Look, I’m starting to feel this way, and I’m not even Canadian:
In a confidential diplomatic cable sent back to the State Department, the American Embassy warned of increasing mistrust of the United States by its northern neighbor, with which it shares some $500 billion in annual trade, the world’s longest unsecured border and a joint military mission in Afghanistan.
“The degree of comfort with which Canadian broadcast entities, including those financed by Canadian tax dollars, twist current events to feed longstanding negative images of the U.S. — and the extent to which the Canadian public seems willing to indulge in the feast — is noteworthy as an indication of the kind of insidious negative popular stereotyping we are increasingly up against in Canada,” the cable said.
A trove of diplomatic cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to a number of publications, disclose a perception by American diplomats that Canadians “always carry a chip on their shoulder” in part because of a feeling that their country “is condemned to always play ‘Robin’ to the U.S. ‘Batman.’ ”
But at the same time, some Canadian officials privately tried to make it clear to their American counterparts that they did not share their society’s persistent undercurrent of anti-Americanism.
Canada would be wise to not trust us. Hell, if I lived next door to a bunch of heavily armed, loud, drunken rednecks and religious nuts who’ve shown no regard for the law or other people’s property and think know-nothing yahoos like Sarah Palin have leadership potential, I’d be a touch nervous too. Canadians don’t have a chip on their shoulder. They’ve just got a degree of common sense that eludes your average American.
SectarianSofa
You mean you don’t?
Erikthe Red
@SectarianSofa:
Why? Do you?
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Yeah, the population of Canada is a little more than 10% of the US population the last time I looked. And most of Canada is uninhabitable except in the summer.
But sure, we should reverse the Batman-Robin roles, or even consider ourselves equal. Makes perfect sense.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
I see you’ve met my family. I had no idea you’d been visiting Modesto recently.
On the other hand, curling is not a real sport and I don’t care who says it is.
SectarianSofa
@Erikthe Red:
Well, I am in North Texas. I’d only have to exaggerate a little. I have the polite suburbanite version. But with Palin love. So, there you go.
JPL
Where’s Red Kitten? I think her comments would be welcomed.
MikeTheZ
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: And Canadians have a social safety net superior to ours, including actual health care, not simply health insurance. So its presumptive of Americans to consider ourselves Canada’s equal.
PurpleGirl
Yeah, maybe we haven’t tried to take them over lately, but in the early days we were often talking about marching in and taking over Canada. Hell, NYS claimed for a long time that it should own almost all of Canada.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@SectarianSofa: It’s only polite here in North Texas because they run everything.
SectarianSofa
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Sadly, yes.
John O
*scoff*
If you think it’s only Canadiens looking at us a bit askance these days, you’re dreaming. Russia is no doubt rolling its eyes over START; most of Western Europe and even Israel are certainly rolling them over DADT, and China is probably just laughing at us in our diplomatic face.
The only thing most of them aren’t experiencing tension on is the idea that poor people have to buck up.
Nick L
Also from that article:
Being an American living in Canada, I can attest that this seems true – the majority of Canadians I’ve met, even conservatives, like Obama. Amusingly, this includes my roommate, who thought Obama was a Muslim until I corrected him a few months ago.
Redshift
You left off one of the most important parts of the story:
This happened after seven years of the Bush Administration, not last week. Everyone in the frickin’ world was indulging in “negative popular stereotyping” because they’d made it damned difficult to tell the difference between that and what they were actually doing.
(This is a pet peeve of mine with the WikiLeaks stories — outside of the longer print articles, nobody seems to make any mention of whether the leaked cables are from the Obama or Bush administration, except, of course, for the one they trumpeted as being signed by Hillary Clinton. That context makes a hell of a lot of difference.)
Captain Haddock
I don’t need any guff from the land of Celine Dion.
bloodstar
Is that why you have a senior adviser to Harper calling for the assassination of Julian Assange?
If that passes for common sense, they can keep it.
SectarianSofa
@PurpleGirl:
My Canadian relatives were always fond of reminding me that Canadians did in fact burn part of Washington. Including the White House.
