Canadians vs. Americans

What is the Difference?

The difference between Canadians and Americans has been a subject of much debate over the last seventy years, due to the waning sovereignty of Canada, in conjunction with the deliberate cultural revolution.

Between 1946 and 1963, Canada had the fourth-largest navy in the world, an experienced army, a large and untouched industrial base, and the technical expertise for grand national projects like the Alouette satellite, which made Canada the third nation in human history, after the U.S. and USSR, to ever launch one. This same competence and technical expertise contributed to the Manhattan Project, and Canada could have developed its own nuclear arsenal but instead focused on civilian power generation via the CANDU reactor. Canadian engineering was so exceptional that it built the most advanced bomber interceptor the world had ever seen in the form of the Avro Arrow—a hypersonic weapon of war that consumed up to 25% of Canada’s military spending.

The 1963 election of Lester B. Pearson, then the Liberal opposition leader to the last nationalist prime minister, John Diefenbaker, marked the beginning of the cultural revolution and the end of the more obvious differences between Canada and the United States. It can be argued that Canada has always battled with cultural Americanization. Both Canada and the United States share a common origin—they are states that share centuries of the North American experience: conflict with Indigenous tribes, the building of a civilization from the ground up, and a meritocratic environment that tested the ideas of the Old World. They share the English language, a common religion and originally, an ethnos.

Canada today is the United States’ largest trading partner and the largest non-American consumer of American goods and services. Living next to this juggernaut, we are the most Americanized of the intensely Americanized Anglosphere, which includes the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand. These can be considered the immediate appendages of the American Empire. Canadians have been consuming American media for the last 100 years, are on average more preoccupied with American politics than their own, and I’d even argue that Canadians know Americans better than they know themselves.

This is not just due to living next to the juggernaut and having all of this exposure—the tendency to contrast Canadians with Americans is deeply ingrained in the Canadian collective unconscious. We'll explore the reasons for that. So, what are the differences between Canadians and Americans, if you strip away the superficialities of food, music, movies, and language?

Canada's Foundations

To understand Canada, you must first understand its foundations.

Canada is a breakaway society from the United States, like the United States was a breakaway society from the British Empire. You might even argue that Britain represented a thesis, America an antithesis, and Canada the synthesis.

Anglo-Canadians

Anglo-Canadians are descendants of the Loyalists from the American Revolution. They were North Americans, not British transplants, as depicted in American propaganda like Mel Gibson’s The Patriot. They shared the same pioneering and independent spirit as their Patriot counterparts. All were English "Yeoman" or free men. American history from the Mayflower to 1776 is also Canadian history. It is why both nations share Thanksgiving. Some historians have identified the American Revolution as an English civil war, and this is a fairly accurate assessment.

The United States' founding philosophy was rooted in liberalism; it is a proposition nation based on creed over blood, shaped by Enlightenment thinkers like Edmund Burke and John Locke, now considered "conservative." American revolutionaries embraced ideals of meritocracy, individualism, property rights, capitalism, free enterprise, republicanism, and democracy, which empowered the emerging middle class.

Anglo-Canada’s founding philosophy is British Toryism, emerging as a traditionalist and reactionary force in direct response to the American Revolution. During the revolution, many Loyalists had their private property seized or redistributed, suffered beatings in the streets, and in the worst cases, faced public executions or the infamous punishment of tar and feathering. Canadian philosopher George Grant, who is considered the father of Anglo-Canadian nationalism, traced their roots to Elizabethan-era Anglican theologian Richard Hooker.

Canada’s motto, Peace, Order, and Good Government (POGG), reflects a philosophy in stark contrast to the American ideal of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Anglo-Canadians valued God, King, and Country, emphasizing public morality, the common good, and Tory virtues like noblesse oblige—the expectation and obligation of elites to act benevolently within an organic hierarchy. While liberty was important, it was never to come at the expense of order. Canadian conservatism before the 1960s was not a variation of liberalism, as in the U.S., but a much older, European, and genuinely traditional ideology focused on community, public order, self-restraint, and loyalty to the state—values embedded in Canada’s founding documents.

