When you go back and look at American history, it's not terribly different from Canadian history. If you weren't self-reliant on the prairie, you wouldn't survive.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I was in school, all our history books were American, so we learned American history, not Canadian history.
There is a whole school of Canadian academics, media personalities, and politicians whose definition of a Canadian is a North American who fears or dislikes the United States.
Canada has a passive-aggressive culture, with a lot of sarcasm and righteousness. That went with my weird messianic complex. The ego is a fascinating monster. I was taught from a young age that I had to serve, so that turned into me thinking I had to save the planet.
Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada, you were safe unless someone came and hauled you back. That was also true during the Vietnam War for draft resisters.
During the second half of the twentieth century, I had the privilege of living through years of intensive erudition, and I realized that Canadians, located in the northernmost region of this hemisphere, were always respectful towards our country.
Is it not evident that the Canadas, as well as the other colonies, have been left in a great measure to grope their way as they could through the darkness which surrounds them, almost totally unaided by the parent state?
For our immediate family and relatives, Canada was a land of opportunity.
The question about my Canadianness comes up a lot, and I'm never quite sure what to say about it. I've carved a life out for myself in Oregon, and it feels like home, not because it's the States but because that's where my friends are and where my son is.
I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.
First of all, when you live in a country like Canada, it's quite different from America in the sense that it's very tied to traditions that were born in Britain.