Quote:
Originally Posted by isaidso
That speaks more to old school Canadian attitudes about their country than anything else. What hit our family like a ton of bricks when we emigrated to Canada from the UK was how insecure many Canadian born were about their country. There's a deeply ingrained belief that Canada doesn't measure up. A lot of it's born from living in the shadow of a super power that's globally dominant in many areas. Some of it is that old human tendency to view the grass as greener on the other side of the fence.
That said, we found these self-deprecating attitudes surprising, frustrating, baffling, not to mention a little sad. Immigrants have a far higher opinion of this country than most Canadian born. The Canadian inferiority complex is slowly fading but it's still prevalent with lots of Canadians .... especially the older generations. Not everyone wants to be an American. I like the US and Americans but I want to be a Canadian.
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When I was growing up, Canadians had much more of an inferiority complex towards Americans than they do today. We were ingrained with the thought that although we had a very similar population makeup and culture, that the Americans were wealthier, and had a more dynamic economy that delivered the nice and new things to Americans much sooner. In the days of Kennedy, Canadians saw a dynamic world leader that they admired.
I remember how this began to change. It was the race riots of 1967. This pointed out that their were problems in American society and many Canadians did not fully understand how this simmered to the boiling point. I certainly did not understand this fundamental difference between the two countries.
As the two countries policies diverged and with the great celebration of Canada's centennial, also in 1967, Canada started developing a new pride in itself. This was re-enforced as Canada developed a different world view and adopted internal policies that were different from the USA.
So today after 50 years, some elements of the inferiority complex still exist probably tracing to the older generations, but I also see this now mixed with a superiority complex, where many Canadians see their country being better run and with better policies than the USA. Many Canadians now look down their noses at what they see as silly resistance to adopt better health care, and gun policies, to name just a couple. Of course, our politeness generally masks this superiority complex so it is generally not presented in an offensive way to Americans.
Nevertheless, both Canadians and Americans on an individual basis enjoy each other very much.