USA says "Canada is Cool!"

[canoehead, BSN, RN]

Just when mad cow disease, SARS, blackouts on the eastern seaboard, raging forest fires, West Nile, drought and massive locusts start pulling us down...a little piece of American journalism emerges that puts it all in perspective...with a few minor mistakes

PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE Wednesday, July 30, 2003

"It's not just the weather that's cooler in Canada"

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 dinner 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 offenses 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 percent 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.

[pickledpepperRN]

Canadians also are more likely to stand up straight and use proper grammer.

Not like us slouching citizens of the USA what don't know if we done been usin' no double negatives.

[fergus51]

Bwaaahaaaahaaa! I was waiting for some sort of a weather joke. We don't actually know what will happen with same sex marriages or pot yet, but I am hopeful that our government will do what makes sense for once!

[RNonsense]

:chuckle :chuckle Very cute!

[VivaLasViejas, ASN, RN]

Yeah, Heaven forbid we Americans ever grow some common sense and become more like Canada........

[CashewLPN, LPN]

hmm... upon reading this, on a more serious note (yes, I know its a humour forum)...

ever see bowling for columbine? this reminded me of it...

--Barbara

[fergus51]

Things have been heating up with the opening of the first safe injection site in N America for heroin users in Vancouver... The US doesn't like it because they think all the drugs will start making their way across the border or something...

[nosilanurse]

:imbar

OOOH yes, heaven to betsy, we the Canadians aren't as ass backwards as the rest of North America would like to think we are. And on top of all this we have FREE health care tooo.

"If your in an American hospital, you have to attribute every treatment, every guaze pad, every Tylenol to a patients bill. Using global budgeting, Canadians spend about 11% on hospital administration. Americans spend almost 30%.............................. Vancouver General has 14 people working in patient accounts department. In a hospital of equivalent size in the U.S., there would be 300 people working in that office."

Martha Livingston

Assoc. Prof. of Health and Society

Old Westbury College, Long Island

May I also quote an old native saying to sum up the trouble with this set up. "To many Chiefs, and not enough Indians."