  Fox and the Navigator There's a urlLink comment piece in the globe today from Rudyard Griffiths of the Dominion Institute. He's referring to a poll conducted by Navigator a few weeks back which included, among other things, a section about how young Canadians describe the US. The results showed that 40% of those polled would describe America as an "evil" influence in the world. From the urlLink Citizen's take on the poll: In a telephone poll of 500 teens aged 14 to 18, more than 40 per cent of respondents saw the U.S. as an evil global force. Among French-Canadians, that number jumped to 64 per cent. Ontario proved the most conflicted on the issue; there, nearly one-fifth of youth were on the fence. "Teens have taken (Ronald) Reagan's concept of the Soviet Union as an evil empire and turned it back on the U.S.," says Rudyard Griffiths, director of the Dominion Institute. "Clearly, the anti-American sentiment isn't just something coming from 30-somethings or even 20-somethings.
" Jump ahead a few weeks and a few kilometers south to Fox News and Bill O'Reilly. Griffiths describes the infamous Fox commentator's reaction to our America-hating youth: I suspect [O'Reilly's] producers have Google news alerts set up with the key words "Canada," "socialism," "draft dodgers" and "anti-Americanism. " On his show, Mr. O'Reilly used the single survey statistic to let loose on Canada's political leaders, the media and our "ignorant teens.
" One of his choicer utterances included: "The truth is that the USA has freed more human beings in 230 years than the rest of the world combined. France has freed almost no one. Ditto Canada.
. . .
I object to the anti-American foreign press and bums like Chirac in France and Chren in Canada. " Sorry, but didn't our Governor-General and President George W. Bush just commemorate the 60th anniversary of D-Day together in France?
Last time I looked, we fought alongside the Americans in Korea, during the long grind of the Cold War and served with distinction in Bosnia and Afghanistan. And by the way, we have had a new Prime Minister for seven months and his name is Paul Martin. There's a lot of reasons to dislike America's foreign policy these days, and honestly, that's about the only thing that we Canadians are really allowed to comment on with any seriousness. It's easy for us to fall into the trap of criticizing the State's domestic policy (e.g., same-sex marriage ban, cutting Veteren's benefits, the declining quality of their school system, seemingly institutionalized racism, etc. ) but really we have no business there. It's not our country and if they want to live like that then it's their right. Right? But when it comes to foreign policy; when it comes to how America, the biggest, toughest kid on the block, behaves in the school yard, then yes, we can comment.
We can have opinions and we can voice them. We can dissent without fear of being labeled un-patriotic or un-American; a luxury that our American friends don't seem to have these days. In fact, It's been argued that being "un-American" is about the only thing that Canadians agree that we are as a nation. Our ever changing, ever searching self-identity is first and foremost Not-American. What does it mean to be Canadian? "Well, it means that we are... We are all very... Maple syrup and um... The French are in there too... Well we're not American, that's for darn sure.
" Griffiths continues on Fox: Three days after our poll appeared in the Drudge Report, I got the opportunity to go on Fox News to try to do some damage control. It was an interesting lesson in talking to the prickly and standoffish America that Fox News proudly champions. The show was aptly named Heartland, and its host was the combative former Republican congressman John Kasich. Right from Mr. Kasich's first question as to whether Vietnam draft dodgers had taken over our education system, I knew I was in for an uphill struggle. I tried to explain that Canadian teens were no different than American teens. They wear Nike shoes, listen to U.S. popular music and most likely know as much about U.S. history as their own. My conciliatory tone didn't satisfy the former congressman. What about the press? Is the same liberal media cabal that banned Fox News from Canadian airwaves responsible for our teens' anti-Americanism? My five minutes flew by and I felt I was failing miserably to counteract the stereotype that all Canadians are Yankee-haters.
Have Vietnam draft-dodgers have taken over your educational system? That was really a question? Wow. The urlLink Heartland website contains only this line: Does a good amount of Canada's youth think the U.S. is evil? Don't miss this! But since we can't watch Fox news up here, I guess we'll have to wait for the transcript... Wait..."Does a good amount of Canada's youth think the U.S. is evil? " Could we get one of those draft-dodging english teachers to take a look at that sentence please? Thanks. 
