Receiving this article from a friend was quite eerie since it brings up a few things I've been thinking about lately - coincidence? Perhaps...

Read it first....
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You live next door to a clean-cut, quiet guy. He never plays loud music or throws raucous parties. He doesn't gossip over the fence, just smiles politely and offers you some tomatoes. His lawn is cared-for, his house is neat as a pin and you get the feeling he doesn't always lock his front door.

He wears Dockers. You hardly know he's there. And then one day you discover that he has pot in his basement, spends his weekends at peace marches and that guy you've seen mowing the yard is his spouse. Allow me to introduce Canada.

The Canadians are so quiet that you may have forgotten they're up there, but they've been busy doing some surprising things. It's like discovering that the mice you are dimly aware of in your attic have been building an espresso machine.

Did you realize, for example, that our reliable little tag-along brother never joined the Coalition of the Willing? Canada wasn't willing, as it turns out, to join the fun in Iraq. I can only assume American diner menus weren't angrily changed to include "freedom bacon," because nobody here eats the stuff anyway.

And then there's the wild drug situation: Canadian doctors are authorized to dispense medical marijuana. Parliament is considering legislation that would not exactly legalize marijuana possession, as you may have heard, but would reduce the penalty for possession of under 15 grams to a fine, like a speeding ticket. This is to allow law enforcement to concentrate resources on traffickers; if your garden is full of wasps, it's smarter to go for the nest rather than trying to swat every individual bug. Or, in the United States, bong.

Now, here's the part that I, as an American, can't understand. These poor benighted pinkos are doing everything wrong. They have a drug problem: Marijuana offenses have doubled since 1991. And Canada has strict gun control laws, which means that the criminals must all be heavily armed, the law-abiding civilians helpless and the government on the verge of a massive confiscation campaign. (The laws have been in place since the '70s, but I'm sure the government will get around to the confiscation eventually.)

They don't even have a death penalty! And yet .. nationally, overall crime in Canada has been declining since 1991. Violent crimes fell 13 percent in 2002. Of course, there are still crimes committed with guns -- brought in from the United States, which has become the major illegal weapons supplier for all of North America -- but my theory is that the surge in pot-smoking has rendered most criminals too relaxed to commit violent crimes. They're probably more focused on shoplifting boxes of Ho-Hos from convenience stores. And then there's the most reckless move of all: Just last month, Canada decided to allow and recognize same-sex marriages. Merciful moose, what can they be thinking? Will there be married Mounties (they always get their man!)? Dudley Do-Right was sweet on Nell, not Mel! We must be the only ones who really care about families. Not enough to make sure they all have health insurance, of course, but more than those libertines up north.

This sort of behavior is a clear and present danger to all our stereotypes about Canada. It's supposed to be a cold, wholesome country of polite, beer-drinking hockey players, not founded by freedom-fighters in a bloody revolution but quietly assembled by loyalists and royalists more interested in order and good government than liberty and independence.

But if we are the rugged individualists, why do we spend so much of our time trying to get everyone to march in lockstep? And if Canadians are so reserved and moderate, why are they so progressive about letting people do what they want to?

Canadians are, as a nation, less religious than we are, according to polls. As a result, Canada's government isn't influenced by large, well-organized religious groups and thus has more in common with those of Scandinavia than those of the United States, or, say, Iran. Canada signed the Kyoto global warming treaty, lets 19-year-olds drink, has more of its population living in urban areas and accepts more immigrants per capita than the United States.

These are all things we've been told will wreck our society. But I guess Canadians are different, because theirs seems oddly sound. Like teenagers, we fiercely idolize individual freedom but really demand that everyone be the same. But the Canadians seem more adult -- more secure. They aren't afraid of foreigners. They aren't afraid of homosexuality. Most of all, they're not afraid of each other.

I wonder if America will ever be that cool.

Source: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (PA)
Author: Samantha Bennett
Published: Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Copyright: 2003 PG Publishing
Contact: letters@post-gazette
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I was just thinking the other day about the differences between Canadians and Americans (or at least New Englanders, since there are some distinct differences between the Northeast and the rest of the country). I was hypothesizing to myself that Canada will become more like the U.S. over the next few decades. This thought sprung from my observation that 1) there is no American equivalent of Canadian tire, 2) there are fewer winemaking suppliers here (even though you can actually grow your own grapes in this climate), 3) fabric stores of any kind are hard to find, and ones with a good selection even harder to find, 4) the closest Ikea is in the next state, and 5) there is only one Savers (Value Village) in the greater Boston area. What do these observations say to me? Well, it may be a generalization, but I think there is less of a do-it-yourself kind of attitude here. People seem to be far less interested in creating something themselves than in having someone else hand it to them already put together. The pioneering spirit that still seems to be alive (at least in Western Canada) no longer exists here. Now, I realize this may also be an east-west thing...I'll reserve judgement on the cause, but I think there is a distinct correlation between a fully developed capitalist mentality, and the lack of do-it-yourself, handywork kind of businesses in the area.

What this has to do with the article? Well, I was hypothesizing that this difference is a matter of age - in a younger area, more people do things themselves - in an older culture, there's more desire to let someone else do it, or buy it ready made. If Samantha Bennet is right, then this kind of 'maturity' is actually a regression (of the teenage variety - don't get me started on that one!). The aging of a society (not its population) might produce an attitude that to do it yourself is somehow inferior to paying someone else to do it. [Though of course I accept the very real possibility that the article and I are talking about two very different and unrelated phenomena]

The other thing I had been thinking about was stereotypes. Not a big thing, but I wonder if an article like this just caters to stereotypes on both sides of the border. But then again, I'm not sure that it matters much. I think stereotypes can be very localized phenomena - living just below Quebec, most New Englanders think that Quebecois culture is indicative of Canadian culture in general. Bit of a shock coming from people who live in an equally diverse country. Then again, I'm sure I have stereotypes of my own to dismantle...