People do come from all over the world, including Canada, to be treated at Duke University Medical Center. Your medicare is portable across jobs and cities. If I change jobs and am lucky enough to have insurance at all, I may have to wait a year to cover a pre-existing condition, be it dandruff or cancer. A second area where I think my country can learn from yours is in our approach toward multiculturalism. Canada has taken some pains to institutionalize respect for the many threads of its heritage, and has done better than we, especially in recent years, at smoothing the way for aliens fleeing poverty, war and repression in their home countries.
Immigration is the sincerest form of flattery.
I realize this largesse, this rich interplay of cultures, can be fraught with difficulty and expense. But your being a safe harbour has enormously positive political and economic effects. We continue to struggle with a strong isolationist and xenophobia movement that one can only deplore. Your commitment to indigenous peoples, to multilingualism, and to smoothing the way for newcomers reflects and underscores your commitment to international peace. During modern times, Canada has usually been less willing than the U.S. to move to war as a quick extension of foreign policy, and you have participated in nearly every UN peacekeeping operation since 1956.