HOW SMUGGLERS OF B.C. BUD HELP KEEP OUR HOSER IMAGE ALIVE

VICTORIA -- I swear on a stack of bilingual Bibles that I am not
making this up. A recent Associated Press story from Oroville,
Washington reads: "Two British Columbia residents await trial on
charges they tried to smuggle $2.4 million worth of marijuana into the
United States in a canoe. Border Patrol agents were waiting in the
bushes when the suspects landed their 181/2-foot canoe on the American
side of Lake Osoyoos. The craft was laden with 478 pounds of
high-grade marijuana in 14 hockey bags."

The story may have all the elements of the ultimate Canadian crime:
B.C. Bud, hockey bags, a canoe. Bob and Doug McKenzie turn bad, eh?
All that's missing is an arrest by a Mountie in a red serge wetsuit.
Or a grow-op fire that melts the igloo.

Your Honour, the Crown wishes to add another charge: Perpetuating a
national stereotype. Or, at least, perpetuating the wrong stereotype.

There are, after all, some myths we would like to keep alive, even
among ourselves. Like the one that says we're so much more peaceful
and crime-free than the Americans.

Canadians enjoy the belief that we're kinder, more polite, more
self-effacing, more modest than they are. Just ask us. We'll brag about it.

Alas, our niceness is a myth. Just look at the indicators: Don Cherry
is the most popular man on television. Our prime minister throttles a
protester and his polls go through the roof. Our favourite beer
commercial depicts a Canadian pulling an American co-worker's jacket
over his head and whupping on him like it's a hockey game. Everyone -
except maybe Stephen Harper, an American trapped in a Canadian's body
- - chortles when Rick Mercer skewers U.S. ignorance of the Great White
North.

But how ignorant are we of ourselves?

A United Nations report says Canada's crime rate is not far behind
that of the U.S. -- 8,117 crimes per 100,000 people here, as opposed
to 8,517 south of the line. The Vancouver Sun reports that that city's
robbery rate is higher than that of Los Angeles, and we're way ahead
in -- nudge-nudge, wink-wink -- hunting accidents.

Where we really trail is in gun crime. You're eight times more likely
to be shot to death in the U.S., and 14.5 times as apt to be killed
with a handgun. Canadians aren't less violent than Americans, we just
have lousy aim.

Or maybe we've just confused being well-mannered with being out of
ammo, a reflection of our respective governments' divergent approaches
to gun control. Every year, about 34,000 Americans are shot dead.
Their solution to this tragedy was, naturally, to ban lawn darts. In
our country, we responded with a billion-dollar firearms registry, its
purpose being to make Canadians so poor that no one can afford to buy
a gun.

This actually validates one of those stereotypes: the old definition
of a Canadian as being an unarmed American with good health insurance.

Ah, yes, our national yardstick measures everything about us in
relation to the U.S. But how do we stack up against the rest of the
planet?

On a per-capita basis, Canadians lead the world in life expectancy,
regular Internet use, number of doughnut shops, consumption of Kraft
Dinner and fighting majors.

We are No. 2 in consumption of fossil fuels, greenhouse-gas emissions
and water use, but lead the entire world -- No. 1, baby! -- in overall
energy consumption

And, gosh darn it all, we grow massive quantities of the best dope in
the world. Canadians aren't peaceful, they're just too stoned to
respond to anything but the munchies.

No, no, no, that's an outrageous slur. Most of the dope grown in
Canada is not smoked, but shipped directly to the U.S. for the
personal use of the National Basketball Association and Woody
Harrelson. In hockey bags.

"It's almost a clich?," says Paul Jones, the U.S. Border Patrol's
intelligence agent for the area in which the canoe-borne smugglers
were caught. "That's the standard packaging unit for Canadian
marijuana now." (And you thought the inside of a hockey bag smelled
funny before.)

Well, way to go, drug smugglers. Thanks for keeping our hoser image
firmly fixed in the American mind.

What did these guys do when caught, cry "No doot aboot it, you'll
never take me alive?"

Probably not. No point getting in a fight when they're armed with
Smith & Wessons and all you have is a Victoriaville -- which may be
one reason those arrested in Oroville surrendered without a struggle.

Almost, you might say, politely.