Burning question about Canadians

[maryland]

I had this burning question about Canadians that I finally now have a chance to ask:

What are the main differences between the Canadians and the Americans with respect to culture, attitude, standard of living, social views etc...

Or are we almost just twins ?

Is Canada just like New York or California to the US ?

 

[holden]

we are a younger nation trying to define ourselfs


america was born out of a revolution and fought for their independence - this is reflected in their current ideologies and way of life

canada never revolted and was given her sovereignty - this is reflected in our current ideologies and way of life

 

[bananaman]

What are the main differences between the Canadians and the Americans with respect to culture, attitude, standard of living, social views etc...

We are the same and different all at the same time. Canada is a more liberal (small l) country than the US. Look at gun control, prostitution, gay marriage etc. Our social programs reflect a higher awareness of other people and their standard of living.

We do not have the big inner city slums of some US cities, and we attempt (not well enough IMHO) to look after the disadvantaged.

I have spent alot of time in the US and have family and very close friends living there. The differences in how we approach health care alone could be a topic for a novel.

My 0.02.

 

[lickrolaine]

Pierre Trudeau had a vision for Canada in the 60's.To make it a multicultural nation.We have tripped a bit along the way,but there is some,if not a lot,of his ideas at work.There are pockets of resistance in and through-out the country.The facts are real,minorities today will make up the majority in the large cities real soon.Fact is there is no room left for the word "minorities",as it is misleading here.Canada has become a country for all people,the USA decided to go the melting-pot way,so because of those two very large differences it is hard to compare an American to a Canadian.I have a lot of American friends in the north of Michigan,and they have completely different views from the people in the south.I have friends in Nashville,and they have a very narrow viewpoint when it comes to equality.

We have a lot to learn from each other,both good and not so good.

 

[TheNiteHwk]

we are a younger nation trying to define ourselfs


america was born out of a revolution and fought for their independence - this is reflected in their current ideologies and way of life

canada never revolted and was given her sovereignty - this is reflected in our current ideologies and way of life

You know I never looked at it that way.

I always just said Americans are not afraid to stand up for what they believe in... and us Canadians are just a bunch of wussies.

</ducks and hides>

 

[holden]

we are a younger nation trying to define ourselfs


america was born out of a revolution and fought for their independence - this is reflected in their current ideologies and way of life

canada never revolted and was given her sovereignty - this is reflected in our current ideologies and way of life

oh wait another thing

it's easier to get rich in the USA (less taxes)

if you are poor, it's better to be poor in canada

if you are super rich the US is better, you can buy almost anything without waiting

 

[someone]

I came across the following list of difference a few years ago. I hope it helps:

Guide to the essential differences between Americans, Canadians,
Britons, Australians and New Zealanders.

Aussies: Dislike being mistaken for Poms (Brits)
Canadians: Are indignant about being mistaken for Americans
Americans: Like being mistaken for Canadians
Brits:Can't possibly be mistaken for anyone.
Kiwis:Happy to be mistaken for anyone.


Aussies: Believe you should look out for your mates.
Brits: Believe that you should look out for those people who belong to
your club.
Americans: Believe that people should look out for & take care
ofthemselves.
Canadians: Believe that is the government's job.
Kiwis: Believe the Aussies will look out for them.


Aussies: Are extremely patriotic to their beer.
Americans: Are flag-waving, anthem-singing, and obsessively patriotic.
Canadians: Can't agree on the words to their anthem and don't sing
anyway.
Brits: Don't sing either but have military bands to play the anthem.
Kiwis: Sing their anthem but nobody listens except when someone sings it
in Maori and everyone complains.
Americans: Spend most of their free time glued to the idiot box.
Canadianson't, but only because they can't get more American channels.
Brits: Pay a tax just so they can watch four channels.
Aussies: Don't watch TV but export all their crappy programs to the
Brits who love them.
Kiwis: Don't have TV.


Americans: Will jabber on about football, baseball, and basketball.
Brits: Will jabber on about cricket, soccer, and rugby.
Canadians: Will jabber on about hockey, hockey, hockey, hockey and how
they beat the Americans twice in baseball.
Aussies: Will jabber on about how they beat the Brits at everything.
Kiwis: Will jabber on about how they won the America's Cup and then
smashed it up.


Americans: Spell words differently but still call it English.
Brits: Pronounce their words differently, but still call it English.
Canadians: Spell like the Brits but pronounce like Americans.
Aussies: Add "G'Day Mate and a heavy accent to everything they say in an
attempt to get laid.
Kiwis: Speak Aussie with a Brit accent.

continued

 

[someone]

Brits: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an
island.
Aussies: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an
island.
Kiwis: Shop at home and have goods imported because they live on an
island.
Americans: Travel south of the border for cheap shopping in a backward
country.
Canadians: Travel south of the border for cheap shopping in a backward
country.


