As a follow up to the discussion on the War of 1812, I thought I would discuss a little about Canada-US relations. An article in the Walrus claims the War of 1812 created the distinction between Canadian and American identity. (For my non-Canadian readers, whenever American is used you should implicitly add "stupid" in front of it)
First-off, as most of Oxford seems to have figured out, one should never ask someone with a North American accent whether they are American because Canadians find it extremely irritating to be assumed to be American. In fact there very fact that people from the United States call themselves American and their country America offends Canadians since more of North America belongs to Canada than to the USA.
USA ex-pats are often surprised at the anti-American sentiment expressed by the Canadians they meet here. That is because there is relatively little animosity coming the other direction (unless they are debating health care in which case Canadians are the evil socialist-communists with state funded single payer universal healthcare). But the fact is Canadians are not particularly upset about how the USA or Americans treat them. Sure, they put their own interests before any others and break the fairly un-fair treaties when it suits them, but they do that for everyone (So I'm bewildered why the Brits think they have a "special relationship" since it is obvious the USA uses flattery because it's what works on Brits). No, it is the ignorance that Canadians can't stand.
Take for instance maps, because of Alaska it makes little sense to draw a map of the USA without including Canada (or you end up with a Alaska as a floating blob shoved in a corner of the page. But if you Google "map usa" and in six of the top 18 image hits (including the #2 hit) Canada simply doesn't exist. Try the same with Canada (which is a single unified geographic area) and only 3 of the top 18 hits (and none of the top 6) do not include significant portions of the USA as well.
Another example would be the well known Talking to Americans which is an epic display of ignorance of Americans with respect to Canada (many were willing to support war on Saskatchewan and congraduated us on our parliamentary igloo). Recently the radio show Q launched a Redesign Project which starting off with more interviews with American displaying their lack of knowledge on anything to do with Canada.
In contrast, most Canadians could name the President and Vice-President of the USA as well as the names and leaders of both their political parties, and name most of the 50 states and their capitals.
Many Canadian entertainers move to the USA to make it big and can spend decades a world class performers and celebrities without anyone outside of Canada knowing they are Canadian. For example: James Cameron (of Avatar) was born in small town Ontario, Alanis Morisette, Celine Dion (winner of 1988 eurovision), William Shatner (Kirk), Avril Lavigne, Howie Mandel (judge of America's Got Talent and Deal or No Deal), Jim Carrey, Michael J. Fox, Shania Twain, Jay Baruchel (the Socerer's Apprentice) and most recently Justin Beiber.
But resentment isn't the whole story. To fully apprieciate Canada-US relations you have to consider the fear and intimitation. A popular allegory in Canada is that the USA is the sleeping giant. We are fully aware if they wanted to, the USA could squash us like a bug. So we try to keep on their good side in the hope they will recognize that treating us better than dirt would be to the mutual advantage of both countries. For instance the miniseries H2O ends with ends with the USA annexing Canada over water.
You can even add a touch of envy to the mix since the USA attracts the best talent from Canada, buys out Canadian companies, makes better television, has more hockey teams, gets cheaper goods and services and until recently had a stronger dollar.
Or as facebook would summarize the 145 year relationship "It's complicated".
