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Anti-Canadianism represents a consistent hostility towards the government, culture, or people of Canada.

History

French philosopher Voltaire is generally misquoted as saying Canada is "a few acres of snow." Although he was referring to Acadia, it is not clear from the full quote whether Voltaire was truly anti-Canadian or not.

Modern perceptions

Generally speaking, where people have formed opinions of Canada they tend to be quite positive. Dislike for Canada may rise due to a specific objection to policies and attitudes of Canada and Canadians.

United States

In the United States, Canada is often a target of conservative and right-wing commentators who hold the northern nation up as an example of what a government and society that are too liberal would look like.

"Soviet Canuckistan" is one unflattering epithet for Canada, used by Pat Buchanan on October 31, 2002, on his television show on MSNBC in which he denounced Canadians as anti-American and the country as a haven for terrorists. Moreover, in 1990, Buchanan said that if Canada were to break apart due to the failure of the Meech Lake Accord, "America would pick up the pieces." He said two years after that "for most Americans, Canada is sort of like a case of latent arthritis. We really don't think about it, unless it acts up."

In the wake of Canada's refusal to participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, as well as its turning down of the Missile Defense Plan, Ann Coulter has recently become another prominent anti-Canadian American. She has often proposed (semi-humourous) extreme solutions to "Canadian dissent", such as a military invasion of Canada.

In 2006, right-wing American strategist Paul Weyrich said Canadians are "so liberal and hedonistic" that they have a philosophy of "cultural Marxism".

Brazil

One place where anti-Canadian sentiment has been observed is Brazil where people boycotted Canadian goods and burned them in the streets to protest a Canadian ban of Brazilian beef imports, reportedly because of fears of mad-cow disease, but which many Brazilians believed were motivated by an unrelated trade dispute between the two nations. Canada's subsidies to aircraft manufacturer Bombardier have been a source of much tension with Brazil because they are said to interfere with the business of Bombardier's Brazillian rival Embraer.

Anti-Canadian Canadians

From the right

During the 1990s, there was a controversial brain drain of well-educated Canadians to the US and Britain. Even current Prime Minister Stephen Harper at a few points in his career denounced Canada.

From the left

Forceful statements against Canada have come from the far-left of the Canadian political spectrum, for example the Communist Party of Canada. Often the criticism is that Canada too closely follows the United States lead and is acting like a 51st State.

Anti-Canadianism and humour

Humourous anti-Canadianism often focuses on broadly-known attributes of Canada and Canadians (such as cold weather or public health care), as the finer details of Canadian culture and politics are generally not well known outside Canada. Consequently, such humour is often made at the expense of accuracy outside Canada. However, these broad targets are more accurately caricatured within Canada itself. Such self-deprecating humour is nearly universal among Canadian humourists. In keeping with this attitude, some genuinely critical anti-Canadianisms (such as "Soviet Canuckistan") are embraced by Canadians as humourous, in defiance of the original intent.

In popular culture

• In 1995, American director Michael Moore parodied anti-Canadianism in his film Canadian Bacon, in which the United States stages a cold war with its northern neighbour, inadvertently inspiring border raids.

• In 1999, the film South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut also featured a fictional war between Americans and Canadians, including an anti-Canadian song, "Blame Canada."

• The television sitcom The Simpsons regularly parodies Canada and Canadians.

External links

• Toronto Star article by Dimitry Anastakis
• Simpsons, Eh?

• Anti-national sentiment
• Canada and the United States