Canadians say they go to the United States for fun, sun, and shopping. Although it may not be what attracts them initially, many visitors to Canada find that they like the absence of highway billboards, the laid-back approach to commerce, and the image of Canada as a moralIy superior country. Canada as a kind of a big Rocky Mountain high and the USA as consumer heaven. Both views appeal to each country, but both are just as narrow and regrettable as more obviously negative views like that of Canada as an indecisive, quarrelsome country teetering on the brink of disunion or that of the United States as a mindless melting pot where values and culture are boiled into suburban verisimilitude. The truth is that both countries are similar and dissimilar in hundreds of ways, but most differences are hidden behind obvious commonalities.
Smoking is down in both countries, as is littering.
Slimness and fitness are de rigeur in both countries. The tipping rules and common social courtesies are the same. Most Americans overlook the fact that one in four Canadians speaks French, but most Canadians, Francophone and Anglophone alike, overlook the fact that the United States is the sixth largest Hispanic country on earth in terms of population. Ignorances, like prejudices, abound on both sides of the border. Both countries use culture for nation-building, but in Canada the cultural output is funded largely by public monies, while in the USA support comes mainly from foundations and the private sector.