Canadian Stereotypes and Misconceptions

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Canadian Stereotypes and Misconceptions: "

Lately while travelling, people have been asking us a lot of questions about Canada. The topic of health care comes up, our unique way of speaking and questions about our identity often arise in the conversation.
It made me think a little bit about how little people know about Canadians.

We all say oot and oboot – We say out and about and not at the same time. This one always hits a nerve with me. I don’t know why, but I pretty much always fly off the handle when people mention it. And they always do. Canadians do not say oot and aboot. I would love to know where this saying came from. We do say “out” with a different accent than Americans. They pronounce it more like “owt” while we pronounce it more like “oat”. They open their mouths a little more and pronounce it with more of an ouch sound. We are more closed it our pronounciation and lean a little more towards the word oat. While neither one is right or wrong, it is simply our accents. Like all countries of the world, different regions have different accents and some people are more pronounced that others, but for the most part we Canadians simply say out.

We hate Americans – Not True At All. Somebody asked us this the other day. They said “Don’t all Canadians Hate Americans?” That is too bad that some Americans think this because most of the Canadians I know like Americans quite a bit. We love vacationing in their country, we love watching their television programs and we all have good friends that are American. Many of us love to go on a shopping trip over the border and we love vacationing in Florida or California or really anywhere in the States. There is a misconception that Canadians hate Americans, but trust me, we don’t. Whenever we travel, we always feel a kindred spirit to Americans. We all can relate to one another and we all really like each other.

Free health care is bad- Sorry, but free health care is good. When we are not feeling well we go to the doctors. When we have an accident we go to emergency. If we need open heart surgery, we get it. If we need radiation treatment for cancer, we get that too. No bills, no worries. Sure, if I go to emergency for a cut or a minor injury, the staff will treat the heart attack or car accident victim first. But they aren’t going to let anyone die. People are treated in the order of the severity of their injury, not the amount in their bank account.

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It is always cold - Believe it or not, Canada has a summer. We were above 30º Celcius almost every day this summer. We have heat alerts and we crank our air conditioners just like the warmer tropical countries. When we went to St. Kitts in the Caribbean last month, we were surprised to find that it was more comfratable and less humid than Toronto at the time.

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We are on the imperial system – Canadians are on the metric system.(sort of) I don’t know how long a mile is, I couldn’t tell you. We think and drive in kilometres. We measure our drinks in litres and our food in grams and our temperature in Celcius. However, the majority of us weigh ourselves in pounds and measure ourselves in inches. We are weird, but we like it that way. It makes us unique.

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We sew our flag on our backpack because we don’t want people to think we are American – Canadian’s sew our flags on our backpack because we are very patriotic. When Dave and I travel, we love to represent Canada. We love our country and let’s face it, not a lot of people even give Canada a second thought on the world stage. But when travelling, we certainly make the world stand up and take notice. Our flag is everywhere and whenever we see one, we stop to say hello.

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We all speak French – I wish we did. We learn French all through school, but frankly my school French curriculum was terrible. I wanted to speak French desperately growing up. I worked hard in school and memorized my verbs every day. The problem was we just kept learning the same French verbs right up until my final year of high school. I never became even close to fluent. And now I am an embarrassment to my last name – Corbeil (Very French and pronounced Corbay) The province of Quebec is our French speaking province. Sure there are many Canadians that are bilingual, but most of us are not I am afraid.

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We all love hockey and we all know how to skate…Okay that one is true.

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For more help understanding Canadians check out these posts

• The Great Canadian Word – Unique Words and Phrases of Canada
• Canadian Food Our Lack of Identity
• Strange and Funny Names of Places in Canada

And now to end with a monologue that was huge in Canada in the 90′s. It is from a Beer ad, Molson Canadian. Their slogan for years has been…” I am Canadian”

From a Moslon Canadian Ad – More on I am Canadian

Average Joe, I am Canadian

Hey, I’m not a lumberjack, or a fur trader….
I don’t live in an igloo or eat blubber, or own a dogsled….
and I don’t know Jimmy, Sally or Suzy from Canada,
although I’m certain they’re really really nice.

I have a Prime Minister, not a president.
I speak English and French, not American.
And I pronounce it ‘about’, not ‘a boot’.

I can proudly sew my country’s flag on my backpack.
I believe in peace keeping, not policing,
diversity, not assimilation,

and that the beaver is a truly proud and noble animal.
A toque is a hat, a chesterfield is a couch,
and it is pronounced ‘zed’ not ‘zee’, ‘zed’ !!!!

Canada is the second largest landmass!
The first nation of hockey!
and the best part of North America

My name is Joe!!
And I am Canadian!!!

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