Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Like I said in another post, 75 percent of Canadians live less than 100 miles from the United States. Vancouver, Montreal, Winnipeg, and Toronto are all nearly close enough to the border to be considered border cities. So the majority of Canadians can reach somewhere in the United States within two hours in a car. This would excluse most Albertans and Saskatchewanese, and of course would exclude everyone in the territories and most of the maritimes.
However, Canadian culture seems quite consistent nonetheless. Someone who lives on Avenue Zero in White Rock probably has more of a common worldview with someone 3000km away in St. Catharines, Ontario than they do with the Americans who live literally across the street in Blaine, Washington.
Or do they? I'm not a Canadian, so I can't say for sure. Would you say you feel closer to the people an hour's drive away from you in America, or people on the other side of Canada?
don't mean to be picky but...didnt you ask this question already in another thread? I think this depends on how you look at it. I get my news on Canadian TV (local Toronto) and US TV (local Buffalo), so I would know more what is going on in Buffalo than I would in say..Saskatoon, as that would be national news, which personally I don't watch.
Personally I feel not that much in common with Vancouverites or Albertans, but maybe other Canadians do, I don't know.
... Would you say you feel closer to the people an hour's drive away from you in America, or people on the other side of Canada?
Closer as in mental/cultural/philosophical/political outlook on life? People on the other side of Canada.
No one I know would consider Vancouver, Montreal, Winnipeg, or Toronto border towns. Niagara yes, St Stephen, NB yes, Windsor, yes - but not really the ones you named. I would say it likely that actual border town people might feel more affinity - especially as they would cross border shop, know the shopkeepers perhaps, and you occasionally get people marrying across the border twin city.
Last edited by sunshineleith; 01-11-2012 at 01:18 AM..
I'd say Vancouver is actually a border town, its suburbs are along the US border, and I'd guess the Seattle factory outlets probably have more Cdn shoppers some moments than locals...agree that Toronto, Montreal and Winnipeg are more distant
I might get flamed for this but I would probably guess (rightly or wrongly) that people across Canada have more of a common "shared" worldview than maybe people living in the USA, where the demography is much more varied along race, class, religious belief etc.. There is less polarization, more consensus on certain core beliefs. Things like corporations not being people, corporations or special interest groups should not buy political influence, healthcare being an essential service, etc...
I live in Gatineau, Quebec right next to Ottawa, Ontario. The closest part of the States to us is northern New York state. It is an hour drive away but you have to drive through part of Ontario to get there. People in my region don't really have any affinities with northern NY.
We have affinities with neighbouring Ottawa and eastern Ontario because we are part of the same metro area, and that western Quebec is mainly French with an English minority and Ottawa and eastern Ontario are mainly English with a French minority.
For people in Gatineau, Ottawa is the bigger city next door where quite a few people go to work and you can get stuff you can't get in Gatineau.
Interestingly enough, though, Montreal (2 hrs away) is still the media centre and metropolis for people in Gatineau. In this respect, Gatineau is very much like the rest of Quebec.
Gatineau is also like the rest of Quebec in that there are few affinities with parts of Canada outside Quebec, except maybe for Acadian areas in the Maritimes. Though Gatineau is probably unique in Quebec because, as I said, it has affinities with a part of Ontario (Ottawa), something that other parts of Quebec do not have.
I am not a nationalist but I definitely feel I have more in common with Canadians from coast to coast than with Americans right across the border. There are different levels of that though. It doesn't mean that I might not have more in common with individual Americans with whom I share ideas than a Canadian who might be my polar opposite.
But as a rule, nations are like families - even if you don't like some members of your family, when you see them in the context of a larger gathering, even members of that family who might not get along still tend to gather together with commonalities of experience not shared by the rest - a kind of national version of stories about the family nose or chin.
Last edited by netwit; 01-10-2012 at 07:45 PM..
Reason: typo
....However, Canadian culture seems quite consistent nonetheless. Someone who lives on Avenue Zero in White Rock probably has more of a common worldview with someone 3000km away in St. Catharines, Ontario than they do with the Americans who live literally across the street in Blaine, Washington.
Or do they? I'm not a Canadian, so I can't say for sure. Would you say you feel closer to the people an hour's drive away from you in America, or people on the other side of Canada?
I'd agree with your above assessment - someone on Zero avenue would have more affinity with all distant parts of Canada than they would with their neighbours in Washington. I don't think any of the people who live close by on either side of the border have very much in common with their respective neighbours on the other side .... except for the weather.
As to border towns, well to me a border town is one that's located within an hour or two easy walking distance from the border. The towns of White Rock, Aldergrove and Abbotsford are the only towns I'd consider to be close enough to be called border towns since they're all within 5 miles of the border. Vancouver, I'd say it's definitely not a border town as it's 25 miles away from the border and has other satellite towns and cities located between Vancouver and the border. On the Washington side, the town of Bellingham is the closest town 50 miles away from Vancouver, all the other little communities between Bellingham and the border only qualify as small villages, including Blaine. I guess you could call them little border towns.
Seattle is the closest large American city to Vancouver that's worthwhile doing any substantial shopping at but it's over 140 miles away, a little too far away for Canadians to go shopping there on a regular basis.
I'd say it depends on what sphere of life we're talking about. A Vancouverite who went to Seattle might feel a commonality in stuff like tastes in fashion, coffee culture or similar architecture. Likewise, Maritimers could probably empathize with the lifestyle of fisherman in Maine. But if you take it as a big picture, with the exception of some similarities through shared geography, I'd say Canadians feel closer to other Canadians. There's often big differences between Canadian cultures in different regions, and I'm not so sure of claims about how consistent the culture is, but I'd say the differences between Canadians coast to coast feel like less than the differences between Canadians and Americans in neighbouring states. I know it often doesn't look that way superficially, but the human connections that develop from people having family in different provinces, or having friends plugged into that network, leads to that common nationality. Canada is the ultimate triumph of history, and a web of human connections built over a long period of time, over geography. Even Quebec, the perennial outlier which is the most distinct, feels more similar to Ontario and the Maritimes than it does to Vermont or New York State. Connections between Quebec and the West are admittedly more tenuous, but there remains a common political history and institutions like the CBC/Radio Canada that bind otherwise very different regions together in ways that are sometimes surprising. There's the common British heritage too that binds many of the English places together. You mention Victoria and Halifax in your previous post, but they actually seem a bit similar to each other and I attribute that to the common British roots of these old cities.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned hockey yet. Hockey is truly one of the few cultural things in Canada that binds us together. Every single settlement beyond a certain size (1000 or so I'd guess) has an indoor hockey arena. Every single one, from the Yukon to Vancouver Island to St. John's to Iqaluit. Every town beyond a certain size also has a Junior's team, the level below NHL for players aged 16-20. These games all tend to sell out and just about every prominent business in town will have a set of season tickets if not a sponsorship.
Hockey is a sport that immigrants also latch onto.... Be it for belonging, Canadian Culture or just love of the sport. It is the sport than joins English, French, Natives and Immigrants all together.
Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday Nights is the number #1 TV show in Canada for the past 60 years, year in, year out. The NHL playoffs preempts CBC programming... All of it. From the first round.
The whole country supports our national teams. Be it World Cup, Olympics (men and women) or the yearly World Junior Under 20's tournament (our March Madness). The ratings for our national team games are huge... Its the sporting highlight of the year.
Hockey I'd argue is the big sporting culture difference between the US and Canada... Think football in Texas, its that big in Canada.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
