Big Differences Between Canada and the United States of America

I was inspired to write this story by Mandy Goodall! Her article is attached below!

As Medium is pretty much global, I know that many of you think of Canada and The United States as a similar entity. Politics aside I’ve decided to share some light-hearted and fun nuances!

1. In Canada, we like to use the word pop vs. soda. Most of the United States prefers soda. However, if you’re from Hamilton, Ontario close to bordering Buffalo, NY, you might like to say soda as well… to be cool like the state of New York.
2. If you’re from the US, you’ll tell people exactly where you’re from, Orange County, California as opposed to just LA. Scottsdale, Arizona instead of just Phoenix. Here in Canada if you’re from anywhere in Ontario… we’ll say Toronto. No matter what, we’ll say Toronto. Why? Because we don’t believe anyone outside of Canada will know what we’re talking about.
3. In Canada, we don’t have states, we have provinces.
4. In Canada, we have a Prime Minister, not a President. Even Canadians seem to forget that!
5. Canadians are just nicer, it’s true… ask anyone. We really are nice.
6. We celebrate our Thanksgiving in October, the United States celebrates late November. Therefore, our festive holiday is quite autumn-like with pumpkins and very colourful autumn trees and they are Christmas-like.
7. Yes, our spelling is different. Colourful vs. colorful, favour vs. favor, flavour vs. flavor. It physically hurts us to omit the U.
8. Speaking of U, Americans have freshmen, sophomores and seniors. We don’t, we just have grades 9–12.
9. The entire province of British Columbia has a population of 5.6 million while just the city of Los Angeles alone…has a 9.6 million population.
10. If you think that’s crazy… up until 2024 the state of California had a larger population than all of Canada. We just surpassed California at 41 million compared to California’s 39 million.
11. I have a phobia of visiting Los Angeles just for this reason.
12. We love to poke a little friendly fun at ‘Americans’, I mean we really love it. And don’t even get us started when it comes to hockey!
13. Speaking of which, yes… the United States are considered Americans. We are NOT, we’re Canadians.
14. Many parts of the United States are just as cold as Canada, if not colder…brrr…
15. Many Americans surprisingly don’t know a lot about Canada, I mean we really are small compared to south of the border.
16. Americans pronounce the letter Z as Zee — we pronounce it as Zed. I have no idea why.
17. We wear toques — they wear hats, beanies, etc;
18. Oh.. while I’m at it, we don’t really say ‘eh’ by the way, but we do say sorry a lot. Step on my foot and cause me to fall down the stairs and I’ll say oh…sorry! Followed by an ouch.
19. We have Universal Health Care, our neighbours do not, and our doctor’s visits, surgeries etc; are covered. In the States, if they do not have health coverage via work or insurance they’ll pay for each test or visit. I don’t know how they do it. It’s a controversial topic.
20. Canada’s two official languages are French and English, here on the West Coast we don’t speak or know enough French… it’s quite sad actually.
21. Although Spanish is widely spoken in the US, it’s not an official language.
22. The Americans like to tease us about our currency… not just because our dollar value is way lower, but because we have plastic, colourful monopoly-style money. They proudly boast full-on green.
23. Many Americans have never been to Canada, the same is not true for us.
24. We have really…really… good maple syrup.
25. We have really…really…good skiing like Whistler, Big White and Mont-Tremblant.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this fun little comparison between us and our big brother. With such a huge political divide going on these days in both Canada and the United States, I think we need to have a little fun along the way to remember all the good and funny quirks about our two large countries in the Western Hemisphere!

Thank you Mandy Goodall for your lighthearted write-up on The American Thanksgiving!

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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