From: clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU (Stewart Clamen)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada
Subject: Canada as No. n (was: US as No. 1)
Date: 26 Jan 93 11:38:47 GMT
Article-I.D.: cs.C1GLop.8ts.1
	<1k1lodINN830@cat.cis.Brown.EDU> <1993Jan26.010254.1@vxdesy.desy.de>
Reply-To: clamen+@CS.CMU.EDU
Organization: School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University
Originator: clamen@BYRON.SP.CS.CMU.EDU

In article <1993Jan26.010254.1@vxdesy.desy.de> godfrey@vxdesy.desy.de writes:

   In article <1k1lodINN830@cat.cis.Brown.EDU>, hahn@het.brown.edu (Stephen Hahn) writes:
   > In article 1@vxdesy.desy.de, godfrey@vxdesy.desy.de () writes:
   > [ other citations omitted ]
   >> 
   >>Absolutely agreed.  Canada is hugely inferior to the US in all respects,
   >>and Canadians occupy considerable time and efort ina fruitless attempt
   >>to try to convince people otherwise.  To the rest of us it looks rather
   >>ludicrous and a little sad.
   >>
   >>Laurence
   >>
   > 
   >    I don't really understand this:  most of the people I know on both
   >    sides of the border seem to think the two are similar in more ways than
   >    they are different.  Can you explain/justify why you think one is
   >    in all ways superior?  (Your statement seems a little extreme, at the
   >    very least.)  I'd prefer to see reasoning and examples not connected
   >    with your experiences with Canadian government science.
   > 
   >    (I strongly doubt that the "rest of us" are so patronizing to consider
   >     this behaviour as "a little sad", by the way.)
   > 

   Oh, by all means.  Canada is greatly deficient in output in all the
   arts and sciences compared to the US.  A country with about half
   the population of Britain, it has produced a handful of reasonable
   writers (one of the best of whom it refused to publish and he had
   to go to England to find someone to handle his books) and artists.
			[...]


Dr. Godfrey has actually touched on a real Canadian problem, its
historic brain/talent drain.

Two Nobel Chemistry Prizes in the past 5 years have gone to Canadians
who pursued their research careers in the United States.  And we've
all seen the OECD (or G7) figures which show Canada's low R&D spending
compared to other major industrialized countries.

I won't even begin to enumerate artists whose careers have flourished
south of the border.  (OK, I will.  As my knowledge is mostly in the
popular vein, my list would begin with the Warner Brothers and Mary
Pickford, and end with Norman Jewison and Martin Short.  Well, perhaps
the popular arts are a poor example, since the larger American market
is a big attraction, even for some francophone performers.  I'm afraid
I am not able to name any authors, poets, or fine artists who have
relocated in the US.  One counterexample I know of is Karen Kane, who
specifically chose the domestic lifestyle, instead of a life of
galavanting around the world on tours.)

In any case, I'm sure even Godrey would concede that a country that
has given Panfir to the world cannot be that bad. :-)

--
Stewart M. Clamen			Internet:    clamen@cs.cmu.edu
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.canada