OTTAWA — In a crushing blow to its upcoming 150th anniversary celebrations, Canada’s emerging sense of comparative superiority to the United States was shattered this week, following a casual look at the comments section of literally any CBC article.

“Look, I never thought our country was perfect,” admitted Randall Xi of Vancouver. “But I did take comfort in knowing that at least we don’t have to deal with the kind of overt racism, proud ignorance, and aggressive stupidity they have in the States. Then I clicked on a link to ‘Serena Ryder’s Ultimate Canoe Trip Playlist’.”

Xi said he was surprised by the number of commenters who cited the seemingly innocuous article as an example of “how Canada is succumbing to Sharia Law,” which, he added, “is apparently the Muslim-Jew-LGTBQ conspiracy at the heart of something called Turdeau’s (sic) Cuck Snowflake Libtard Agenda?”

The unfortunate discovery comes just months after the election of Donald Trump endowed Canadians with the unprecedented notion that their country might actually be a more desirable place to live than their neighbours to the south, relatively speaking.

“I don’t know, for a while there it just kind of felt like we were on the right track,” he explained. “We all seemed to acknowledge that global warming is a thing, smoking a joint isn’t the end of the world, and women are basically just penis-less men.”

Now, however, Xi said he harbours no such delusions about his home and native land.

“I don’t want to say that things are as bad up here as they are in the US,” she conceded. “But I will say that institutionalized racism and misogyny are a lot easier to wash down with some In & Out burger.”