Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan
This year we had relatives visiting us from Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United States. They went to Parliament Hill in Ottawa and mingled with the 80,000 or so revelers for the Canada Day celebrations that included songs, dances, prayers, speeches, face painting and stunning fireworks. There was no display of military might. The emphasis was on families and the common people.
Canadians are not given to boasting. But this year some Canadians compared their country with neighboring United States with interesting conclusions.
Maclean’s magazine gave 99 reasons why it’s better to be Canadian than American. Canadians live longer (81.1 years versus 78.2). Canadians are more satisfied with life (8.8 out of 10 against 7.5). Canada is ranked the world’s eighth most peaceful country, the US 99th. Canada’s 15-year-olds came sixth among 65 countries in reading, math and science. The US was 17th. Fewer Canadians commit suicide (11.1 per 100,000 people, against 12). Canadians get 50 weeks of paid maternity-parental leave, Americans 12 weeks of unpaid leave. Health care costs $4,445 per person in Canada versus $8,233. Fifty-four percent of poor Canadian youth get to college compared to 30 percent in the US.
Canada’s divorce rate per 1,000 marriages is 2.1, 3.6 in the United States. In an OECD study of income disparity in 34 countries, the US came fourth, Canada 12th. Youth unemployment in Canada is 13.5 percent, compared to the US’s 16.8 percent. Bloomberg examined the world’s strongest banks and put four Canadian banks in the top ten. Only one US bank made it to the top ten. PricewaterhouseCoopers ranked Canada eighth of 185 countries in advantageous tax structure, the US 69th. Canadian workers get at least two weeks leave and nine paid public holidays. In the US 23 percent of workers get no paid time off. Sixty-two percent of Canadian women work, compared to the US’s 57 percent. In the US a son born to a poor father is twice as likely to remain poor as one in Canada.
In Canada 83 of 100 people surf the web, in the United States 77.9 do so. Last year Canadians took 10 million trips abroad to countries other than the US. Americans made 30 million visits, though they number ten times more. Canada has half a percent of the world’s population and seven percent of its renewable water supply. An American has just 11 percent of what’s available to Canadians. Women head six Canadian provinces with 87 percent of the country’s population. The US has just five women governors. Canada attracts 5.65 immigrants per 1,000 people compared to the US’s 3.64. America’s presidential elections cost some $7 billion. In Canada the top five political parties are allowed to spend a combined $90 million for an election. And so it goes.
An American who lives in Canada retorted in the Ottawa Citizen that Canada is a good nation but the US is great. He wrote that Canada has a national capital that is “small and dull, that Canadians disparage and our government ignores. They have Washington, ambitious and dazzling, which Americans admire, salute and endow.”
He wrote, “we have Stephen Harper and they have Barack Obama, we have John Baird and they have John Kerry. Before Kerry they had Hillary Clinton and we had Lawrence Cannon. We have McGill, University of Toronto and Queen’s, all fine universities. They have Harvard, Yale and Stanford, among the top ten in the world.
“We have hockey, they have baseball, football, and basketball. Olympics after Olympics, they present the greatest athletes in the world. In the Olympics of the Mind, they produce the most Nobel Laureates. They were late to both world wars, which we don’t let them forget, but their intervention won them both. In the 1940s, they rebuilt Europe and fostered the international nomenclature that emerged from it.”
I found this point of view fascinating. I studied in the United States for three years and lived in four US cities. I admired its great universities, friendly and hard-working people, freedom of expression and democracy, and the emphasis on progress and huge opportunities for people of all backgrounds. I have numerous friends and relatives in the United States and visit that country often.
But when I decided to migrate from Pakistan, I chose Canada, mostly because I felt it provided a better balance between tending to one’s family and pursuing one’s career. It’s a decision I have never regretted.
To me both countries are great. But Canada is a blessing in a way no other country is. Specifically, it did not drop atomic bombs on civilian cities, does not dictate to other countries, does not attack countries on the basis of lies (Gulf of Tonkin, weapons of mass destruction), does not launch drone attacks on suspected opponents, funerals and wedding processions, does not topple or assassinate foreign leaders and does not promote militarism, oppression and wars.
Canada’s imperfections notwithstanding, it remains a model for the rest of the world and a blessing for its people.
— Mohammed Azhar Ali Khan is a retired Canadian journalist, civil servant and refugee judge
