> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.nastycanuck.ca/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # What Canadians Get Wrong About Americans - URL: https://www.nastycanuck.ca/what-canadians-get-wrong-about-americans/ - Published: 2026-09-28T00:44:39.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-06T01:02:39.000Z - Description: Canadians watch the U.S. closely, but proximity can blur as much as it reveals. Understanding America more precisely is part of a more confident Canada. - Author: Nasty Canuck Editorial Desk - Tags: Commentary, Canada-U.S. Relations, Culture *In* [*“What Americans Get Wrong about Canada”*](https://thewalrus.ca/what-americans-get-wrong-about-canada/)*, Paul Theroux examines the clichés and blind spots Americans bring to their northern neighbour. The essay in The Walrus, adapted from his book True North: On the Road in Canada, also contains a line that invites a reversal. Theroux quotes a Canadian foreign minister saying, “If there’s a country that understands America, it’s us.”* Canadians certainly pay attention. We follow U.S. elections, sports, movies, scandals and arguments. American political language crosses the border almost as quickly as American products do, and its biggest personalities can feel more familiar than public figures from another province. That is a lot of exposure. It can also make us more certain than accurate. ## We watch Washington and call it America Follow Washington closely enough and it can start to stand in for the country: presidents, Congress, the Supreme Court, tariffs, executive orders and the political fight of the week. Those things matter to Canada, sometimes enormously. They are also an incomplete way to understand American life. The United States [divides power between its national and state governments](https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/intro-7-3/ALDE%5F00000032/), with states retaining broad authority of their own. That division helps explain why laws and everyday government can differ considerably across the country. A national headline does not tell us everything about the place an American lives. We recognize regional differences at home. An account of Canada that treated Quebec, Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, and British Columbia as interchangeable would tell us very little. Yet it is easy to look south and flatten fifty states into a single personality. California is not Texas with different weather, and Michigan, Louisiana, Utah and Maine are not branch offices of Washington. ## We let the feed choose the Americans we meet Screens offer another shortcut. Hollywood, cable news, sports broadcasts and social media can make American life feel familiar long before we cross the border. But a viral confrontation tells us something about the people in it, not how typical they are. It is a shaky basis for deciding what Americans are like. Consider how little of a person's ordinary week belongs in an international news report: work, school, a neighbourhood meeting, a game, dinner with family. None of it needs to be exceptional to matter to the people living it. Judging a country mainly by the moments that become news leaves an awful lot out. Direct experience helps, and Canadians have plenty of it. [Statistics Canada recorded 23.1 million Canadian visits to the United States in 2025](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/11-627-m/11-627-m2026029-eng.htm), despite a sharp decline from the previous year. But familiarity has geography too. Knowing Buffalo, Fort Lauderdale and Manhattan well means knowing three real places, not a representative sample of the whole country. ## Policy is not personality When relations are tense, a tariff announcement or an insulting remark from a politician can turn a disagreement with Washington into a judgment about Americans. The distinction gets lost just when it is most useful. We would notice the mistake immediately if someone did it to Canada. A government's decision tells us what that government has decided; it does not tell us what every citizen thinks. Criticizing a policy and understanding the people living under it are different tasks. Neither becomes easier when an entire population is assigned one opinion. ## Sometimes Canadian identity needs America a little too much Theroux also argues that some Canadians begin defining themselves by insisting they are not Americans. It is worth asking how far that description gets us. Canada has its own institutions, histories, regional differences and national habits. “Not American” says very little about any of them. A Canadian can prefer our health-care system or firearms laws without assuming Americans all agree about theirs. The preference tells us something about the Canadian making it; it does not settle the question of what the person across the border believes. That is a conversation, not something we can read off a passport. There is a peculiar dependence in needing America as a constant foil. If every explanation of Canada starts with what the United States gets wrong, we are still letting the neighbour set the terms. Canadian identity deserves more of its own content than that. ## The attention was never going to be equal An American's unfamiliarity with Canada can feel dismissive, especially when we know so much about the United States. But there is a practical reason to expect uneven attention: the countries occupy different places in each other's economic lives. [Global Affairs Canada puts daily two-way trade in goods and services at nearly $3.6 billion in 2024](https://www.international.gc.ca/country-pays/us-eu/relations.aspx?lang=eng). It describes the United States as Canada's largest trading partner and Canada as the second-largest partner of the U.S. Even after the disruption of 2025, [71.7 percent of Canadian merchandise exports went to the United States](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260219/dq260219a-eng.htm). That concentration helps explain why a decision in Washington commands so much attention here. For a Canadian whose livelihood depends on the American market, following U.S. affairs is practical, not an obsession. The reverse need not be true for every American we meet. Not knowing the premier of Saskatchewan is a gap in someone's knowledge; it is not, by itself, a verdict on their character. ## Understanding America is a Canadian advantage The trading relationship is changing. In 2025, [Canadian merchandise exports to countries other than the United States rose 17.2 percent](https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/260219/dq260219a-eng.htm), while exports to the U.S. declined. A broader customer base, though, does not make knowledge of the country next door less useful. That knowledge extends well beyond the White House. Understanding a state's industries, a city's employers or a region's trading relationships can help explain interests that a national headline misses. It also leaves room for Americans to disagree with Washington, with one another and with our expectations of them. Theroux asks Americans to look more closely at Canada. The invitation travels both ways. We do not have to admire America more or depend on it more to be curious about Americans. We can begin by leaving room for the person in front of us to be someone we did not expect.