Subject: One American's opinion of Canada
                                         
"It's not just the weather that's cooler in Canada"
Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Pittsburgh, PA Post-Gazette

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 offences 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% 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.


Cheers

Jim, in Yellowknife, the winter wonderland




... I listen to my body.  It says, "Cookies and chocolate milk, please".
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