Nice Canadians

Written by

We experience Canadian nice as soon as we reach customs. The US border guards are gruff and all business. The Canadians, by contrast, are unfailingly polite, even as they grill us about the number of wine bottles we’re bringing into the country. One year, we had failed to notice that our 9-year-old daughter’s passport had expired. They, nicely, let us enter anyway. The niceness continues for our entire trip, as we encounter nice waiters, nice hotel clerks, nice strangers.

We are generally nice people.



23 thoughts on “Nice Canadians”

  5. It has nothing to do with “nice.” The common standard of politeness in Canada is simply different than that of the U.S. such that U.S. Americans feel like everybody in Canada is being “nice” to them. This does not actually equate to actual niceness. You may still go into a bar and get the cold shoulder from everybody there, whereas in the U.S. you may more easily make a friend in a public setting. People are equally nice in both countries. People are the same everywhere. What is different is customs, which make you think people are being more or less nice to you during your very shallow first impression.

    With regards to government workers, U.S. Americans are simply amazed to be treated innocent until proven guilty, as opposed to the way it is in the U.S. where government workers run the country like it is which is one giant prison. Again, that is just a different set of customs and doesn’t mean the people are different. U.S. Americans lost control of their government in the 1980’s — it is controlled entirely by corporations since then. The people have nothing to do with how U.S. government treats you.

  7. This is not entirely true. When I first entered Canada the guards insisted that we open our cans of corned beef – that we were planning to use on our camping trip – of course it was completely spoiled after that and we had to throw it away.

    I love Canada but the guards can most certainly be heavy handed.

    CONTEXT: This was 1979 and I hold very long grudges.

  8. My first post-shoe-bomber airline flight was in 2008. The security-theater process was about as insulting as I’d been led to expect.

    That said, my customs interviewer at Heathrow was about as coldly officious as every rom-com or thriller movie I’d ever seen had led me to expect.

    Days later, after an interminable return trip, our Newark customs interviewer helped mitigate our fatigue with a low-key but kindly “Welcome home, guys.” I almost cried with gratitude.

    Nice happens. And as JohnDoey says here, government and citizen culture are not the same thing.

  9. As a Canadian all I can say is that I don’t the looks of “rattyuk”. If that actually is your real name….

  11. Sorry for our government. They suck and I wish they would be nicer, spy less, and be more environmentally friendly, but even as bad as they are, they’ve done a couple good things (I mean, literally 2 things I can think of.) Just don’t ask me about the F-35, then I might get upset.

  12. except for the Khalistanis running Indian businesses and farms.
    and Tamil Tigers waiting their turn.

    Chinese Mafia.

  14. I cross the Canada-US border 40-50 times a year. I think the border services on both sides are overworked and occasionally cranky because they are, well, just tired.

    But overall they are excellent. And I’ve learned they are only as nice as the person they are talking to.

  15. This past summer my daughter wanted to go to Canada, so we did. Spent time at the Falls and then in Toronto. I was disappointed in how much Yonge Street had changed, but the nighttime view on the roof of the Grand Hotel was breathtaking. Way back in the day, Yonge Street used to be 3 miles of cool little shops, and now almost all of that is gone. Sniff. In general my impression of Canadians is that they are a little nicer. Certainly people in Toronto are nicer than people in NYC or Philly. Brotherly love my ass. As far as customs, coming into Canada was super quick and easy, and coming back into the US the border guy was a jackass.

  16. Did you stay at the Grand Hotel? Or is there a bar on the roof that you can get it? I want to photograph from there but am not sure whether I’d be allowed. TIA.

  17. We are all nice and polite. Then we invite you to play hockey with us. Muhahahahahahahahah …

  18. Yup, we stayed at the Grand. There wasn’t a bar on the roof when we went, but it was still pretty awesome. There was a big wooden deck, tons of big chairs, an area with two hot tubs, and a set of bathrooms. They projected music videos (mostly from the 80’s) on a big wall at night and the music was at a good level, not too loud. In order to get to the roof, you have to use your room key to access a private elevator on the top floor. Without a room key, you can’t get to it. You could try going in on a Friday night, getting on the elevator, going to the top floor, and then hanging out pretending to look at your phone until someone who’s staying there uses the roof elevator. If you wanted to be sneaky. Or you could just ask them at the front desk. The view at night is spectacular, but the hotel itself is in a slightly iffy part of town.

  19. I used to work for Palm in their phone customer support team. When I worked there, i got more complaining and whining and demanding from Palm Canada customers than anywhere else, by a wide margin. They weren’t very nice to me back then :'(

    However, when I traveled to Canada, I found the women there to be much nicer, more willing to talk, and less prude than American women. That was great 😉

  20. Not in Pearson or Vancouver immigration/border control. What a giant pack of asshats. Land crossing agents are generally pretty nice.

  22. I was in Newfoundland this past summer and was blown away by how nice everyone was. We met such great people.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *