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WASHINGTON — In the time of the novel coronavirus, Canada and the United States seem to be playing to type: the friendly apologizers of the Great White North coming together against a common enemy, America’s combative revolutionaries threatening to tear each other apart.

While state governors and federal authorities outbid each other for precious protective gear, Alberta has promised its surplus masks, gloves and ventilators to provinces like B.C. and Quebec, two of Premier Jason Kenney’s favourite political targets.

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Ontario’s Doug Ford, leader of a province where fed-bashing is like political oxygen, has been getting moral support from the unlikeliest of sources: Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who insists the feeling is mutual.

Then there’s those White House briefings, as much like Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s doorstep chats as chalk and cheese.

“I’ve never liked the term ‘political culture,’ but it does say something to me about the vast cultural difference between the United States and Canada from this perspective,” said Richard Schultz, an expert on federalism and a 40-year veteran of teaching politics at McGill University before retiring last summer.