I too am amazed and encouraged when people go out of their way to show kindness to strangers.
It happens unpredictably, but not infrequently.
It's almost enough to keep me from becoming a total cynic. (but not quite enough!) ;-)
Try spending some time in small towns, practically anywhere.
While Canadians are indeed wonderful people overall, I have to wonder if the hospitality shown wasn't due to its taking place in Canada, but instead because it happened in a town of 10,500 people.
I lived for several years in a town of 8,000 people in Ohio. And I could easily have seen the same sort of thing happening there as well. I went back and visited the place 10 years after I left it for the big cities, and it was a very refreshing thing to discover that it hadn't changed a bit, and was still just as friendly and relaxing as ever.
My wife and I have found a couple of small towns within a day's drive from where we live that we go to when we want to get away from it all and unwind. We stay at bed-and-breakfasts for a day or three. And they too are wonderful places to spend some time, full of good friendly people, mom-and-pop stores that have been in operation for 40+ years, little restaurants that are run like Mom's personal kitchen, antique stores full of items that have never once been out of town, hardware stores that have plumbing fixtures to repair a 1950 faucet (and the guy behind the counter who originally installed them), and parades down main street where the local school marching band leads the local firetruck (singular) with the volunteer firemen hanging off the sides waving American flags (even before 9/11) as the locals sit along the road on folding chairs, waving to their friends and neighbors in the parade. I'm not just speaking in metaphor, I've experienced all this, and more, personally.
Small towns off the beaten track, anywhere, all seem to exist in a fairy-tale version of the best of the 1950's.