Americans: Drink weak, pissy-tasting beer.
Canadiansrink strong, pissy-tasting beer.
Brits: Drink warm, beery tasting piss.
Aussies: Drink anything.
Kiwis: Drink more of anything.


Americans: Believe that poverty and failure are morally suspect.
Canadians: Believe that wealth and success are morally suspect.
Brits: Believe that wealth, poverty, success and failure are inherited.
Aussies: Believe that none of this matters after several beers.
Kiwis: Don't have any wealth or success.

 

[Fritz the Cat]

I have lived in the US for many years and I think the few big differences are:

There is in Canada a general belief about the responsibility of society in ensuring a certain level of basic protections to all members of society. That means everyone should have access to education, health care, and basic means of living. These are usually considered rights to be protected as opposed to privileges to be acquired.

Another big difference is with regards to an actual separation of church and state. As opposed to the current situation in the States where this separation is enscribed in the constitution but is in effect ignored by the religious right-backed republican administration. Religious groups and doctrine don't have as much influence or presence in the public policy discourse.

Another difference, related to the first point, is less spread in relative wealth and social discepancies. The differences between rich and poor are not as pronounced and you could qualify the Canadian society as having less poor, less very rich, and more middle-class folks.

And in large urban areas, you have more ethnic, language, and religious diversity, and more tolerance for that diversity. You also have less "ghetto-ization" of the diverse population.

Now, all said, it does not means that there is no discrimination, intolerance, and inequalities in Canadian society. I just think it is less pronounced than in the US.

Just my opinion.

 

[ducttape]

Canadian - an unarmed American with health care...

 

[WinterHawk]

Some say that America was born in a Revolution. Canadian's are Americans who said, "to hell with the Revolution".

There was a time in "Upper Canada" (Ontario), when the 4th of July was celebrated as much as it was in the United States. The main differences between Canada and the United States can be summed up in one word, MONEY! American's have more of a disposible income than Canadains, and I believe that has primarily to do with the fact that there are 10 times as many American's as there are Canadians.

Canadian's for the most part live in cities, while American's largely live in smaller communities. Yes, yes, yes, I know that America has large Cities, but take this, Toronto has a population of over 3 million, and if you're talking about the GTA, then it's over 5 million. That's 1/6 the population of the entire country spread over an area of about 100 km. For the US that would be a city of almost 30 million people, or the State of Califorina.

Most of us live within 200 Km of the US boarder, and Canada was formed primarly to stop American's from claiming all of North America. For most of the time there has been any population up here, it has been with the intention of keeping the US out.

America settled her West by individuals and groups spreading out into Indian territory, settling and pushing the Indian out. And if the Indians didn't want to go, well things got messy. Evenually when almost all of the killing got done, the LAW was tentatively established, the Calvary called in and what was left of the Native American's was forced on to reservations to be ignored. Might made right, and every good American had a GUN.

In Canada, before anyone moved west, we had the Hudson Bay Company (the oldest, still existing company in the world), explore and map the west. Set out trade routes and settlements. They were usually followed by the North West Mounted Police which became the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The "Crown" established treaties with Indians, recognizing there soverngity and made the presence of Goverment felt before any settlers were encouraged to move West. Canada's Westward expansion was goverend by the ideas of "Law, Order and Good Goverment". While the American West had sizable contigents of US Calvary, we had unarmed police.

So if you wonder why Canadian's look to there goverment, it's because it is in the very nature of how this country was formed. The goverment came first (in the form of the CPR (Canadian Pacific Railway), and then the people.

Canadian's are American's who took a different path. Our road to democracy was one of quiet evolution, not revolution. Amerian's do have one outstanding quality in that there Revolution is on going, they are always striving to improve themselves as individuals and as a nation. I for one think that they have lost sight of this, as one of the earlier posting pointed out, your religious beliefs are now becoming very public there and that is going to cause them nothing but grief.

I as an Canadian don't care what religious beliefs you have as long as you abide by the law and are civil to all other citizens. No one has ever asked me what Church I attend, nor tried to convice me that I need to be saved by going to the same Church as them. Nor does anyone care who I vote for, or what political party I favour. My life if private.

I believe that this is increasingly not the case in the US. Since I've never lived or worked in the US, just visited for a few weeks at a time (and what US TV stations all the time), I can't comment with any authority on this. All I can say is that here, people only worry if I can do the job I'm paid to do and that I do no ill to others.

 

[Keebler Elf]

Canada is also much more urban than the US. Something like 90% of Canadians live in urban centres, vs. 50% of Americans.

 

[anon1]

America was settled and developed according to the Frontier Thesis, expansionist and adventurist.
Canada was settled and developed according ro the Metropolitan Thesis, communalist and civility.

