It was during rush hour, the time we ordinarily avoid being on the freeway in Arizona near our winter place. But this was a ”must” appointment and we were keeping up with traffic. There was, however, one dawdler going a shade under the speed limit, but not disrupting the flow.
Suddenly, a car shot out of its lane, way over the speed limit, forcing two cars to brake severely, forcing the dawdler into an off-ramp lane, and then the driver reached up through the sun roof and made an obscene gesture. The car had an Arizona license.
It was not Arizona’s finest moment.
The vehicle forced into the off-ramp lane had a British Columbia license – a Canadian.
I confess to a bias toward Canadians. They have a reputation for being pleasant, courteous, and kind. Their general disposition is occasionally derided as “Canada nice.” They seem to be proud of it, and I think it serves them well.
Canadians tend to be laid back when it comes to serious issues. They have diverse political opinions, with the eastern portion of the nation more liberal than the western portion. But that doesn’t keep them from being open-minded about political problem solving. And while they can be critical, they tend to avoid policy-making by character assassination.
And that’s what keeps them decades ahead of us in democratically designing and implementing policy. For example, during the housing crisis in 2008, which shut down financial institutions and threatened the whole economy of the U.S., not a single Canadian bank failed, and customers were protected, thanks to tight government regulation. That tight regulation was fine with our neighbors to the north.
Canada has universal health care. In chats with my Canadian friends, I have never had a single Canadian tell me that he or she would trade their system with the patchwork system that lets people suffer and even die for lack of insurance because they can’t afford it.
In a poll about ten years ago, Tommy Douglas, the father of Canada’s universal Medicare system, was voted most admired Canadian. Canadians tend to believe citizens have a responsibility for each other’s well-being.
While in the wake of several horrific mass shootings, the U.S. grappled with gun control, Canada, with proportionately small numbers of shootings, has instituted laws restricting assault weapons and hand guns, and requiring modest registration requirements for others. Hunters continue to hunt and no one has had conventional firearms confiscated. Canadians apparently like individual accountability.
For the past few years, U.S. policymakers have argued about gender issues – gays married and transgenders in the military, for instance. Interestingly, Canada made both legal over twelve years ago, with little fanfare. We have yet to resolve them to wide public satisfaction.
And when it came to immigrants and refugees, Canada has been proactive to help them assimilate, even to providing extra education dollars to see that their young people are up to grade level within three years after their arrival. The U.S. debate is stuck on whether to deport. Canada tends to see immigration, properly managed, as a plus economically, and diversity as a plus socially.
And what about the specter of climate change? Well, the reality of global warming is the official well-supported position of the Canadian government. And combatting global warming is an obligatory obligation of the government to protect the lives and environment of the Canadian nation. The federal government has already published two biennial reports of the actions to be taken by the nation and the provinces. They have been generally well-received. Canadians trust their academic institutions and their national government to tell them the truth.
I asked one of my Canadian friends why he thought Canada was more effective in solving political and social problems than we are in the States. He said that Canadians tend to trust their democratic institutions and processes.
I asked him if he thought that Americans could reach that point. He thought for a moment, then said, “I really like Americans. But in the States, too many people spend too much time looking for things to be mad about and people to blame.”
Amen.