Reply to post: Re: I hope that we're watching this in the States

Canadians taking to spying on their spies

Jeff Lewis

Re: I hope that we're watching this in the States

Americans aren't even generally aware Canada exists.

I'm not being sarcastic here. I live in Vancouver and when I was shopping in Bellingham - which is just 12 miles from the border on the Washington side, the clerk wanted my phone number for their system. I said there's no point since I'm from Canada. He seemed surprised that I was shopping there.. "Isn't that a long way to go just to go shopping?'

When I pointed out that it was just 12 miles up the road, he apologised and said that he was new here - and that he'd moved from Texas and so didn't know the area well.

I've run into people who think the fact that we have a Queen is so 'quaint' and that apparently, the Queen is just waiting to take over Canada and turn it back into a colony (yes... more than one American has suggested this and no, it's not possible).

And don't get me started on the health care issue. The American view of how that works up here is nothing short of surreal

In the end, Americans have a deep belief that their country is absolutely unique and thus no solution found for a social problem in another country could possibly apply to them or situation in any other county be parallel to theirs in any way.

The recent discussion over gun violence is a classic one in this respect. Games, movies, TV, comics.. all blamed - except that Canadians play the same games, watch the same movies and TV and read the same comics - yet we kill each other with guns 1/4 as much per capita. Population density? Over 1/4 of the entire population of Canada lives in just five cities. Downtown Vancouver has one of the highest population densities in North America.

About the *only* reasons for the difference in gun violence between our nations are cultural differences (such as a fearmongering media in the US which is far less the case up here, a stronger integration of religion - and one religion at that into politics in the US while up here it's far more secular) and strong gun control laws, yet both of these are rejected out of hand by most Americans, if they're even considered at all.

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