What are the biggest differences between the US and Canada?

[RickJay]

This isn’t a GQ thread, it’s IMHO. I have moved it.

RickJay
Moderator

[Knowed_Out]

@Dr_Paprika

Trump could not be elected Mayor in Canada

Rob Ford came close.

[Red_Wiggler]

@Spoons

I have nothing to add right now, but I do want to thank @Northern_Piper for his insightful comments on our respective constitutions and history. Nicely stated, NP !

Perspectives from our non-USA posters are the basis for the best threads at SDMB.

[Hypnagogic_Jerk]

@Northern_Piper

Canadians don’t have that. We didn’t need to go through a revolution to get our independence. In fact, we lost out from military solutions: French-Canadians lost the military fight, and the initial settlers in New Brunswick and Ontario were fleeing from the revolution. They were political refugees, who lost out from the US revolution. Both of those experiences entered into Canada’s political culture, for a suspicion of military solutions.

I’m not sure I agree that Canadians are distrustful of military solutions because they lost out from them. In fact, I’m not sure Canadians are actually distrustful of military solutions. Canadians don’t have the American individualistic or rebellious spirit, and tend to follow their elites’ lead. I agree that this comes from the country’s founding; Loyalists are after all those Americans who wanted to be ruled by King George. So you’re unlikely to have anti-government uprisings in Canada. But suppose the elites (say, the government) decide that a military solution is the correct one to some issue. Would the average Canadian second-guess this decision? Remember that there was after all a lot of enthusiasm for both world wars among the anglophone Canadian population (less so among the francophone population, which certainly caused so-called “national unity” issues).

This brings me to a second issue: you claim Canada is built upon accommodation and compromise. I mean, it certainly is to a large extent (though so’s the US), but then again a lot of “national unity” crises seem to have come from the idea that there should essentially be a single way to be Canadian. For example:

@Northern_Piper

you have a country based on the idea that there are two different linguistic/religious/ethnic groups

You and I may think this is the basis of Canada (today we’d also add indigenous identities as well, of course), but I think most Canadians today would disagree. Canada, in this view, is a single-nation country built on its (to my eyes, largely superficial) multicultural diversity, and united under one language, English. With some tolerance for regional as opposed to “national” diversity.

[QuickSilver]

Not a single persons has mentioned the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

And you call yourself Canadians. I’m ashamed of all of you.

[dtilque]

@QuickSilver

Not a single persons has mentioned the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation).

And you call yourself Canadians. I’m ashamed of all of you

Yes, but no one’s mentioned poutine, Molson’s, or Tim Horton’s either. Yet it’s still about Canada.

[Dr_Paprika]

@Dr_Paprika

Canadians often struggle with identity, define themselves by what they are not (US), use touchstone tropes (hockey, Tims, curling) which are often dated

Some wise man mentioned Tim’s in post seven. Canada is more than English. It is even more than bacon biscuits and mediocre soup.

[Nars_Glinley]

Is a bacon biscuit just a biscuit with bacon or is there more than that to it?