Midnight Marauder
Um, where is the stereotyping?
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@MikeTheZ:
Yeah, well their dimes fuck up our vending machines.
Ailuridae
@MikeTheZ:
The US would be very wise to adopt Canadian banking practices as well.
Anonymous At Work
1. Canadians have a chip on their shoulder. Some only have it on their shoulder about being told that they have a chip on their shoulder. Most that I know feel about America what the nerd does to the jock: inferior during gym but superior during math.
2. Imagine my surprise that diplomats of one country don’t like the spin of news in another country and the diplomats of that country rush to console the hurting feelings of their foreign brethern.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Where does all the cold come from in the winter?
Canada. Yeah.
I think it’s time we took them down a (winni)peg.
SmallAxe
@SectarianSofa:
Take Off Eh!
As a dual citz, I cannot let that stand… It was the British, not the Canadians that burned the White House…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_bladensburg
“The burning of Washington took place on August 24th, 1814 after the British victory at the Battle of Bladensburg earlier that day. The victory in Maryland enabled the British forces to march into Washington virtually unopposed.
Contrary to popular belief, Canadian militia were not present at the burning of Washington; General Ross and over 4,000 British regulars landed on the eastern coast of Maryland and march inland. They were met by 6,000 American militia near Bladensburg. Although the Americans had more men, they weren’t a match for the British regulars, and neither was their commander. The American army fled, and the redcoats marched into Washington.
So although the White House WAS burned down in the War of 1812, Canadians were not present in the battle; the victors were British regulars who crossed the Atlantic and landed in Maryland.”
bozack
I agree with @Redshift that the key here is that this is early 2008. The mentality of that cable is straight out of the RNC or Sarah Palin or Fox News or the National Review– that is, dump on people who disagree with you as The Other without considering why they are criticizing you. So of course that was the operating mentality of the Bush administration.
People didn’t like us in 2008 because of our mentality that had led us to launch a catastrophic invasion and occupation of a country halfway around the world for no good reason. But yeah, Mr. American-in-the-embassy-to-Canada, people only disliked us because of propaganda.
I love how these guys think that being a white conservative American is to be oppressed.
Citizen_X
@PurpleGirl: Well, we did try it on three occasions: once in the Revolution, and on two fronts in the War of 1812. So we’re 0 and 3 against Canada.
And the last time, as SectarianSofa pointed out, they responded by burning the White House.
Edit: OK, I guess not, as SmallAxe points out. You with your historical facks n’ stuff.
Bruce (formerly Steve S.)
I live near the Canadian border and sometimes watch Canadian news. The notion that they “twist current events” in some anti-American fashion is pure fantasy. Coverage of U.S. related issues ranges from completely dovetailing with prevailing U.S. perspective to mildly confrontational, usually the former. Keep in mind that whoever wrote this cable is an American and considers anything but lockstep support of U.S. foreign policy to be anti-Americanism.
recusancy
Don’t think the Canada doesn’t have their fair share of wingnuts. They’ve been getting increasingly more wingnutty.
Brendancalling
I’m in Montreal at least two or three times a year to visit my son, and I can attest to the common sense. Also, Montrealers are VERY well-dressed, in general.
Original Lee
The news is only twisted if you compare it to Faux News. Who is our Ambassador to Canada now, anyway?
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@SmallAxe:
I prefer my version
toof reality and will continue to promote it until you produce the original, long-form version of the troop roster with birth certificates for each alleged “redcoat,” and I further note that the maple leaf is red, which proves my point. Also, Canadians probably smirked, which makes them twice as guilty.Seriously, there was a lot of anti-Canadian resentment among the Americans at the big UN office where I worked in Paris, and I could never figure it out. What’s wrong with common courtesy, health care, and hockey?