Section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867, empowers Parliament to legislate for the “peace, order, and good government” of Canada, giving rise to Crown corporations like Ontario Hydro, the CBC, and Canadian National Railway—state-owned enterprises. Canada’s tradition of mixed economic policies is often misunderstood by Americans as socialism, communism, or totalitarianism. These state-owned enterprises have historical precedents, such as state-controlled factories during Europe’s industrial revolution, often run by landed nobility. Going further back, state-owned mines in ancient Athens and Roman Empire granaries also exemplify this model, which cannot be simplistically labeled as "Islamofascist communism"—a mischaracterization of anything not aligned with liberalism by many Americans, and increasingly many populist Canadians.

It is also a lesser-known historical fact that Canada was almost ennobled into a kingdom rather than a dominion. This idea was suggested by Thomas D'Arcy McGee, a prominent Irish-Canadian politician, journalist, and one of the Fathers of Confederation. Deeply involved in the creation of Canada as a nation, McGee proposed in the 1860s that Canada could be formed as a monarchy with a hereditary nobility, possibly with a viceroyal king, likely a son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. He believed this would provide stability and continuity to the fledgling nation. While this idea was not realized, its influence can be seen in the entrenched elites of Canada, who, in a sense, became an unofficial aristocracy.

An element of Canada’s conservative origins can also be found in its use of traditional British and French heraldry. Every province, for example, has a medieval-style coat of arms, often displayed on its flag, which reinforces this connection to the old-world traditions McGee sought to preserve.

McGee's vision was rooted in his belief in the importance of monarchical institutions and his desire to strengthen Canada’s bond with the British Crown while fostering a distinct Canadian identity. He argued that ennobling Canada would give the country legitimacy and elevate it in the eyes of Europe and the wider world.

French-Canadians

French Canada, with Quebec as its largest and most influential component, has a distinct history shaped by its French colonial roots. Quebec was primarily settled by French colonists, and its unique culture and identity have evolved over the centuries, heavily influenced by Catholicism and monarchical traditions.

The Jesuits and other Catholic organizations played a pivotal role in shaping early French Canadian society. They not only spread Christianity but also laid the foundation for Quebec’s social and cultural identity. The Jesuits, part of the Society of Jesus, were among the first Catholic missionaries to arrive in New France. Invited by Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec, in 1611, they helped convert Indigenous populations to Catholicism but often remained separate from them. By 1625, they had established missions among various Indigenous nations, including the Huron, Algonquin, and Iroquois.

Unlike France, Quebec bypassed the upheavals of the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror. Isolated from the homeland, the Catholic Church in Quebec consolidated its power, and French colonists faced the threat of extinction due to their initially low numbers, particularly during the one-hundred-year war with the Iroquois. This struggle only strengthened their resolve. Over time, this foundation gave rise to Clerico-Nationalism, particularly exemplified by figures like Abbé Lionel Groulx, a theocratic monarchist and ultramontanist influenced by anti-liberal Catholic nationalist movements in France. Groulx and his contemporaries emphasized loyalty to the Pope over secular governments, and their influence was so strong that the Union Nationale government of Maurice Duplessis embodied many of their beliefs.

Attempts to secularize education in the 1860s were thwarted, as the Catholic theocracy shut them down and restored control to the Church. Quebec remained a theocracy well into the 20th century, with the Catholic Church controlling public schooling and provincial healthcare until the 1960s. For much of its history, Quebecois culture saw itself as the last bastion of the traditionalist, Catholic, monarchist Ancien Régime of the fallen Bourbon monarchy. Liberal republicanism and the French Revolution were regarded as abominations, and French-Canadians believed they were the true French.

This mindset persists today, especially regarding Quebecois French. The 400-year-old dialect, rooted in Norman French and royal court French, is still regarded by many French-Canadians as "true French." However, Europeans often deny this claim, pointing out the influence of anglicisms and the use of joual, a working-class dialect that was deliberately encouraged by Marxist intellectuals and separatists during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s to proletarianize the population.

Ethnogenesis

The ethnogenesis of Canadians is something scarcely discussed, yet it is one of the most important distinctions between Canadians and Americans.

Americans

The founding Anglo-American stock, with the 1790 Naturalization Act, began a process that eventually led to their demographic replacement by "White ethnics" from the European continent. By officially making America a proposition nation based on liberal values and open to all "free white men," they diluted their British roots, turning it into an assimilation project.

