BUSTED: A CLASSIC CANADIAN CLICHE

OROVILLE, Wash. (AP) -- 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 18 1/2 -foot canoe on the American side of Lake Osoyoos. The craft
was laden with 478 pounds of high-grade marijuana in 14 hockey bags.

I swear on a stack of bilingual Bibles that I am not making this up. The
story may have the all 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.

Y'r 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.

Our murder rates are comparable, and we're waaay 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.

I think it was Ed Bain who said something about celebrating Earth Day by
getting polluted.

And, gosh darn it all, we grow massive quantities of the best damn dope in
the world. Canadians aren't peaceful, they're just too stoned to respond to
anything but the munchies (probably explains the doughnuts and Kraft Dinner).

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

"It's almost a cliche," 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 and
Wessons and all you have is a Victoriaville.

Which may be one reason those arrested in Oroville surrendered without a fight.

Almost, you might say, politely.