Redshift
And why am I not surprised that Bushies thought other governments should control what kind of views are presented their public broadcasting outlets?
freelancer
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
a peg or tuque would be good.
kb
Especially rich given that according to wikileaks that US diplomats complained that a member of the British royal family
“reacted with almost neuralgic patriotism whenever any comparison between the United States and United Kingdom came up”
yeah cos after all americans never ever adopt a “we’re better”
attitude to every other country in the world……..
soonergrunt
@Bruce (formerly Steve S.): You should append to that–whoever wrote this cable was a Bush appointee or an appointee of a Bush appointee.
trollhattan
Hey now, let’s not go ticking off our #1 source of imported oil, eh? If they want me to pretend to
likeunderstand hockey, I can do that.Kyle
@PurpleGirl:
In the Bush years I would read occasional discussion in the Canadian media about when the US were going to invade to grab Alberta’s oil or BC’s water.
I’ll bet Cheney thought about it.
AnotherBruce
@SectarianSofa:
It’s true that Sarah Palin does have leadership potential, in the same sense that Mussolini had leadership potential.
trollhattan
@soonergrunt:
And let’s face it, to the Bushies all Canadians were suspiciously similar to Europeans. Also, too, they have mooselims dere.
soonergrunt
Those bastards gave us Justin Bieber, Nickleback, and Celine Dion.
If we’re actually comparing who was worse to whom, I’d say the Canadians have been unspeakably cruel.
DS
As a Canadian, let me offer my two cents: most Canadians don’t hate Americans, they just hate America.
soonergrunt
@Midnight Marauder:
Considering that the group in question dealt with Iraq operations, it only makes sense that the Canadians weren’t involved. You don’t come to the party, you don’t get the toys after all. Of course, this is the Iraqi mess we’re talking about. I would’ve thought the Canadians would have counted themselves lucky and proud over that particular issue.
SectarianSofa
@SmallAxe:
Well, hmm. I guess I have one for the Canadian relatives then. Thanks for the fact check. It was always said in a “in your FACE, eh, you losers” sort of way. I have dual citizenship as well, fwiw.
alwhite
Whats the French word for Anschluss? Canada can be as free as it wants until we decided our common heritage demands a common government.
Silver
In my Canadian ex-pat experience, if you don’t give America a particularly loving and skilled rimjob, you hate America. Full stop.
It’s one of the reasons I actually do hate America…
Anya
I used to think that way but then Toronto elected a drunkard Sarah Palin clone and Harper is making Canada more and more into a mini America, hell he even managed to manipulate his way into helping his political allies to create Fox North. The only sliver of hope is that they will not be able to be openly racist and anti Muslim, like Fox because of the strict hate laws in Canada.
SmallAxe
@SectarianSofa:
That’s cool. FYI they supposedly did it in response to Americans burning down Ft. York in present day Toronto so there is a Canadian connection to burning DC.
Mike in NC
Don’t forget the Fenian Raids, where both Union and Confederate Irish-American Civil War veterans dreamed of kicking the Brits out of North America.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fenian_raids
SmallAxe
@soonergrunt:
Good stuff, I will give you Bieber and Dion but what about:
Neil Young, William Shatner and of course the great Peter North!
soonergrunt
@Silver: Which brings up a question, and I’m not asking to be a dick or anything, but because I really want to know:
I presume from the context (but could be wrong) of your comment that you were an ex-pat in the US.
If you came to hate it so much, why stay? I mean, it’s not like you didn’t have a very nice country with very nice stuff and very nice people to go home to.
I ask because I fucking hate Oklahoma, and I’m only here until the moment my wife vests in her pension. The very next day, the house is going on the market for whatever I can get for it, and I’m moving. I’ll try to find a job at the target location first, but that’s really optional. So I guess I’m asking if you were/are facing something similar? Cause there is a point of stupid okie shit where I’ll just up and leave, and the hell with a pension, if it comes to it.
Svensker
There was an interesting op-ed in one of the Toronto papers the other day about how not ALL American immigrants were idiot assholes. That many of them were refugees from Bush’s politics and therefore they couldn’t really be THAT bad, and for Canadians to try to suck it up and give the American immigrants the benefit of the doubt and let them (us) prove we were assholes and not just assume that.
It was sort of a shock to read it.
