WHAT'S UP WITH CANADA?

Americans Taking Notice Of Our 'Initiatives'

WASHINGTON -- Tell you what: Next time you visit the United States, bring a
helmet.

Because Americans can't decide whether their northern neighbours have gone
stark, raving mad or miraculously engineered enlightened social change.

U.S. gays are wistful and want to move to Canada, or at least get married
there. Activists get choked up when they talk about the decision to
decriminalize marijuana, sell medicinal pot and provide safe injection sites.

Yet a sizable slew of conservatives are worried these ideas are going to
drift south and corrupt U.S. legislators.

An editorial in the New York Times called Canada's choice to endorse
same-sex marriage "a stirring moment" and bemoaned how far the United
States had to go to match its "record of tolerance on this issue."

Canada was the talk of the town in a recent issue of the New Yorker
magazine that even posed the question: Would it be so terrible to be
Canadian after all?

While noting Canada is too cold, has a weak dollar and a reputation for
paralysing dullness, "in matters of public policy they are often more
enlightened than we are, without being snooty about it."

The U.S. administration has for some time made its views known on
marijuana. Drug czar John P. Walters has been blasting Canada for months.
And President George W. Bush was worried enough about gay marriage to say
last week he has lawyers working on legislation upholding the traditional view.

'STINK BOMB'

Robert Knight, who helped draft the 1996 federal U.S. law that defines
marriage as the union of a man and a woman, says Americans once viewed
Canadians as common sense folk, but not after the decision to devise a
same-sex marriage law.

"It's not a welcome export, it's a stink bomb," says Knight, who heads the
Culture and Family Institute in Washington.

"Canada is fast becoming synonymous with the sexual perversity of San
Francisco."

Knight, who predicts many states will endeavour to strengthen current
marriage laws in light of Canada's position, is hardly alone in a country
where religion and social policy are often so closely linked.

Phil McLean, a senior fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International
Studies, says Canada's plans to decriminalize pot will hurt tough efforts
to curb drug use in the U.S.

"It's a hugely difficult problem that's in danger of exploding if Canada
takes that step," says McLean.

McLean says he's "throwing his hands up" on the gay marriage decision.
"It's a particular type of morality. Euthanasia will be the next thing that
comes across the border."

What Americans overlook in the gay and drug debates is that Canadians and
their politicians aren't having the easiest of times with all this, either.

"The facts are less important than the impression," says political analyst
Chris Sands. "It's about what things symbolize."