 

[homonger]

Canadians are often dismissive of their American cousins, lamenting our lack of class, our greed, our boisterousness, and our idiotic politicians.

Americans, for the most part, have no idea where Canada is.

 

[train]

Canadian - an unarmed American with health care...

Correction....with the promise of health care....the "line-ups" are getting worse and worse .


There is more of a difference between Californians and Texans than there is between say British Columbians and Oregonians or Nova Scotians and people from Maine.

 

[tonyb]

Law and order in the West

The NWMP was formed to put down the Red River Rebellion.

When Confederation was approved by the British Parliament to form a defensive alliance against US incursion into Canada, Britain gave all the land formerly administered by the Hudson's Bay Company to Canada. Canada sent out surveyors, who chose to ignore the fact that there were people already living there. Those people chased the surveyors out, and formed a politcal union. They offered to join Canada as a province, and if Canada wouldn't deal, then they would offer to join the US as a state.

Most of the people living in what is now Manitoba were Metis ("half breeds") and Catholic; they farmed communally and lived off the fur trade and buffalo hunt, all of which was frowned upon by the White, Anglo Saxon Protestants in Ontario who treasured the commercial value of private property. So the NWMP was formed, and sent out to deal with the Catholic half breeds.

The NWMP enforced the White Man's laws, and trampled all over the rights of the Metis. They were every bit as brutal as the US pioneers were; but they were more civil about it, having tea each afternoon at 4pm.

The Metis moved West, and when they tried to join Canada for a second time as a province, the NWMP attacked them again. Despite brutality and ineptitude on the part of the NWMP, their might prevailed, and the second rebellion was put down.

While all this was going on, the presence of the NWMP did indeed prevent too many Americans from bringing their form of colonization into Canada. Pickings were easier in the US.

(okay, maybe they didn't have tea each afternoon at 4. A slight exaggeration, but you get the concept).

 

[tonyb]

Un-American

Being "Un-American" is only a bad thing if you happen to be American, or in America.

Canadians have trouble defining who they are, but we are pretty sure of who we aren't.

The refugees from the American Revolution had a well-founded fear and loathing of the "patriots", because those patriots had burned them out of their homes and forced them to leave. The French living in Quebec had been brutally attacked in their homes by those same patriots, so they had no love for them either.

When the US attacked Canada in 1812, it reinforced our anti-American feeling. Especially when they started playing really dirty. Then the threats of attack after the US Civil War, and the fact that the US government allowed the Fenians to raise an army, contrary to US law, which tried to attack Canada.

Then the US didn't join us in fighting for Liberty and Democracy in 1914, 1915, 1916, although they were happy to profit from the war. Only when they figured they might not participate in the spoils of war did they get involved. Ditto for 1939, 1940, 1941, until they were forced in by the Japanese attack and by Germany declaring War on them.

The draft dodgers and deserters during the Vietnam War brought more Un-American rhetoric with them.

As the US emerged as a super power with a standard of living most people in the world could barely imagine, jealousy set in. All the rest of the world wanted what was good about America: wealth, freedom, opportunity. But we don't want to be part of ghettos, urban violence, the self-serving and hypocritical US foreign policy.

From outside the US, it's easy to see all that is wrong with them. If any Americans know where Canada is, they probably have a perpective of us that we might not find flattering.

 

[Keebler Elf]

Correction....with the promise of health care....the "line-ups" are getting worse and worse .

That's b/c the poor in the US aren't allowed to line up at all...

 

[Keebler Elf]

We as Canadians tend to have a hard time defining what it is to be Canadian. But just like in the famous Supreme Court pornography case, "we know it when we see it".

A lot of people like to over-emphasize how close Canadian culture/society is to American. I think it's easy to make that mistake when you look at things superficially, but the more you dig the more you'll realize how different the two countries are.

As for people saying Canadians are defensive/self-conscious about who we are, I think that is/was very true in the past but I also see a definite increase (especially among younger Canadians) of pride and independence about our country. It's usually middle aged and older people who talk about Canadians being self-conscious; today's youth have no such qualms and are increasingly viewing our southern neighbour as America the Bad rather than the America the Good like it was in the past. Canadians are starting to realize that we define ourselves and anything other western democracies can do, we can do just as fine ourselves. So, for example, the whole idea of Canada joining the USA is, IMHO, deader today than it's even been in the past. It's usually nutbars in Alberta or other such extremists who call for such a union.

 

[wrong hole]

My definition of Canada

She is young, refreshing, strong and at times wild. She still has that innocence about her having never seen the full darkness of the world. Her moves are clumsy but enchanting at the same time. There's a purity there that heals the most tainted of souls, she makes you want to be better not for self gain but for self satisfaction. And you know, no matter what, you would want to protect her with your last breath from the cruelties of the world. She just takes you away to a time when you could sleep the sleep of the innocent.