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In a recent column in the Halifax Chronicle Herald, Lee-Anne Goodman, a Canadian Press reporter stationed in Washington, described what she called “one of the most humiliating assignments of my past year.” Her job was to buttonhole Ben Affleck on a red carpet and demand he explain why Argo, his Oscar-winning film about six American embassy workers’ escape from Tehran in 1980, gave more credit to the CIA than to Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor, who harboured the so-called “houseguests.” Mr. Affleck, who seems like a good egg, obliged her with some conciliatory words. He even changed a title card at the end of the film to give Canada more credit. Only when I saw that title card, having read about it beforehand, I felt a bit humiliated too.

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Could there be anything more quintessentially Canadian?

It’s bad enough when we whinge about non-fiction. After the Sept. 11 attacks, millions of Canadians who would cross the street to avoid shaking George W. Bush’s hand were nevertheless furious that he didn’t thank us for letting a bunch of American commercial airliners land at Canadian airports. You would think from the ensuing clamour that we had done so explicitly in anticipation of kudos, or that telling 250 wide-body jets “sorry, try Iceland” was in fact a reasonable option. Since that day, that same high-pitched whine has ramped up every time some hayseed state senator contends the 9/11 hijackers entered the United States from Canada. Admittedly it was rather distressing when Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano said that — but in general, a confident, grown-up country needn’t concern itself much with low-level foreign stupidity.