But people we’ve met have been amazingly nice to us. Maybe it’s cuz we’re so cute!
PurpleGirl
Don’t forget Donald and Keifer Sutherland also come from the Great White North.
soonergrunt
@SmallAxe: Neil Young–pretentious prick with too nasally voice. And I thought that long before I knew he was a Canadian. William Shatner and Peter North? Kick ass!
I’d still take a giant inflatable beaver the first chance I got, though.
Midnight Marauder
@soonergrunt:
That seems like a pretty legitimate point.
arguingwithsignposts
@soonergrunt:
Warren Zevon is also Canadian. And the Tragically Hip, a great rock band still going strong.
I would say that almost makes up for bieber and dion.
soonergrunt
@arguingwithsignposts: A LOT of great music is made by Canadians, ’tis true.
But I have an 11-year-old daughter.
It’s going to be a long fucking time before I forgive the Canadians for Justin Bieber.
I really do think that it will take a giant inflatable beaver arriving in the mail to right THAT wrong.
SmallAxe
@soonergrunt:
That Olympic Inflatable Beaver was absolutely hilarious and still put’s most Canadians to shame when you bring it up. What the hell were they thinking with that one? And the 4th Leg on the torch stand in the opening ceremonies not coming up as Gretzky stood there flaming out… so brutal but classically Canadian.
joe from Lowell
Wow. That’s nice.
Now do average black people. No, wait, average Jews.
Sheesh. It’s ok, because it’s Americans.
Sarah Palin is the least popular national political figure in America, and an overwhelming majority of Americans consider her unqualified to be president.
But it’s ok, because it’s Americans you’re writing about.
frosty
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
Probably because all their trekkers are told to sew a Canadian flag on their backpacks so they don’t get mistaken for Yanks. I know I got pissed off at it. Enough so that I bought an American flag and sewed it on MY pack.
joe from Lowell
Sometimes I think John’s journey from far right to left consisted of a conscious effort to become the stereotypical caricature of liberals he used to have so much fun railing against.
soonergrunt
@SmallAxe: Yeah, but that fourth leg was so artfully dealt with in the closing ceremony. They just hung a lampshade on it, grinned for all the world to see, drove on with a wonderful ceremony.
Americans couldn’t have done either the beaver or the 4th leg. Too damned serious and full of ourselves.
soonergrunt
@joe from Lowell: Common thing with converts. You ever notice how Christian converts want to burn all the mosques and synagogues (and I’m only speaking a little metaphorically)?
schrodinger's cat
@DS: True about the rest of the world as well. Also too.
Oscar Leroy
Why, I bet Canadians think the US holds people indefinitely without trial, waterboards suspects, and claims the right of the president to kill anyone he wants at any time for any reason or no reason without trial or oversight. Darn Canadian media!
Carrie
@arguingwithsignposts:
As much as I would love to claim Warren Zevon, he’s from Chicago.
The Hip are full of awesome.
HRA
Dual citizen. too
When I was growing up in Canada, I heard “damn Yankees” and not at home. When I came to the US to finish growing up, I was called a Canuck. I had never heard it before then and did not understand why I was called that or what it meant.
I live close to the border. I don’t hear those words now on either side.
What I did hear at our Thanksgiving table from a relative was what the Canadians do when shopping at our super mall. They change from the clothes they wore here to their newly bought clothes in the parking lot and drop their old clothes on the ground as they leave. I assume this only happens in the summer. Right now we piled up 5-8 inches of snow today.
Splitting Image
And Phil Hartman.
Sid Meier is also Canadian, as a matter of fact. So if it sometimes sounds like Canadians think the country brought Civilization to the rest of the world, I’d like to point out that it is, in fact, true.
stannate
@PurpleGirl: There’s something really damned funny about Keifer Sutherland’s idolization by conservatives for his role on “24” when you consider that Keith’s grandfather, Tommy Douglas, was an avowed socialist that brought healthcare to his native Saskatchewan…and later on, the entire nation of Canada.
(For trivia fans, Keifer happens to be the only link between an elected socialist government and the music group Chicago.)
