Canada’s doing just fine, thanks

U.S. Ambassador Kelly Craft stated: “The golden rule is we want Canadians to be as successful as Americans.”

I doubt Canadians want to be “as successful as Americans.”

In February, Scott Gilmore, writing in Maclean’s magazine, provided some statistics that show Canadians are already more successful than Americans.

We live 2.5 years longer than Americans.

Americans are six times more likely to be incarcerated.

The World Economic Forum ranks Canadians as the sixth happiest people in the world. Americans are 13th.

Fifty-nine per cent of Canadians have college degrees versus 46 per cent in the U.S.

Home ownership rates are five per cent higher in Canada than in the U.S.

Canadians are twice as likely as Americans to move from the poorest quintile of the population to the wealthiest.

And perhaps most telling for the citizens of the “Land of the Free,” the Cato Institute’s Human Freedom Index considers Canadians to be the sixth freest people in the world. Americans are way behind, in 23rd place.

So Ambassador Craft, I suggest to you revisit your Golden Rule. Instead, you should try to help your citizens be as successful as Canadians.

We would be happy to show you how. Robert Macdonald, Ottawa