ONLY IN CANADA

Canuck Decisions Spark U.S. Debate

WASHINGTON (CP) -- Tell you what: Next time you visit the U.S., bring a helmet.

Because Americans can't decide whether their northern neighbours have gone
stark, raving mad or miraculously engineered enlightened social change.

Canadians tend to get caught in the crossfire in these parts.

U.S. gays are wistful and want to move to Canada, or at least get married
there. Activists get choked up when they talk about the decision to
decriminalize marijuana, sell medicinal pot and provide safe injection sites.

Yet a sizable slew of conservatives are worried that this progressive
social thinking is going to drift south and corrupt U.S. legislators. Never
mind the lone mad cow and scary SARS. Oh, and there's still that Iraq thing.

One thing's clear: Americans have been taking more notice of Canada of late.

An editorial in the New York Times called Canada's choice to endorse
same-sex marriage "a stirring moment" and bemoaned how far the U.S. had to
go to match its "record of tolerance on this issue."

Canada was the talk of the town in a recent issue of the New Yorker
magazine that even posed the question: Would it be so terrible to be
Canadian after all?

While noting Canada is too cold and has a weak dollar and a reputation for
paralyzing dullness, "in matters of public policy they are often more
enlightened than we are, without being snooty about it."

The Stranger, a weekly for gays in Seattle, recently devoted an entire
issue to Canada, inviting guest Canadian writers to do something unusual --
brag.

A mock message from Prime Minister Jean Chretien tells U.S. readers: "The
cold, hard truth is that our country is better than yours. Not just
slightly better, but much better."

"Canada has looked down here at the Republican party and said: 'We'd rather
be like Europe,' " says Stranger editor Dan Savage, who's thinking about
changing nationalities.

Evan Wolfson, executive director of New York's Freedom to Marry, says he's
seen a recent surge of commentary about Canada across the U.S. that is
largely complimentary. "We look at Canada as rational, fair, stable and
solid. It's pretty hard for someone to say Canada is some kind of crazy
country where nothing makes sense."

BUSH WORRIED

It does get said, all the same. Frequently.

The U.S. administration has for some time made its views known on
marijuana. And President George W. Bush was worried enough about gay
marriage to say last week that he has lawyers working on legislation
upholding the traditional view.

Robert Knight, who helped draft the 1996 federal U.S. law that defines
marriage as the union of a man and a woman, says Americans once viewed
Canadians as common-sense folk, but not after the decision to devise a
same-sex marriage law.

"It's not a welcome export, it's a stink bomb," says Knight. "Canada is
fast becoming synonymous with the sexual perversity of San Francisco."

The Bush administration's openly critical attitude toward Canada's drug
policies is also widespread among many Americans.

Phil McLean, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies, says Canada's plans to decriminalize pot will hurt tough efforts
to curb drug use in the U.S. "It's a hugely difficult problem that's in
danger of exploding if Canada takes that step," says McLean, whose father
was born in Vancouver. "A lot of the narcotics are coming from there already."

Political analyst Chris Sands says Canada has become the football in an
American domestic political debate between conservatives and liberals.

"Canada's part of the fabric of American life now," he said, "so it's
become a proxy for battles between U.S. groups."

What Americans overlook is that Canadians and their politicians aren't
having the easiest of times with these issues either.

"The facts are less important than the impression," says Sands. "It's about
what things symbolize."