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Notes -
For me at least, and I think a non-trivial amount of people, recent years have actually laid bare what that actually means. It doesn't mean Canada or Canadians do or did things that are particularly worthy of respect, it means that Canadians reliably vote for politicians that mouth things that the kind of people who end up reporting on international affairs in newsrooms all over the western world like to hear. Nothing more. Because the vast majority of people don't really have any kind of informed opinion on anything Canada does, they just respond to the applause light on their TV set.
*EDIT: But as for my opinion of Canada in the realm of foreign affairs, as a nominal Canadian (Quebec separatist), my opinion is that Canada is much like European Union nations, benefitting greatly from the current world order and our relative irrelevance allows us the decadent luxury of never really having to take consequential hard decisions for the world. The attitude sickens and disgusts me, not that I believe my people, the Québecois, would be much better about it, and I believe we are much deserving the "fuck you, respect us you freeloader" from the Americans we're currently getting, for the smug attitude if nothing else.
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