Anti-Americanism in Canada

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine Granatstein’s arguments (who suggested that the kind of anti-Americanism one finds in Canada is in fact unique) in light of the developments since 1996, when he was writing. It begins by exploring the nature of anti-Americanism in Canada to confirm Granatstein’s contention that Canadian anti-Americanism is unique. I then look at the state of contemporary anti-Americanism in Canada—in the late 1990s and early 2000s. I will argue that Granatstein was correct to suggest that the kind of unique anti-Americanism that had marked Canadian political culture for much of the nineteenth century and all but the last decade of the twentieth century had largely disappeared. However, he was overly optimistic about the decline of this phenomenon. I will show that anti-Americanism is alive and well in Canada, but it is a particular and quite limited strand of anti-Americanism.