Silver
@soonergrunt:
The weather is nicer-that’s 1%. The other 99% is family reasons. My American wife can’t wait to move to Canada, but we’re not just going to leave her mom here.
Splitting Image
Toronto is kind of a special case. It’s the Canadian immigrants to this city that tend to be idiot assholes. They come here for the jobs and spend the rest of their time whining about how horrible this city is compared to Vancouver/Calgary/somewhere in Saskatchewan/Ottawa/Montreal/Halifax or wherever it was they came from.
Americans on the other hand seem to settle in just about as well as everybody else.
Nylund
I used to live in Canada, and still visit a number of times a year. There is a pastry shop in Byward Market in downtown Ottawa that is absolutely in love with the fact that Obama bought a cookie there. Its now called the “Obama Cookie” and posters of Obama adorn the place. They do quite like him. But, Americans in general? They really don’t like us.
I got shit all the time…always called a “stupid yankee” and I seemed to be personally responsible for all the world’s evils (which were all the fault of the US), and you can’t go a day without someone screaming, “we burned down your white house!” at you. Try to point out the fact that it was actually British troops sent over from Europe and that it was in retaliation for burning down Upper Canada’s parliament buildings, and, well, its kinda like trying to tell a tea bagger that deficits are actually worse under the GOP.
soonergrunt
@stannate: I remember Keifer Southerland doing a commercial supporting the US Health Care Reform movement a couple of years ago, and I thought for sure that wingnut heads would be popping all over the place.
soonergrunt
@Splitting Image:
That’s worth a smile. We were talking about music, and let’s face it–Nickelback? Really?
Sophist
Yeah, because that’s remotely the same thing. Because “American” is a race that has had sterotypical attributes apllied to it to facilitate enslavement and/or genocide.
Sarah Palin was the vice presidential candidate to an old and somewhat infirm Presidential candidate. They got 45% of the vote. She was no less manifestly inane then than now.
schooner
@Nylund
Lived in Ottawa past six years and I’ve never seen it. Don’t doubt it might exist but everywhere? Fuck and No. I have lived in Canada my whole life, all Toronto before Ottawa and I never once heard “stupid yankee”
The asshole that Bush appointed Ambassador didn’t help things here but that’s a wild exaggeration.
Wrye
@Mike in NC:
The Civil war links in that article led me to this:
I think that ratio confirms that there’s always been some wingnuts up here, but also where our sympathies have historically laid.
Also during the civil war:
Well that’s changed, sadly.
Citizen_X
@Nylund:
Wha…? I used to live in Canada, too, and I never heard anything like what you describe.
Mildly annoying smugness about calm, reasonable Canada and its great healthcare system was about the worst it ever got.
Steve Finlay
We Canadians are horribly selfish. We keep kd lang singing Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah. What do we give you? Jim Carrey and Mike Myers.
I’m not looking forward to those centuries in Purgatory.
Odie Hugh Manatee
Fix’t.
Splitting Image
Nickelback is what we call a Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.
Bullsmith
@Nylund:
You’ve been called “Stupid Yankee?” in Canada? I call BS.
Unless you ran into a bitter, elderly Vietnamese refugee. Or perhaps an acid-casualty ex-pat. Nah, even those aren’t credible. That’s just plain BS.
edit, dude, check your cap. FTFY is the more likely cause of your persecution.
sloan
Ha ha ha ha! Dual citizen here. I’ve been living and working back and forth in both countries my whole life and in my experience the only things Americans have to say about Canada are along the lines of “it’s so pretty up there” or “do you get free healthcare?” and the Canadians don’t really give a crap about America except when they do something dumb like invade Iraq or move the Winnipeg Jets to Phoenix.
But when I live in the states I notice that Americans think the whole world is always paying close attention to America. They’re not. Most people only care about what’s going on where they live and just want to be left alone.
