Letter to the Editor: It’s not ‘Just Canada’

To the Editor:Re: “‘It’s Canada! It’s Not the Same Thing!’” Opinion, Sept. 27My “beaver tail” certainly was in a “tussle” after reading the article “‘It’s Canada! It’s Not the Same Thing,’” published in Tuesday’s Sun. As a Canadian student — one of the more than 500 at Cornell, may I add — I was astounded at the number of stereotypes scattered throughout the piece. While I understand that the author’s intention was to be comical, I feel as though his witty and pithy generalizations verge on bigotry.I will admit that Canada is not that different a “sack of rice” than its southerly neighbo(u)r; it has been suggested that North America can be divided into “transborder macro-regions,” comprising of areas with similar cultural and economic characteristics. Yet, the borders between the two countries, formed after the Treaty of Paris of 1793, still remain.Why hasn’t the border changed in the past two hundred years? It can’t be because Canada has a “whole socialist-government-free-healthcare-and-no-guns-thing” while the U.S. has a “whole democratic-government-private-healthcare-and-guns thing!” Forgetting these differences, why haven’t “we,” as Americans, changed “their status” yet? Surely, we’d be doing Canada a favo(u)r by incorporating it into the United States and giving it the hono(u)r to wait in a line for U.S. citizens. Apparently, we have the power to “throw ’em a bone” and change international boundaries.Somehow, Americans seem to think it’s okay to openly and liberally make fun of Canadians; after all, “It’s just Canada!” Would the Sun have published this article if it had examined any other nationality in the same tone? But maybe this whole “I-can-hate-on-Canada-just-because-it’s-not-considered-discriminatory mentality” will change once the new Tim Horton’s opens on Route 13. In the meantime, let’s counter the stereotypes and in the Canadian way and politely ask the American author to say “sorry.” Susie Forbath ’14