By the 1860s, the Yankee elite in the northern states sought to replenish the monumental population losses of the Civil War by flooding the nation with millions of Europeans. These immigrants were spread across different regions or established enclaves within cities. While many adopted aspects of American culture over time, significant cultural differences persisted. This led to considerable conflict between Anglo-Americans and White ethnics. The shared ethnic identity that once unified the thirteen colonies gradually vanished, leaving Americans to bond primarily over differences from Black, Hispanic, and other racial groups.

The Anglo-American elite attempted to maintain their dominance. Figures like Anglo-Dutch strongman Teddy Roosevelt aggressively pursued total Americanization by the early 1900s. However, by then, the demographic shifts were too far advanced. It might have been achievable with slower, more selective immigration policies. Today, while a significant portion of White Americans may have British ancestry, they also possess roots in other European groups, creating substantial regional differences. There is no longer a broad recognition or acknowledgment of a shared Anglo-American heritage. Americans lack a unified ethnic identity, and today only upper New Englanders, some Appalachians, and Utahns are majority Anglo-American.

Intellectuals from the Dark Enlightenment have argued that the demographic replacement by "White ethnics," combined with mass migration to the suburbs after WWII, was the final blow—not just for Anglo-Americans but for all European diaspora groups. Previously, homogenous ethnic enclaves within inner cities functioned autonomously. When most Whites were funneled into suburban environments, they lost ties to their distinct communities and began to form isolated family units, commonly associated with the term "nuclear family."

The term "nuclear family" often evokes images of a 1950s suburban house with a white picket fence, a mother, father, and two children. However, the concept dates back a thousand years to the middle-income merchant classes of England. Historically, nuclear families included extended family members—such as aunts, uncles, and cousins. While Anglo peoples have always been more individualistic compared to Celtic, Latin, or Slavic cultures, they still had relatively larger families overall. Over time, Anglo families have become smaller, eroding the extended family networks that once played a vital role in their communities.

Canadians

Canada is not, and never has been, a proposition nation—a nation based on creed, values, or a passport over heritage and culture. It maintained a far stricter immigration policy for much longer, with its population primarily growing through natural baby booms and early settler waves. In 1867, the year of Confederation, Canada was 92% Anglo-Canadian and Québécois, united in opposition to liberalism in the name of tradition.

Around 60,000 Loyalist Americans migrated north from the Thirteen Colonies after the American Revolution, settling in Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia. They were later bolstered by settlers exclusively from the British Isles: 1.9 million Englishmen, 850,000 Irishmen, and 200,000 Scots. Almost all spoke English and assimilated into the Loyalist American culture, rather than further "Britishizing" Canada. Over time, these groups converged into a cohesive ethnicity, already sharing significant similarities due to the cross-pollination among peoples of the British Isles. This process of ethnogenesis is akin to the convergence of the Angles, Jutes, Saxons, and Frisians during their 5th-century settlement of Britain, or the Scandinavians amalgamating with native French to become the Normans. If you take a DNA test from someone in Halifax today and compare it to someone in Vancouver, they are likely to be nearly identical. There are no longer towns or cities where distinct ethnic groups of English, Irish, or Scottish origin maintain separate identities, though they left their local traditions, such as the Highland Games, which are celebrated across Canada.

The French settlers in Quebec, primarily from Normandy (56% of the top 30 most common Québécois surnames), established a distinct civilization centered in Quebec City and Montreal. These French families maintained exceptionally high fertility rates, with women averaging five children per family for over 230 years—a phenomenon encouraged by the Catholic Church through the Revanche des Berceaux ("Revenge of the Cradles"). Fearing demographic and cultural replacement by Anglo settlers, the Church promoted population growth as a form of resistance. By the 20th century, the Québécois population had increased eightyfold, striving to match the migration of settlers from the British Isles. Over this 230-year period, only around 10,000 foreign settlers came to the province.

