Posted on 07/20/2010 8:36:28 AM PDT by Willie Green
Perhaps, here in the Maritimes, you note the influence of every day Americans more than most other places in Canada. After all, they’ve been arriving here for generations, first as Loyalist refugees fleeing north to the remaining British Colonies in the days after the Revolution. Many would move on to other places in Upper and Lower Canada, setting the stage for the creation of the separate province of New Brunswick and the opening of the future province of Ontario for settlement. The influence of American settlers on the development of Canada has been profound.
With the opening of railroads after Confederation and by the later creation of highways and airlines, rather than as settlers, Americans arrived as visitors or tourists. Former President Franklin Delano Roosevelt spent summers on Campobello Island just off the New Brunswick coastline, one of many shoreline summer homes and estates, many of which remain the prized possessions of U.S. families.
For years, I’ve had an impression, gathered from conversations with visitors, that many of those visitors carried with them an ample chip of superiority, a rather American characteristic. I remember meeting one chap who, in classic form, began boasting about the size of his native Texas. I reminded him it would take several of his lone star states to fill Ontario, a province with about as many residents as Ohio in a country with a population about equal to California.
But now, I think you might sense a subtle shift in attitudes.
The last decade, since 9/11, has been tough times for the United States. Their financial calamities, even the recent tragedy of the BP oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico, have awakened America to her vulnerabilities.
We’ve not been immune to the ripples created by the stomping of the “elephant’s” feet. Yet, while still the “mouse”, we seem to have survived the shaking with comparative ease.
In four separate conversations in the past three weeks, I have been surprised by the inquisitiveness of a young father visiting from Minnesota, a professor from Arkansas, another from Maine and a retired businessman from Maryland now living in Florida. All seemed intrigued by their Canadian summer-time adventure as if something was taking place in the great frozen north and something to which they should pay attention.
Perhaps they sense a gathering Canadian maturity and confidence generated by the globalization of the 21st century world of the Internet and commerce. Maybe we are beginning to sense America is not the be-all and end-all to our political, cultural and economic well being.
Maybe they sense, as others have suggested, that Canadians are shedding their shyness and introverted ways after discovering remarkable opportunities by looking beyond the world’s longest and still undefended border.
Maybe the father and son who rode into Nova Scotia from Connecticut on their Harley-Davidson's two years ago were the mine canaries of the changes taking place in this country. “You know something,” the father said, “this guy Tim Horton is onto something. Good coffee and good food.”
You can now buy a Tim Horton’s coffee and lunch in mid-town Manhattan.
The last time we went down this road, didn’t the War of 1812 start? :)
Just visited Vancouver. Beautiful city. V high prices. Papers reporting an upcoming citizen’s revolt against a v-high tax coming up. Also reported heath care tax problems. Lots of panhandlers.
So, it appears that they have good, they have bad. It’s certainly a far, far better neighbor than is Mexico.
“After all, they’ve been arriving here for generations, first as Loyalist refugees fleeing north to the remaining British Colonies in the days after the Revolution.”
I wouldn’t consider these Loyalists to be Americans.
the stomping of the “elephant’s” feet
They have elephants up there? Wooley mammoths?
Nice to know you visited my former city. They just passed the HST for only 2 provinces: BC and Ontario (Toronto). That city loves to whine about the Americans but they allow this monstrosity to pass.
I would sure rather have Stephen Harper in the White House than that clown we have now.
We’ve booked a trip to Banff next year.
“I would sure rather have Stephen Harper in the White House than that clown we have now.”
Or better yet, Mark Steyn!
A nation created by people who desperately want to pretend they are British, whom have their standard of living based 100% on the fact that the U.S. had a vestige interest in protecting them.
It’s like a 10 year old that thinks that his parents could disappear tomorrow and they will still have a house and a full fridge by the end of the week.
Canadians were fighting Hitler long before we got into the fight. And they are with us in Afghanistan.
Whether American or Canadians like it, what happens in one country affects the other.
Canadians fought that early because of their colonial ties/obligation to the UK.
Although their military service, when it isnt wrapped in PC/UN rainbow ribbons, has always been top notched.
Where was the “barf alert”? Canada is a basket case. But, in typical leftist fashion, you talk it up as though it holds some sort of candle to the USA.
I disagree with you. The Canadians intelligently told the Dear Reader to go fly a kite and take his spend-into-prosperity garbage back to The States.
I guess you prefer the Obama spending to the snub he got in Toronto, but some of us disagree with Obama and agree with Canada.
America and Canada:
Both are English speaking nations with areas of French or Spanish
Both were established by brave English, Irish, Scotttish, French, Dutch, Norse and Germans seeking a better life in the New World
Since then both have seen immigration from all over the world- adding to a melting pot culture
Both administer laws in the style of English common law
Both are overwhelmingly Christian with freedom of worhsip for a variety of other religious communities.
Over the last 100 years, both have shed the “same blood in the same mud” against tyrants, dictators and terrorists
Corporations in one often have major operations in the other
Both enjoy baseball, basketball, hockey and football
Do they really need to be separate?
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