PERMIT ME TO INTRODUCE CANADA

An American Perspective

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.

PERMIT 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 diner 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 offences 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-Ho's 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
behaviour 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.