Andrew M
@DS: As a fellow Canadian, living in Toronto and working next to an African-American immigrant from Texas, I totally agree with this sentiment. All the American people I’ve met have been pretty fantastic, ranging from West Point and Annapolis cadets I bar-hopped with in Montreal, to people I’ve struck up conversations with on trips to Vegas, to the aforementioned co-worker. You can be a bit brash and overbearing at times, but personally I like having you guys on the other side of the fence.
The distinction between a people and their government, especially in a democracy, isn’t always easy, but I definitely like the American people more than the American government. And yes, that sadly includes the current administration.
schooner
@soonergrunt:
Lady Gaga,Brittany Spears, N’Sync, Kenny fucking G, Michael Fucking Bolton, Creed…..
Need I go on
Viva BrisVegas
@Nylund:
The “we” refers to the British Empire. There was no Canada until the Act of Union in 1840. Canadians generally are aware of their own history.
The burning of the White House reflects on the Empire and it’s colonies at the time. Which is why even we descended from those in the antipodean colonies can bask a little in the reflected glory of our noble redcoat predecessors.
Wrye
Canadians abroad (and I have been one and seen them) can certainly be smug and annoying. On the other hand, I also once had an American insist that I was making up the American invasion of Canada in 1775 for, among other reasons, the fact that “everybody knows” the American revolution didn’t start until 1776. He was insistent because he had talked to his American friend, “a history major” to confirm it.
There’s something about history that many folks worldwide, from many countries ( I am looking at you, Japan), don’t quite get: history doesn’t exist in a vacuum. You can say whatever you want inside your own country, but nothing says that other people have to accept your version of things. You can conveniently leave facts out of textbooks, but there are always other textbooks in which they inconveniently stay in. And when foreign Media reports inconvenient facts, that’s when you get most claims of Anti-American bias.
Pat
I’m thinking my sons, ages 23 to 31 should start looking for another country to live in. Seriously. I can’t picture how life will be for them when they hit 60. It’s really kind of unthinkable…and sad.
toujoursdan
This is a reference to the CBC made for TV movie “H20” which starred Paul Gross (of “Due South” fame). It’s a long movie but definitely worth watching.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H2O_%28miniseries%29
I’m also a Canadian expat now living in New York City. I stay because I feel a bit insulated from national politics and the people here are internationally-minded, well-educated and reality-based for the most part. If things change, I will consider moving home. A part of me misses Montreal.
But I have a laugh at the assertion that it’s Canadians that have the chip on their shoulder. When the healthcare debate raged in the U.S. many Americans asked me what heatlhcare was really like in Canada. When I discussed the pros and cons of the system, noted that healthcare costs are still a problem in Canada (it’s not a magic solution) but said I thought that overall it gave the most people the best care at the least overall cost, I was called a propagandist and a liar. Nothing can be better than U.S. healthcare and if I didn’t think so I should just go home.
Regarding the burning of the White House. Canada was a part of the British Empire and many of the soldiers who fought in the War of 1812 were British, not Canadian militia, but most chose to settle in Canada after the War because land was cheap and they could farm. We tend to call anyone who chooses to make Canada a Canadian. So yeah, Canadians burned down the White House.
Finally, I also have never heard “Damn Yankee” used in my life in Canada. Americans have a reputation of being navel gazing, brash, arrogant, paranoid and aggressive as a people, but almost all Canadians are willing to give individual Americans a fair go when they meet them.
Anonymous
I’d like to thank Canada for Bruce Cockburn, the McGarrigle sisters, and the Duhks.
soonergrunt
@schooner: Never claimed that bunch was better. Only that Justin Bieber, Nickelback, and Celine Dion are cultural atrocities on the level of a WMD attack.
Beauzeaux
Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt. — Pierre Trudeau
Nutella
@bloodstar:
Here’s the difference between Canada and the US:
Flanagan, who called for Assange’s assassination, has now apologized for saying that.
Also as noted at that link he is not an advisor to Harper or the government:
In Canada calls for assassination of people who annoy the government are pretty universally condemned. In the US mainstream politicians and reporters do that and are not condemned.
scot
don’t forget Flanagan the American learned everything he knows at the foot of his republican father.