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The ugly anti-American
Reporter David Bruser poses as a friendly U.S. tourist on Toronto's streets and finds Canadians aren't as affable or open-minded as we'd like to think

Warmonger. Bible thumper. Braggart.

All popular, contemporary stereotypes of Americans.

Though one would think us "polite" Canadians would not utter these to an American's face, a reporter posing as a U.S. tourist learned his place in this city right quick.

During a couple of days walking major streets in the centre of Toronto, this pretender introduced himself to several locals and limped away with sore feet and the feeling that I'd been picked on.

Having lived in Mississippi for a couple of years, I felt impersonating a Southerner was within my limited acting skills. Nothing too obvious, no 10-gallon cowboy hats or "I do declare's". Just a few "y'alls,"mixed in withsupport of George W.

While many were happy to talk geopolitics and differentiate between the U.S. government and its citizens, several others did not make that distinction, projecting the perceived sins of a nation onto me.

In Kensington Market, the tone was shrill. Of five people I approached, two were downright sanctimonious.

First, I approached John, sitting on a stoop smoking, a Toronto hat on his head. I asked for a lighter, introduced myself and said I'd noticed anti-Americanism in Toronto. He asked if I was a Republican and I said I was.

Then John asked, "Are you a fundamentalist of some kind?"

"This is Kensington Market," he added. "It's about the worst place for fellow right-wingers."

After I thanked him for his time and started walking away, he instructed, "Reconsider your views."

Yessir.

By no means a scientific or comprehensive survey, I sidled up to strangers bearing no ill will to ask for directions or the use of a lighter for a cigarette, introduced myself, told them where I was from, then turned the conversation to politics.

Up Augusta Ave., closer to College St., Charlie, an elderly man sitting outside smoking, needed only my introduction as an American.

"You like Americans?" I asked.

"They brag too much, don't they?" he said.

"They boast. They have this and they have that. (If they spent less) time doing that, they'd just get their problems solved, eh?"

Toronto is about to reap the benefits of American tourists, who travel here in the millions each year, mainly between July and September. In 2001, 3.4 million Americans visited this city and 3.2 million came in 2002, spending a total of $2.4 billion, according to Tourism Toronto. (SARS curbed tourism in 2003.)

But a November poll by Ipsos-Reid of 1,000 residents in each of the two countries showed one in seven Canadians (15 per cent) agree with the statement that "at the heart of it, I am actually anti-American. I don't like or respect anything the United States and its people stand for or what it is about."

Seven of the 30 I approached acted snotty, and several other Americans found in the city during this time said they too were the targets of mean-spirited locals.

While anti-Americanism has long existed in Canada, it seems to many that the attitude has intensified in recent years.

In a speech just a few weeks ago, Frank McKenna, our ambassador to the United States, acknowledged the self-righteousness and urged Canadians to cease gratuitous attacks and "endlessly" moralizing.

"I've seen some really appalling behaviour simply because I'm an American," said New York-native Clifford Krauss, Canadian correspondent for The New York Times, who has lived in Toronto and travelled the country for several years.

Though he feels the attitude has improved a little since the November re-election of President George W. Bush and beginning of the war in Iraq, Krauss said he's noticed this "waving a virtuous finger of superiority" is most pronounced in Ontario.

"I think that the anti-Americanism is part of a regional character that fills a vacuum. The Canadian identity, which in some parts of Canada is quite strong, is not so strong here. I say with some trepidation, because it might sound very arrogant, but there are other places in Canada where the culture is richer and where people are more confident in their culture," said Krauss. And, as he points out, the feeling is ingrained in the national psyche, even if what makes an American ugly to some Canadians changes through time (from isolationist in the early days of World War II to world's cop today).

"It goes back to the American Revolution. It's inbred — the Loyalists coming up here, the fact that there was quite a bit of fighting going on between the United States and Canada," Krauss said. Now fully into character and with my hackles up, I went in a bookstore near Bloor St. and Brunswick Ave., where I asked a man and woman in their late 20s for suggestions of neighbourhoods to walk. It was my very first encounter in this part of the city, and it went like this:

"I've been in town just for a few days. Maybe I'm wrong, but I've noticed a little bit of anti-American sentiment."

"It's an easy target," the man said.

"What is an easy target, Americans?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's an easy go-to," he said. "We're not mucking up the world are we?" Then he and the woman both said, "Ooohhh," evidently enjoying a good dis on me. The way they carried on, I thought they were going to high-five each other.

Other Americans, real Americans, found in the city last week were also unimpressed.

Of a group of six animated St. Louis Cardinals fans sitting behind their home team's dugout at the Rogers Centre, four loved Toronto, but two related their stories of an inhospitable city.

Twenty-one-year-old Kiesha Jones rode in her first Toronto cab. "The (Bangladeshi) cab diver told me Americans was killers," she said. "I'm an American and I'm not a killer."

And at a conference hosted by the International Right of Way Association — attended by scores of Americans in the highway, pipeline and power line construction business — a man from Houston said his wife went to a souvenir store on Queens Quay W. to buy some gifts for their children but left empty-handed after finding a T-shirt that read, "What's the definition of a Canadian? An unarmed American with healthcare."

"We don't particularly like that," the man said.

But Ed Peck, also in town for the conference, liked Torontonians just fine.

If ever there was an American in Toronto, Peck was it.

Moustachioed, athletic build, a tall cowboy hat fit snugly on his head. And unfailingly polite, with a firm handshake to send you off.

"Nobody's said a thing to me. Everybody's been real friendly," said the Houston resident.

Maybe I should've worn a cowboy hat.

"Look forward to coming back," Peck said.

Y'all come back, hear?David Bruser