QotD: Canada, in the world's opinion

Note to Canadians: Everyone does not love Canada. Following Belgium, Canada is considered to be the most boring country on Earth** and, if it is thought of at all, it is as the uptight, underachieving and humourless*** version of the United States.**** Is any of this particularly fair? You be the judge. Though I have noticed nothing tends to bring out the scratch-the-surface jingoism of Canadians more than pointing out this sort of thing.

** Excepting Montreal.

*** Outraged list of famous Canadian comedians arriving in 4... 3... 2... Yes, there are some witty Canadians; they live and work in the United States. The rest of Canada's limited comedic output works on Air Farce, a show so ham-fisted and lame it makes Egyptian soap-opera look like Shakespeare. Rick Mercer is the exception that proves the rule, btw, so don't even go there.

**** Canadians like to point to our largely mythical role as peacekeepers. I have rarely encountered a better example of what Antonio Gramsci described as hegemonic ideology; a myth propagated in the interests of an established elite at complete variance with material fact.

Nick Packwood, "Angeline Jolie is afraid of Americans", Ghost of a Flea, 2007-01-23