Even Canadians Think Americans Are Toxic
Of all the bad signs, this one feels especially telling
This summer was a rough one for Americans visiting Canada. Friends of mine who live in Washington, D.C., and summer in Nova Scotia put a sign in their car window this year: “Canadians Happy to Be Home.” The word “home” was underlined twice. Nobody wants to be confused. A handful of Texans at a restaurant in the Canadian Rockies mentioned to their server that they were on vacation; she promptly called the police. There have even been unprecedented acts of minor violence: Cars with U.S. plates have been keyed, drivers tailgated and hassled.
Canada is the United States’ deepest and closest friend and ally, even if the U.S. often doesn’t know it, so Canadian opinion registers changes to America’s place in the world sooner and more fully than other countries. For Canadians, the sudden separation of the closed border on March 21 was shocking. That the border has remained closed ever since has been life changing. Until 2009, you didn’t even need a passport to cross. I remember drifting across the 49th parallel with a lazy wave. Now, nurses from LaSalle, Ontario, who work across the border in Detroit, are living in trailers on their lawns, sequestered by circumstance. Neighbors have complained about the lawn trailers — a violation of local bylaws — but the mayor of…
