An SES Research survey released today paints an interesting picture of Canadian/American relations and perceptions. It won’t be reported much, if at all, by any mainstream Canadian liberal news media because it doesn’t paint a picture of that abject and oh-so-Canadian liberal-left anti-Americanism from among Canada’s liberal-left. Quite the opposite, if anything. Here are some of my interpretations:
Liberals in Canada constantly chastise the Bush administration and Americans generally for acting “unilaterally” in Iraq. (Yes, that’s what they call it when dozens of countries sign on to help: “unilateral”.) Actually American liberals do the same. It’s another of those big lies that the liberal-left tell each other and the world in order to discredit America, lose the war, and cast aspersions on conservative Republicans.
But Canada would be more unilateralist than Canada’s liberal-left pretend that the Americans are (vis-a-vis Iraq, for example), by my reading of the information. Canadians and Americans were asked to agree or not with this statement:
“Canada should follow its own interests, even if this leads to conflict with other nations.”
61 percent of Canadians either somewhat or strongly agreed. Only 51 percent of Americans believed that of their own country. Canada would appear more “unilateralist” than the Americans—I believe that’s one way you could read this. Excuse me while I giggle.
And a large majority of Canadians don’t think the Liberals have it right at all on joint national security, with 65 percent saying Canada and the U.S. should have somewhat or much closer cooperation. Remember that U.S.-led North American Ballistic Missile Defence plan, and Canada’s Prime Minister Paul (“we lead the world”) Martin and his liberal-left’s embarrassing political dithering which culminated in an embarrassing cop-out by Canada’s Liberals? It proves to have been wrong-headed, by my reading of this (and other polls have suggested the same):
“In terms of national security (ie. NATO, the United Nations). should the U.S. and Canada be moving towards greater and closer cooperation, or should they be maintaining separate national security policies and priorities?”
65 percent of Canadians say Canada and the U.S. should have somewhat or much closer cooperation, compared to 73 percent of Americans. That’s not what I read in the Canadian liberal media or from Canada’s left-wing columnists.
And on those “draconian” U.S. anti-terrorism measures (which are not “draconian” but “lame”, if you ask me—not “draconian” enough by half):
“In terms of anti-terrorism measures, should the U.S. and Canada be moving towards greater and closer cooperation, or should they be maintaining more separate policies and priorities?”
74 percent of Canadians said somewhat or much closer, compared with 86 percent of Americans.
I suppose an interpretation could be that Canadians mean to imply that the Americans should “chill-out” and be much more like liberal (“if it feels good, do it”) Canada. But I shudder to think that’s the case, choosing instead to believe that Canadians love their country and wish to protect it against terrorists, despite the liberal-left governments and the liberal-left media propaganda. Of course people here do constantly vote liberal, so…
Source: SES Research
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