- "Coked-up cowboys shouldn’t run countries."
- "Empty warhead found in White House."
- "Bomb Texas. They have oil too!"
"Americans!", said Carolyn Parrish with a snort, "I hate those damn bastards." She then looked up in disbelief at a conference room fallen silent and a sea of faces staring at her in shock and awe. But did she apologise? Far from it. In fact, Parrish showed herself to be the consummate political opportunist by appearing on Canada’s favourite TV comedy show and graciously accepting a standing ovation from a crowd that—evidently—shared her feelings for Canada’s southern neighbours. And Parrish isn’t alone. Last year, an aide to Canada’s long-serving PM Jean Chretien had to resign when a newspaper reported that she called President Bush "that moron".
How did it happen? Well, not surprisingly, the war in Iraq is a big factor. Chretien took the resolutely popular step of not supporting Bush’s coalition against Saddam, citing the absence of a Security Council resolution authorising force. But it has to be said that even in peacetime, Canadians view their American co-continentalists with smug superiority at times, and occasionally with outright dismay. In part, a northern inferiority complex is to blame—what humorist and author Will Ferguson calls "the certainty that they (Americans) are richer, more creative and better at business, but we have a welfare system that works".
Paradoxically, there’s also a sense of small country superiority to the cacophonous certainties of a larger, louder neighbor. Finally—it has to be said—George W. Bush tends to infuriate Canadians. He’s everything that many of them despise in their southern neighbors: a religious fundamentalist, ignorant in the ways of the world, a rich boy whose ascent to the presidency was questionable at best. For his part, Bush has paid little attention to Canada. He didn’t go north on his first foreign trip as head of state, as most of his predecessors had. He didn’t thank Canada by name for helping with the aftermath of September 11. And Prime Minister Chretien and President Bush apparently despised each other even before the Canadians bowed out of the war. No one, say Canadian commentators, should find any of this encouraging. "If the world’s two countries with most in common can’t get along," wrote a historian last week, "what does that say for international relations in the years to come?"