Must Canadians Hate America?

Yesterday I read with great interest the editorial by CBC Radio Ideas producer Richard Handler, titled Must we hate America?. I feel so strongly about this issue that yesterday evening I composed the following response, which I submitted today via the feedback link at the end of the article.

I appreciate the acknowledgment that many Canadians greatly enjoy putting down America and Americans--almost as much as they enjoy hearing the putdowns. The frequency with which the barbs are made, the air of superiority and snideness with which they are delivered, and the grins and laughter with which they are received are both hurtful and galling to Americans in your midst, myself included. When I married my Canadian husband and immigrated to Ontario in 2005 I was totally unprepared for the anti-American sentiment expressed so readily and so often. Had I not been head-over-heels in love I would have returned to my home in the USA after my first few weeks here. My warm feelings and admiration for Canada were squelched by the attitudes and vitriol I heard with respect to America (make that "disrespect to America"), and continue to hear, all around me--on television, on the CBC Radio One, and in comments from Canadians who don't realize that I am an American (until they hear my "accent"). Enough already! I know that America is a big target due to its leadership role in the world and to the miserable consequences of the horrors and injustices wrought by the Bush administration. I can appreciate that it must not be easy to live so near and be so dependent on the USA economically and militarily. And I appreciate the analogy made by Pierre Trudeau that living next to the USA "is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant". What I don't appreciate are all the snide comments and the holier-than-thou attitude that I hear. I have lived in Canada for two-and-a-half years now and have yet to hear any praise for America...for anything! I feel like an unwanted stepchild forced to hear derisive comments about my mother at my stepmother's family reunion.

Is it because Canadians have such a huge inferiority complex that they have adopted such a chip on their shoulders with regard to America? Or is it because, in the words of singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, "everybody's gotta have somebody to look down on", and Canadians have chosen to look down on America because it is politically correct here to do so? Do Canadians attempt to deflect attention from Canadian-caused troubles and foibles by pointing fingers south of the border? That's what it looks, and feels, like to me. After hearing so much anti-American sentiment, including self-righteous condemnation of Southern slavery and Japanese internment camps and the way American Indians were treated and how environmentally irresponsible, fat, racist and poorly educated we Americans are, I was shocked to learn about Canada's own history with regard to slavery, internment camps, aboriginal peoples, and xenophobia. I was shocked to learn of how environmentally irresponsible Canada is--sure, recycling is a bigger deal here but just look at the pollution generated by the oil fields and witness the raping of the forests and the huge number of gas-guzzling vehicles on the roads. I was amazed to see so many fat people in Canada. I was shocked by the poor spelling and grammar I encountered when reading Canadian blog posts, by the blank looks when I mention Indiana (my home state), and by the poor mathematical skills I witnessed when trying to get correct change at the grocery when the electronic cash register failed. After hearing so many derogatory remarks about the lack of a national healthcare plan south of the border (where Canada's "free" healthcare is envied) I was dismayed to learn that in Canada there are severe shortages of primary care physicians and hospital beds, no dental, vision or prescription coverage (except for senior citizen prescriptions), and that many Canadians must pay for additional health coverage to cover these deficits and that many even go abroad for treatment. After hearing ad nauseum about America's indebtedness to other countries, especially China, I was shocked to hear that Canada is divesting itself of so many of its assets, allowing other countries to own its resources and industries and outsourcing textile and apparel manufacturing jobs (sadly, even Hudson Bay clothing is now made abroad), relegating Canadians to remain the proverbial "hewers of wood,drawers of water". After hearing how deplorable the distribution of wealth is in the USA I was surprised to see the same unequal distribution here, with taxpayers paying through the nose for everything (especially hydro and gasoline) while CEOs and politicians "earn" exorbitant salaries, bonuses and severance packages. The disdain expressed by Canadians for the American propensity for patronizing big box stores and owning guns didn't prepare me for the mobs of shoppers I saw flocking to my local Canadian Wal-Mart or for the number of guns, including handguns, owned by Canadians and the animosity toward the gun registry. The Canadian contempt for the minutely scrutinized American government certainly didn't prepare me for the scandals and deplorable lack of transparency I note in the Canadian government.

From the way Americans had been put down I had expected to find myself living in a country of well-educated, morally and physically superior beings. Not so at all! When the realization of all this hit me I was initially both relieved--Canadians are no better than Americans!--and infuriated--how dare Canadians be so blatantly hypocritical! Over time some of my anger at the hypocrisy has diminished, enough so that I can continue to live in Canada, but it's a sore point for me, and I suspect for other Americans here as well. So in answer to your title question, Must We Hate Americans?: apparently you must. It's easier and more satisfying to whine and sneer at America's faults than to correct those of Canada. From what I have seen so far, Canada is about twenty to thirty years behind America; what happens south of the border eventually happens in Canada. So don't be too smug. Just wait.

While searching for an image to include with this blog post I found this article by J.J. McCullough, a bright young Canadian cartoonist in British Columbia, corroborating my views. His attitude toward Canadian-American relations is refreshing to read:

People often praise me for not being anti-American, because that seems to be an all-too-common characteristic among Canadians satirists. I honestly believe that institutionalized Canadian anti-Americanism is the root cause of most problems with this country.

The image I found came from here, a thoughtful post made in 2006 by United Kingdom blogger Clive Davis.