88. This has profound effects on the right tail of Canadian education. The most talented Canadian students don't spend their undergraduate years embedded in an ultra-elite crowd.
Overall, this is probably good for society but worse for the most talented individuals.
Conversation
IMO, the main advantage of a small, elite university is the *density of potential*: you get to know a lot of people who will go on to become famous scientists, CEOs, politicians.... This provides a ton of social capital to those who attend them.
Dunno if this is net good or bad.
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89. Canadian higher ed tends to be much more structured than American higher ed. At most Canadian universities, students are admitted to a program rather than the school as a whole, and programs tend to be pretty specific and structured.
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For example, the University of Waterloo offers separate programs in CS, CS/Math, CS/Business and software engineering. Most of those also come in co-op/non-co-op versions, and you pick the one to attend *when you apply*.
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This also means that Canadian higher education has a distinctly professional flavor. Many Canadians have undergraduate degree in fields like accounting or nursing.
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In contrast, most universities in the US are almost comically flexible by comparison. There's a lot of emphasis on getting a "liberal arts education". Even the more focused tech schools (MIT, Caltech, etc.) provide a lot of flexibility.
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90. The last major difference between Canadian and American higher ed is the admission process.
The Canadian process is simple and permissive. The American process is *ridiculously complex*.
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In Ontario, here's how you get in to most university programs:
Pick your six best grades in Grade 12-level classes, including any required for the program (e.g., Calculus for engineering programs). Average those together, and compare to a cutoff.
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Sometimes, you can raise your effective average with good performance on math contests, or writing a good essay about leadership or something. But the whole process is formulaic and simple.
To correct for bias, the universities over-admit and weed people out in the first year.
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I can't do justice to the American process here. As an applicant, you write essays, solicit letters of recommendation from teachers, tally up your extracurricular activities, and generally try to come ahead in the all-out prestige battle called "holistic admissions".
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There are entire cottage industries of fancy coaches, consultants, etc. etc. As an outsider, I honestly don't know what to make of it.
This article was retracted on factual grounds, but the *vibe* is spot on. Read it as based-on-a-true-story fiction.
91. Both Canadians and Americans are mostly confused about how the Canadian government works. This is mostly fine, because Canadian politics are very boring.
Occasionally, something weird happens and then it's a big problem that Canadians don't understand Canadian politics.
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For example, Canada nearly had a constitutional crisis in 2009, when the Governor General suspended Parliament for failing to pass a budget.
Here's Rick Mercer (sort of a Canadian John Oliver) trying to explain WTF was happening to Canadians:
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92. The dominance of American media means that Canadians have a vague sense of how the US government works. It also means that Canadians tend to assume that their government works more like the American one than it actually does.
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As Mercer points out above, many Canadians think that they vote directly for the prime minister, like Americans do for their president.
There's no such concept in a parliamentary system, but that doesn't stop people from thinking that they are voting for "Trudeau" or "O'Toole".
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93. This confusion can be personally relevant, too.
Apparently, it's not uncommon for Canadians to try to "plead the fifth" even though
1) The 🇨🇦 constitution has no "fifth amendment"
2) Canadian protections against self-incrimination are considerably weaker than American ones.
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94. Canadians vote much, much less than Americans, and this is probably a good thing.
Canadians vote in federal elections, provincial elections, and municipal elections. Each of those happens once every few years, and each ballot has between 1 and ~5 things to vote on.
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Federal ballots, for example, have precisely one thing to vote on: who do you want to have as your representative in Parliament?
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In contrast, American vote all! the! time!
You have a major (federal-level) election every two years, but in the meantime there are local elections and primaries and so on.
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And at the state/municipal level, things explode. Ballot propositions! Comptroller! Judges! Recalls!
Here are some people attempting to figure out how to vote on an Alameda County, CA ballot in November 2020:
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I genuinely have no idea how Americans manage to keep up with all this voting.
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95. Canada has way more (relevant) political parties than the US, despite using first-past-the-post voting.
In the current Parliament, there are members from five different parties (Liberals, Conservatives, NDP, Bloc Québécois, and Greens). In the US, there are two.
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Because of first-past-the-post, Canadians don't actually have more choices to vote for, though. Very few ridings (districts) have more than two competitive candidates.
However, more parties does make for a very different *power landscape*, with more relevant actors at any time.
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For example, depending on the election, there might be two or maybe even three different inter-party power struggles, which does have the effect of making individual parties proportionally less powerful.
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96. Canadian politicians are much more partisan/better whipped than American ones.
In the US, it's rare that all members of a party will vote the same way. In Canada, it's rare that party members will be *allowed* to vote against the party line on an important bill.
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The main effect of this is that the party of your MP matters much more than their individual beliefs. Party platforms are more coherent and consistent.
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In combination with the point about multi-party first-pass-the-post, this means that most Canadians get to pick between two of about 5 different platforms to support, but *which* two depends on their riding.
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97. Canadian political parties select their leaders internally, rather than hosting public primaries. This tends to select for boring politicians who are good at playing party politics.
The Beaverton gets this basically right:
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This largely protects Canada from electing, say, a billionaire real estate mogul/reality TV star.
On the other hand, it somewhat reduces the already-limited executive role of the Prime Minister by restricting the role to maximally boring people.
e.g.,
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98. Canadian politics are driven by boring pragmatic issues. American politics are driven by clashes between different high-minded ideals.
On average, the Canadian government works much better than the American one. But, the US government is based on much better ideals.
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The US Declaration of Independence talks of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."
The Canadian constitution has "peace, order, and good government" as the closest equivalent.
I like peace and order, but they're not quite as inspiring as liberty and happiness?
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99. These differences (🇨🇦 pragmatism, 🇺🇸 idealism) have real, measurable consequences.
For example:
The US is probably the only country that seriously protects free speech. This has an enormous cost, as most strong principles do. Most Canadians don't think it's worth it.
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However, the strength of American principles means that the actual, real, in-the-world US government can never actually achieve them.
The real world Canadian government does a better job of actually implementing the principles it has.
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100. Across all the areas I've talked about, I think there's a common theme:
Canadians care about the median, rather than the extreme. They prefer pragmatism over idealism.
Americans care about being #1, median be damned. They'll insist on their ideals, not matter the cost.
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Americans are dreamers in a way that Canadians aren't, and frankly don't want to be.
But dreaming can be a distraction when you have real problems to solve. How useful is it reach for goals you'll never achieve?
And yet, if you don't dream, how do you know where to go?
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I think appreciating both of these perspectives has been useful for me.
If you find yourself drawn to one or the other, I think it's fun to try on the other for size, and maybe travel to the right place might help you do that.
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And there it is! 100 thoughts on differences between Canada and the US, just barely squeezed into 2021.
Happy Threadapalooza! 🎉
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