Canada: sharing a border, but not a worldview: longtime allies, the U.S. and its northern neighbor increasingly see things differently.

• Author: Krauss, Clifford
• Position: International - Humber College comedy school

Canadians and Americans still dress alike, talk alike, like the same books, television shows, and movies, and trade more goods and services than ever before. But on social and political issues, a chasm has opened up between the two nations.

Recent disagreements over trade, drug use, gay marriage, and the war in Iraq--where Canada has so far refused to send troops--has made the relationship more contentious and Canadians increasingly outspoken about the things that separate them from their American neighbors.

"The two countries are sounding more different--after 9/11, dramatically more different," says Gil Troy, an American historian who teaches at McGill University in Montreal. "You hear a lot more static and you see more brittleness."

Canada, which has a population of some 32 million people, is America's only northern neighbor. The two nations share a border more than 5,500 miles long--still one of the world's most open borders, even with the heightened security after 9/11. Canada and the U.S. also share a history of beginning as European colonies and developing into strong nations built on immigrant populations. In December, Canada's new Prime Minister, Paul Martin, took office, pledging to strengthen ties between the two countries.

A NEW CANADIAN IDENTITY

However, a more distinctive Canadian identity--one far more in line with European sensibilities--is emerging and generating new frictions with the United States. Two Canadian provinces have legalized gay marriage, and the national government in Ottawa has moved to decriminalize use of small amounts of marijuana. There have been growing political differences as well. Instead of following the American hard line on Cuba, Canada has adopted its own, more forgiving policy toward the Communist nation. Canada has also supported the creation of an International Criminal Court, which the U.S. staunchly opposes. And Canada signed the Kyoto Accord, an international agreement to reduce global warming; the U.S. did not.

Of course there have been frictions before. In fact, there's a long tradition of Americans going north to Canada to break the conventions of the day or simply to live as they wished.

It began during the American Revolution, when 30,000 Loyalists headed north into Ontario and Nova Scotia so they could continue to live under the rule of Britain's King George III. Before the American Civil War, some 30,000 runaway slaves sought refuge in Canada, where they could live freely and beyond the reach of the Fugitive Slave Act. And during the 1960s and 1970s, more than 120,000 Vietnam War draft resisters went north to Canada, where they were welcomed.

"Canada from time to time functions as the great outpatient clinic for disaffected Americans," says Troy.

DIFFERENCES TAKING CENTER STAGE

But today, many analysts and ordinary Canadians say, the differences appear to have moved center stage, particularly in...