Canadians!! Who'd've thought??!!!

[werner]

I'd have to say during all the years I spent in the US I never heard an American talk about Canada - it was simply an irrelevance

Hmm... I also spent many years in the U.S. (too many years in fact), and found that some Americans obsessed with Canada and Canadians. For example, leftist Americans seems to fantasize about Canada as some type of ideal society with, for instance, low crime rates and wonderful health care for all.

Americans do not seem to know much about the French Canadians, (Québecois). In fact, many Americans do not even realize that French is an official language of Canada. The Québecois have their own special hang-ups about Americans and about people that speak French with European (or African) accents.