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Canadians assume their superiority in supposedly being progressively post-fossil-fuel extends to their superiority in providing government services. That doesn’t stand up to scrutiny, either. Canada’s points-based immigration system is admired by many, but its functioning partly depends on its borders being far away from migrants from poorer countries, unlike the U.S. and in Europe. It is revealing how our immigration system is now struggling to handle even a fraction of the inflow of illegal immigrants the U.S. has confronted for decades. Even the relatively small inflow of asylum seekers into Quebec and Manitoba over the past year has triggered alarm, outrage and a growing crisis.

It is easy for Americans to admire the Canadian health and education systems from a distance, especially since they don’t pay the taxes needed to support them. But do they provide good value? While Canada ranks high in spending on health and education, our outcomes are well below the OECD average since much of the spending is wasted on bloated bureaucracies and lavish pay for our pampered public servants and professors.

The U.S. leads the world in generosity, regularly on display but rarely acknowledged in a world that delights in demonizing it. The U.S. role as “the world’s policeman” reflects its military clout and global reach, without which Pacific nations such as Taiwan and South Korea would not even exist today. Most anti-Americanism is reflexive and lacks a self-awareness of the security the U.S. provides. For example, in 1966 when France’s Charles de Gaulle ordered American troops to be “removed from French soil,” then U.S. secretary of defence, Dean Rusk, sarcastically asked “Even the ones buried in it?” American sacrifices are quickly forgotten, even by countries that owe their freedom to the U.S.

A recent poll found 60 per cent of Canadians held a negative view of the U.S., up sharply since Trump’s election. This is shocking. Apparently, we are letting our antipathy to the temporary occupant of the White House outweigh all the benefits from access to the world’s largest economy, supplier of investment and innovative ideas, and guarantor of our safety. The world hardly needs more of Canada, if it comes with our short-sighted small-mindedness about the U.S.

Philip Cross is a Munk senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.