Our Canadian Friends

On CSPAN today, a segment of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s (CBC) The National was shown. (Paul tells me that this is the CBC’s nightly news show.) Its subject was to contrast Canadian and American society and attitudes—broadcasted in honor of President Bush’s state visit, obviously.

At the outset, the narrator says this about the visit: “American President George W. Bush finally, finally [bold mine] visits Canada,” conveniently leaving out the fact that President Bush had visited Canada twice to attend summits and had planned a state visit early in 2003. The proposed visit was abruptly cancelled after a spokeswoman for then Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien referred to the president as a moron and the PM refused to accept her resignation.

(The present-day Canadian PM, Paul Martin, however, apparently knows what side his bread is buttered on. Or maybe he just understands common courtesy better than some other members of the Canadian government. When Canadian Parliamentarian Carolyn Parrish made her ridiculous anti-Bush statement—stepping on a Bush doll for publicity (and protest) purposes--Prime Minister Martin had her ejected from their Liberal Party Caucus.)

Further on into the program, the narrator uses the unintentionally funny metaphor of Canada’s National Circus School (“It’s simply called ‘Cirque,’ the French word,” said the narrator proudly), to represent the beauty of being Canadian: pliant, flexible and--ta-da!--international. (Several nations have representatives among the student body. This fact is presented as if a given student body at any American university is composed solely of WASPy Americans.) Viva la Diversidad!

Canadians are more “citizens of the world,” asserted the narrator; they are cosmopolitans, who thrive in the big cities where diversity rules. Americans abandon their cities and even their suburbs when “people they don’t like” move there. Canadians trust their government and give it a great deal of power over their lives. Americans are suspicious of too much government and keep it weak.

The results of two polls were given. The first: do you believe that the father is the “master” [quotes mine] of the household? 50% of Americans polled said ‘yes,’ while only 20% of Canadians did so. The second: do you attend religious services at least once a week? The results were roughly identical.

In short, the narrator happily concludes that Canadians are more like Europeans than their American neighbors.

Well. If the majority of Canadian attitudes are accurately portrayed by this segment, then I agree. And it's--to borrow a phrase--a *good* thing.

I found myself cracking up during the intro as the narrator expounded in solemn tones on this seemingly serious subject as the camera repeatedly zoomed in on the crotches of the open-legged circus students. A metaphor for how different many Canadians are from many Americans? You’d better believe it. Americans aren’t willing to twist themselves into unnatural positions to please the likes of French President Jacques Chirac, nor are we going to “lie back, spread ‘em and ‘enjoy’ it” by letting those who want to terrorize this country into submission do so.

My Canadian friends, if this is the type of propaganda you get day in and day out, you need FoxNews badly. That’s not to say that they don’t dish out their own brand of propaganda on occasion, however, a little alternate viewpoint never hurt anyone.

Additionally, the gnashing of Canadian teeth--at least the leftist ones--should be entertaining. (Fox invades Canada at first of the upcoming year).

UPDATE: Paul corrects the facts regarding the Parrish incident. Parrish wasn't ejected from the Liberal Caucus for her little stunt. She was booted for criticizing PM Martin.

Comments

[deleted]

[law school spam deleted]

[Bruce]

OK, you have to cut Canada some slack. Remember, their gene pool very likely hasn't recovered from the last time 'Americans' fled over the border to avoid service in Vietnam. And now they're taking another hit from 'Americans' who don't believe that we're the greatest nation the world has ever seen and that we are the world's only hope for a global democratic society. One hundred years ago, there wera about six democracies in the world. Now there are 120. We had a LOT to do with that. It's what we do. Exporting Democracy is NOT what the Canadians do. They export cold fronts and keep a low profile so as not to offend anyone. Eventually, they will realize that by trying to appease everyone, they will appease no one. Of course, we'll be right their to drag their butts out of the frying pan. Those Mountie uniforms are sharp, though, aren't they?

[Mike]

I think there may be a disconnect between the Canadian ruling elite and the Canadian people. I remember vividly how the people of Gander took in people whose planes had been diverted and stranded there on 9/11.

Just Google for "911 gander".

[Lola]

About that law school letter posted in this comment . . . don't see how that has to do with the blogpost. Perhaps it was posted with the wrong one?

In any case, Hubby and I were in Canada for our honeymoon and we had a chance to watch CBC. We weren't too impressed with the quality of what passed for news reports and noticed that a good bit seemed to be recycled somehow from American sources.

[Jeff]

"My Canadian friends, if this is the type of propaganda you get day in and day out, you need FoxNews badly."

That's about the size of it, I'm afraid - I've done my best to avoid watching network TV news here for a few years now. Put it this way - I watch CNN because it's the *least* biased of my news options (until my cable provider finally picks up Fox, which can't happen soon enough.)

[Solomon]

Well folks going to have their opinions. That's the way of the world. It's just there's so much BS mixed in with opinions. I love Canada, will probably be moving to Toronto next year. I love the USA also. So I believe that all the overblown rhetoric needs to be reigned in. USA isn't Nazi Germany.

[Iron Mike]

J--
What's up with that Law School letter in here?
M

[baldilocks]

Don't know, Mike but it's gone now. :-)

[big al]

Just to inform you,CBC is usually referred to by conservative Canadians ,as Communist Broadcasting Corp.This sets the tone quite nicely and shows you what to expect programming wise.........There are times when I'm almost tempted to set up one of those "We're Sorry" websites,but I can't make up my mind whether to be sorry for subjecting the world to the CBC or the Liberal Party:).......And as a side note:Canada did too help export democracy and defeat tryants. While the last 2o years of mostly Liberal Party rule have degraded the size and the equiptment of our Armed Forces,there are still a lot of people who were given a chance at freedom with our help.

[Tony]

Hey Juliette,

Carolyn Parrish (representing Mississauga Centre) is anti-American and a fool. The two aren't necessarily connected, but Parrish manages to combine the two:

April 2003: During caucus, states "Damn Americans. I hate those bastards." (http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Canada/2003/03/03/35694-cp.html)

August 2004: Tells reporters that Canada should not join the missile defense initiative, saying, "We are not joining a coalition of the idiots. We are joining a coalition of the wise." (http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2004/08/26/parrish_pm040826.html)

And it's not just her. See also comments in late 2002 by Liberal MPs Bonnie Brown and Colleen Beaumier(http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/762162/posts).

And in the meantime, Canada extols the virtues of Lester Pearson's "soft power" while the Canadian Forces slide into oblivion, example http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&q=%22sea+king%22+crash. It's enough to make me drink.