MAPLE FABLES
Canada has a world reputation for being unfailingly courteous. But some of our neighbours beg to differ
It was while on a recent stay in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, that John Thompson, former director of Canadian Studies at North Carolina’s Duke University, experienced a close encounter with the global phenomenon of the drunken Canadian tourist.
He was on a bus that had just picked up a sextet of Canadians outside a hotel, and although it was the middle of the afternoon, the group was “as drunk as lords and ladies,” he said.
They had scarcely taken their seats before the “spokesperson” of the group started singing Cielito Lindo (popularly known as the “Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay,” song) and “making up faux Spanish words on this bus filled with Mexicans.”
Quipped Mr. Thompson: “I wanted to apologize for gringos everywhere.”
But how did the professor know these boors was Canadian? “The reason you know they’re Canadians is because Canadians mark themselves; they constantly wear items of clothing that identify them as Canadian,” he said.
Just in case the locals mistook them for Americans, Brits or Australians, the small group was “covered in maple leafs.”
Mr. Thompson was born in Winnipeg, taught at McGill University in the 1980s, spent 30 years in North Carolina and now lives in New Westminster, B.C.
He has spent much of his professional career steeped in Canadian studies, and after four decades “I see no sign that Canadians are thought of as quiet or nice.”
Among Canada’s most treasured national myths is the belief that it is a “polite” nation. Canadians are a quiet, humble and “nice” people. And, for this, it is said, they are revered abroad — particularly when compared to the arrogant, “do you speak English?!” reputation of their “Ugly American” neighbours.
But Canada is also a nation of rowdy hockey fans, obnoxious backpackers, arrogant snowbirds and tight-fisted tourists, all mixed in with a few doses of hefty jingoism and heavy drinking. Roll it all together, and it is easy to see why large corners of the globe have yet to be sold on the myth of the Nice Canuck.
In the distant reaches of Central Europe, there are apparently enough fond feelings for Canada that the region can support a periodical on the topic: The Central European Journal of Canadian Studies.
In an email to the National Post, Canadian-born journal contributor Michael Devine wrote that among his circle of European theatre artists and “educated elites,” Canadians are seen as “slightly rustic,” “not very knowledgeable about world affairs” and even “unsophisticated.”
“We’re rubes,” he said, “but the Americans are both crude AND rude.”
And, yet, it is in the border areas of the United States where some of the world’s most fervent anti-Canadianism is nurtured.
Bellingham, Wash., a border town of 82,000, is regularly invaded by Metro Vancouverites sporting “Best Place on Earth” licence plates, buying up industrial quantities of cheese and filling jerry cans, garbage cans and even plastic bags with cheap American gasoline.
The Canadians are “rude,” they treat “townspeople like dirt,” they can’t drive, they can’t park and they obnoxiously fly Canadian flags from their SUVs on July 4, according to popular anti-Canadian Facebook page entitled “Bellingham Costco needs a special time just for Americans.”
And throughout the U.S., virtually nobody has any love for a Canadian hockey fan.
In an admittedly unscientific 2009 list drawn up by Spike TV, both the Vancouver Canucks and the Montreal Canadiens earned a ranking among the “top 10 teams with the most annoying fans.”
Two years later, GQ magazine similarly dubbed Canadiens supporters as among the “Worst Sports Fans in America.” Inside the Bell Centre, the magazine wrote, “the only things people boo more frequently than the U.S. national anthem are their own players.”
Phil Handrick, former director of the Center for Canadian Studies at Michigan State University, generally does not accept the notion that Canadians are uncharacteristically obnoxious, but he makes an exception for hockey.
“If there’s a negative trait, it’s one my students who grew up playing hockey teams in Ontario admire; they don’t back down to anyone on a level sheet of ice,” he said.
In 2011, when swarms of Canadians went to Buffalo for the World Junior Hockey Championships, in the aftermath Buffalo News columnist Donn Esmonde saw fit to denounce the “loud, drunk, obnoxious”— and tip-stingy — spectacle they had presented.
