Just a little example of some of that "Canadians are slower to anger" theme that came up in an earlier post: Same-sex debate gets U.S. infusion.
Now, what would the reaction be if Canadian interest groups began sending money and advertising material to Americans? I would imagine there'd be a hell of an outcry about "minding their own business" and "keeping their values to themselves". But in Canada, there'll be some fuss in the Post, some grumbles about "those stupid Americans", and some more support for same-sex marriages (just outta spite), but everyone else will pretty much ignore it.
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OK, lemme put it this way:
Toronto is to the rest of Canada what the U.S. is to... well... Canada.
The difference is, knowing that the rest of Canada isn't always thrilled with us, we here in Toronto don't really get too flapped about it -- to the point that we will even publish an entire Sunday feature entitled "Why do they hate Toronto?" in the Toronto Star and not only not get offended, but laugh in self-recognition. (I'd post the link, but I can't do HTML in these Comments and the link itself is long and spammy -- not that length and spam have ever stopped me before, of course. But go to TheStar.ca and search for "hate Toronto". You'll find it.)
If such an article, written by Americans who, with tongue firmly planted in cheek, set out on a cross-Canada tour to discover what Canadians *really* think about Americans, were to appear in a major American newspaper as a two-page feature, would Americans laugh the way Torontonians do?
I think what Americans misjudge about Canadians, mainly, is our sense of irony and self-deprecation. Hence our slowness to anger. Unfortunately, Canadians also seem to misjudge the Americans' ability to sense irony. :)
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