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(Since Trump vs Trudeau/Carney is pure culture war, this counts) Every now and again there are throwaway lines in comments here about how Canada is a bad ally, or incompetent, or just generally bad-and-should-feel-bad. And believe me, lots of us do. But those Canadians who disapprove of the direction the country has taken usually do so for internal political reasons (Justin Trudeau, immigration, house prices, indigenous rights-gone-wild, virtue-signalling gun laws, etc). The comments I'm talking about are usually hinting at foreign affairs, but even the most self-hating Canadian usually believes Canada is internationally respected. Please offer below your critiques/complaints about Canada from a foreign affairs/relations standpoint.
Are you asking how other countries think about Canada?
Well, from Australia, the answer is that we don't, very much. I feel like Canada is the forgotten member of the Anglosphere. We have strong opinions on ourselves, the Kiwis, and of course, the Yanks and the Poms, but not the Canadians. (The fact that the Canadians do not have a silly slang name seems instructive.) If we do think about Canada, it's mostly the idea of Canada as a smaller, somewhat more well-behaved America.
For me personally, I think of Canada as a country halfway between the US and the UK, and most of the news I've heard about it recently has been discouraging - it seems like it's been transforming pretty radically over the last few decades? But in general I think Canada is much 'quieter', so to speak, than either the US or UK. Perhaps that's the inevitable result of being midway between two great powers. Australia is also a colony, but in the context of our immediate neighbourhood, we're pretty influential. Among Oceania or southeast Asia, Australia can be assertive. But Canada is perpetually overshadowed.
You don't call them Canucks and tell jokes about them all being drunken lumberjack hockey fans who live off maple syrup and poutine and expect the government to pay for it all?
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