By 2021, according to Statistics Canada, Anglo-Canadians and French-Canadians still made up 72% of the total population. This starkly contradicts the liberal "cultural mosaic" myth, which has been relentlessly pushed over the years, leading many Canadians to believe they were a mosaic of diverse ethnicities—Anglo-Canadian, Québécois, German, Ukrainian, Polish, Italian, Czech, Slovak, Greek, and so on—all to justify mass migration from outside the Western world. The truth is, Canada has remained ethnically and racially homogeneous for most of its history. Immigration waves were minimal compared to earlier periods, with many immigrants leaving shortly after their arrival until the 1980s. The 1971 Multiculturalism Policy, by officially rejecting assimilation and the very idea of a unified national identity, only served to preserve the divisions between Canada’s founding peoples, deliberately discouraging full integration and further fracturing the country.

The trade-off of this policy is that, for 50 years, foreign enclaves such as Richmond, Surrey, and Brampton have become prominent. In Brampton, for example, a 50-foot statue of the Hindu god Hanuman stands tall, symbolizing the presence of distinct cultural communities that remain largely separate from the ethnic Anglo-Canadian and Québécois identity. Canada’s historical position as a less attractive immigration destination than the United States, combined with its equally historic ethnocentrism, has also significantly bolstered this enduring homogeneity on a level comparable to European nation-states, making it unique in North America.

On that note, it is no coincidence that the Arms of Canada, also known as "the Shield" of the Red Ensign flag, has become the official symbol of Canadian nationalists rather than the symbols associated with White nationalist movements around the world. Ethnicity goes deeper than race—it is more personal, more colloquial, and more relevant. Canada already has an explicit ethnic nationalist presence in Quebec, and Anglo-Canadians maintain a distant attitude toward European immigrants and their diasporas, such as Italians, Greeks, or Slavs. White nationalism has never succeeded in appealing to the vast majority of Canadians, even in far-right spaces, with the apparent exception of Alberta.

The Canadian Temperament

The Canadian temperament has remained largely unchanged for over four hundred years. Canadians today are just as reactionary as they were when they first ventured north to rebuild civilization or fought for survival against hostile Indigenous tribes. This reactionary nature persists in contemporary Canada, especially within Canadian liberalism, which, despite its outward appearance, is deeply illiberal in practice. The emergence of Canadian liberalism was a product of left-liberalism, infused with Marxist new-left philosophy, and incorporated into a managerial regime. The Canadian government has pursued a post-national agenda, attempting to reshape the country's identity by erasing its historical foundations and importing large numbers of immigrants. However, as seen in China, Russia, or Germany, attempts to forcibly alter a nation’s culture often fail because a nation’s character is deeply rooted in its people—the ethnos drives the ethos. Distinct ethnic groups form over time through shared environments and reproductive pressures, and Canadians, at their core, remain deeply conservative, regardless of the prevailing ideology, because they have been sociosexually selected for it.

The Trudeau approach to liberalism is uniquely Canadian. Nationalists reflect the same tendencies, with traditionalists, monarchists, and ethnic nationalists emerging as intellectual elites, signaling a return to a deeper Canadian identity before the cultural revolution. Canada has always stood at the crossroads between the old world and the new, blending European reactionary conservatism with a North American environment. As George Grant noted, Canadians are North American, but a different type of North American—shaped by their rejection of both the French and American revolutions. Canadians prioritize order and the collective good over individual liberty, which explains why Canadian liberalism does not lead to absolute free speech or relatively freer gun rights, despite theoretically having the rights to both. Liberalism, which emphasizes individual freedom, private property, and democracy, has never been fully embraced in Canada. There is always a caveat. Canadians, in their essence, are not and never have been a liberal people. Trudeauian liberalism itself arose as a direct contradiction to American right-liberalism during the Cold War; it is, once again, a reaction to their first and greatest existential threat—the heart and soul of ideological liberalism to this day. It also explains why the two groups most vocal and aggressive against the idea of American annexation are the managerial regime and Canadian nationalists.

Canada has long been seen as the crossroads of Europe and America. The true purpose of Canada’s existence was never about a material connection to the British Crown or the Catholic Church, though these institutions played roles in asserting power. Canada’s purpose was the union of two contextually traditionalist peoples—Anglo-Canadians and French-Canadians—who sought to preserve their ways of life and the society shaped by their conservative temperaments. These two peoples stood against the tide of progress, creating a society built on shared values.

The difference between Canada and the United States lies in Canada’s uniqueness: Canadians are two homogeneous ethnic groups born in the New World, driven by old-world European ideas in a North American setting.