I know that it’s literally right next door: but does a stronger USD help against a weaker CAD? The thing is, how similar are both nations in terms of culture? For example, I’ve heard a lot of Aussies visit New Zealand as it’s not far. So is it basically the same thing with Americans going to Canada for vacation?
Stronger USD does help, though exactly how much I’ll leave someone from the U.S. who has made the trip to comment on here.
Very similar culturally. Our proximity to the U.S. has had a massive impact on our culture (what exactly constitutes distinct ‘Canadian culture’ is a bit of a fraught question, even if you just stop at ‘Canadian settler culture’. But, beyond leaving this provactive song, I digress.). But lots of regional differences - your experience in Antigonish, NS will be different than Toronto, ON, which is different from Trois-Riviere, QC; Brandon, MB; Saskatoon, SK (lol, jk, no one goes to Saskatoon), etc. Then there’s the North, which is very different from anywhere in Southern Canada.
There’s an impression that we are more polite, in aggregate, than the U.S. I don’t know how true that is and believe it’s a function of population difference (U.S. has way more people, so if the % of assholes is the same that’s still a whole lot more assholes), but whatever.
If someone from the U.S. comes here and isn’t a knob, they’ll generally be treated fine (though perhaps the usual jokey jabs have a little more spike to them these days, given the state of U.S-Canada relations). They usually marvel at the little differences (bagged milk gang what-what).
This is true for big anglo cities like Vancouver and Toronto but Quebec, Newfoundland, and the North all have very distinct local cultures. Even Manitoba is relatively distinct imo
You’re not wrong, and I tried to communicate this in my caveats. But considered as a whole, Southern Canada at least doesn’t seem all that different from the U.S imo (though there’s a U.S. immigrant in this thread who mentioned a little bit of culture shock, interested to read their take if they feel like expanding on that). And I say this as someone who has visited a lot of it (though not everywhere - cheap shots at Saskatoon aside I really would like to go explore Saskatchewan one day).
Most of us get our groceries from large, pretty evil corporations. Most of us want to own single family homes that few can afford anymore. We generally watch the same TV shows, listen to the same music, and have many of the same pop cultural reference points (Quebec, as in most other aspects, being a huge exception. Honestly find their media industry fascinating.). There’s a generation of Canadians that knows waaay more about U.S. history than Canadian history. etc.
Then again, I suppose this is the bird’s eye view - zoom in and you’ll see lots of regional differences (still recall disparaging remarks about ‘Upper Canada’ when chatting with old timers in NS the last time I went).
You keep saying that.
You know that 90% of the population lives within 100km of the border, right?
I’ve done a bunch of work with folks in Nunavut before, and I find it’s a useful distinction given that very fact. Life’s pretty different up north and it’s a term they use to talk about the rest of us.
(Will say I don’t know if it gets as much play in NWT or Yukon).
Edit: According to StatsCan, the line’s further down than I thought it’d be, but honestly it still makes sense. Source: map from this release.