in part, I think the laughs were bitter. The truth is, we have a small population and corresponding cultural industry. That leaves us inundated with American television, movies, news, magazines, books, music, and so on. Most Canadian bands don’t make it big until they go to the States where few even know that they are Canadian. And like Americans, most Canadians can name more U.S. presidents than Canadian prime ministers.

After a trip to D.C. recently, I was reminded of the vast chasm between the stature of our two countries. As I wandered around the grand architecture that beckons ancient Rome to the imagination, and past the monuments to past presidents that impress their visitors into a respectful silence, it became more clear why American’s find little interest in the affairs of their humble northern neighbor, and countries they don’t have troops fighting in.

It isn’t so much ignorance as disinterest. Canada had no violent revolution or civil war to color our founding history. No grand struggle or burning vision propelled us into being. Canada happened. There were talks, I hear, I don’t know much about it actually. Something happened in 1867 involving a lot of drinking and a deal that included a national railroad and worries about a U.S. doctrine called Manifest Destiny that called for American dominance of North America.

We calmly evolved into a nation and inherited our institutions, our character, and much of our identity from our colonial fathers, the British and the French.

But while Americans bask in the glow of their own light, there are some things about Canada to take of. While the global downturn leveled U.S. banks and crippled the economy, Canada, alone among developed nations, escaped relatively unscathed. That’s impressive given we are by far America’s largest trading partner, another key fact many Americans don’t know. According to the U.S. census, the $213.75 billion we traded by May this year is $51 billion more than you traded with No. 2 China. That sum is more than total U.S. trade with Germany, your No. 5 trading parter, over the same period of time.

So while it is true, we are a vast country of few people with a relatively small stature next to your behemoth, we have learned lessons you have yet to master. And while we have no choice but to follow your each and every step and learn along the way, you'll have to look a little harder if you want to do the same.