“Another week, and we might have had a border war,” he said.
Mexico is currently enduring its own Canadian invasion. Every year, the country logs an incredible 1.8 million visits by Canadian citizens, the equivalent of an annual Mexican vacation for every 20th Canadian. At the height of winter, popular hot spots like Puerto Vallarta, “might as well just be a Canadian town,” said Mr. Thompson.
Inevitably, online reviews of Mexican and Caribbean resorts have begun complaining of the rash of “drunken Canadians,” “disrespectful Canadians” and “utterly wasted Canadians.”
As one otherwise positive review for a Puerto Vallarta resort put it, “the ‘adult relaxation’ pool did not allow children but it allows
To everyone we may have pissed off, you need to lighten up, we all work hard
loud and obnoxious drunken Canadians.”
At a Dominican Republic resort, a similar anti-Canadian review prompted one self-described drunken Canadian to defend himself, claiming in an online post that resort staff had “loved” their alcohol-fuelled antics, particularly their penchant for hitching joyrides aboard baggage carts.
“To everyone we may have pissed off, you need to lighten up, we all work hard so we can let loose on vacation,” he wrote.
On the eve of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, Prime Minister Stephen Harper felt it necessary to tell his 34 million constituents that they should not feel “shy or embarrassed” to wave the maple leaf, even if they had a natural distaste for the boisterous nationalism displayed by “others.”
“We should never cast aside our pride in a country so wonderful in a land we are so fortunate to call home, merely because the notion has sometimes been abused,” he told the B.C. legislature.
The prime minister needn’t have worried. As per a 2003 survey by the University of Chicago’s National Opinion Research Center, more Canadians were convinced of the superiority of their nation than almost any other citizenry on earth.
Canada took sixth place on a list of major countries ranked by patriotic sentiment, losing only to South Africa, Austria, Australia and the first-place contenders, Venezuela and the United States.
David Ivkovic is co-president of the Los Angeles-based expat group Canadians Abroad, serving as the ambassador for what he calls the Canadian “sensibility difference.”
“Americans always comment on how polite and nice we are,” he said.
But it does not mean he can resist a maple leaf bumper sticker. “’I’m Canadian, f--- you,’ that’s my mentality, and I’m not afraid to say it,” he said.
There is truth to the politeness myth, of course. For this story, the National Post contacted a sample of more than 50 youth hostels in the backpacking hot spots of Western Europe and Oceania.
Of those that replied, from Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and New Zealand, Canadians were unanimously given rave reviews: “Polite and amicable,” “mostly well-behaved and good company,” and “lots of manners and respectful.”
As one youth hostel on the outskirts of Oslo, Norway, reported, “Canadians are polite, gentle and the [total] opposite to Americans.”
When international students come to Canada, they are told to brace themselves for life among a hyper-deferent citizenry.
“Generally speaking, Canadians tend to feel uncomfortable in situations where another person is acting aggressive or rude,” declares the “Understanding Canadians” section of Simon Fraser University’s International Student Guide.
The guide adds, “they are often apologetic.”
Canadians apologize so routinely, in fact, that legislators have felt the need to regulate the very act of saying sorry.
The Apology Act, passed by the Ontario legislature in 2009, clarifies that when residents of the Heartland Province say “sorry,” it is merely a nicety that does not “constitute an express or implied admission of fault or liability.”
Despite these stereotypes, Canada finds itself in the unique position of seeing itself repeatedly thrust into the spotlight by two nationals who are anything but quiet and polite: Toronto Mayor Rob Ford and pop star Justin Bieber.
But ask any Mexican resort worker, Vermont waitress or Slovenian theatre director, they may well tell you that an overweight binge-drinker and a rich ne’er-do-well young man are just about the perfect candidates to hoist the maple leaf abroad.