For four years in the aftermath of 9/11, former broadcaster Pamela Wallin served as Canada’s representative in New York City. As a longtime journalist, former diplomat and Senator, Wallin has been a keen observer of the bilateral relationship. 

Pamela Wallin

“Americans are benevolently ignorant about Canada, while Canadians are malevolently well informed about the US.”

John Bartlet Brebner

Writer E.B. White powerfully captured the essence of New York as “…. the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator, the evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader and the merchant… you feel the vibrations of great times and tall deeds.” 

It was an extraordinary opportunity to live in that amazing city as Canada’s consul general, in the wake of 9/11. I love the American spirit and it was at its best as Americans healed each other and embraced those of us who were willing to come as the towers still smoldered. 

It was also a time that allowed me to see my own country through American eyes and it’s an extraordinary vantage point. 

When I first arrived in New York, I sought advice from every corner, the best of which came from academic Walter Russell Mead. He had written on the topic and repeated again to me: To win influence in the US, why not just try understanding the place? 

Historically, Canada comes to the table with a sense of superiority and we seek to change America by proclaiming our superior values and claiming the moral high ground. It doesn’t work.

When Americans and Canadians disagree, Americans aren’t ashamed of their position. Horrifying as this may be to contemplate, said Mead, they think their values are at least as good as Canada’s. So, when Canadians talk about our unique values of patience and multilateralism and multiculturalism, Americans roll their eyes. 

The fact is, Americans just don’t care how un-Canadian they are. 

So, to actually influence the US, Canadians are going to have to understand the US—and not just the “blue” states that voted Democrat.

Canadians are uniquely situated to develop an objective but intimate understanding of the US declared Mead, and Canada might find its authority and influence considerably enhanced if—and this was with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek—we became renowned, world-famous Americanologists. (Saying we think, as a nationality, that we’re Americanologists but we’re not is an invitation to the reader to stop reading, since this is Americanology).

For decades, our guiding principle—and evidence of our own protectionism and fears—was summed up with the sentiment that good fences make good neighbours.

Americans see the border as the line joining our countries—Canadians see it as the last line separating us from them.

With Brian Mulroney’s daring deal on free trade, Canadians—after much debate and hand wringing—came to believe that a “fenceless economy” was not a threat to our sovereignty. Our job is to re-assure America that this fenceless economy is not a threat to their security. It is to work both ways.

In 2003, US Ambassador to Canada Paul Cellucci summed up Washington’s position in the wake of 9/11 with a succinct “security trumps trade”. It did. It was true, but many Canadian politicians didn’t want to hear it because two billion dollars worth of goods and services cross the border every day. That’s a million dollars (US) every minute, 365 days a year.

The importance, the breadth, the depth of the relationship is so extensive and we are so interconnected, that it can be a little risky when the economic space is so much larger than the political space. Most want it that way—separate but connected countries; independent and different, but shared values and goals, for the most part.

We struggled with the border again through COVID, at great cost to business and families. Again, the economic space suffered while the politicians danced.

Whatever the view, the fact remains that coping with, travelling to and doing business with the United States is not only an immutable fact, it is an essential ingredient of being Canadian.

And we are friends and relatives—we play on each other’s hockey teams, attend each other’s universities, work for thousands of cross-border companies. We invest in each other’s entrepreneurship, marry each other, vacation in each other’s backyards. Our comedians, musical artists, authors and reporters have audiences in the US they couldn’t imagine here.

Of course, we are different—and independent—countries with different political systems (just try explaining the Iowa caucuses to a Canadian or minority government to an American); we have different origin stories, even different religious and secular traditions.

We know from our own lives, that all relationships—be it husbands and wives, siblings or friends—need maintenance and that the most important tool is an ability to listen, and actually hear what’s being said by the other.

We need to get beyond the stereotypes and the myths that persist: Americans—big, brash bullies; Canadians—polite, bacon-eating wilderness dwellers.

One of our great contemporary writers—Margaret Atwood so intuitively captured our state of mind. The border (and I am paraphrasing here) is like a long one-way mirror and Canadians have their faces pressed up against the mirror (often feeling envious and resentful), and they watch the frenzy of America with everyone careening about, endlessly fascinated with each other, unconcerned about the world around them and oblivious that there is a mirror at all, never mind others on the other side.

But as we have learned through 9/11 and COVID and Donald Trump, Americans can also experience vulnerability. They, like us, need friends and someone to have their back. Presidents and prime ministers don’t have to love each other but they must be willing and able to do business…to listen to the other and see through the other’s eyes.

A longtime Canadian civil servant once captured the challenge: “Americans are our best friends, whether we like it or not; and we are their best friends, whether they know it
or not.”  

Senator Pamela Wallin was Canada’s Consul General to New York from 2002-06. Previously, she was a television news host and Ottawa correspondent for the CTV network and later co-anchor of CBC’s national newscast. She is a proud native of Wadena, Saskatchewan.