Tim Horton's has a new ad featuring an Asian grandfather, it's set in a hockey rink and suggests assimilation through coffee. I find it absurdly patronising. It lacks donuts, we don't see successive generations expanding, but it milks every stereotype; kindly white man offers coffee to timid immigrant, immigrant's child adopts local religion, third generation child is a hockey star. Apparently uncaring and inscrutable oriental father learns Canadian values and reveals secret bond with child and grandchild. All celebrate with coffee from a US based multinational corporation.

I'd barely pushed finished puking when CBC moved on to the betting story:

Wayne Greztky, a Canadian icon, like that guy who couldn't hobble across the country on one leg, gambles a bit but the CBC wriggles and squirms to avoid saying so.

Am I the only one who finds a streak of self-righteousness a mile wide in the Canadian psyche ?

Careful now. You may find yourself on the wannabe expats hit list with inflammatory (if totally spot-on) commentary like that....

Lights the blue touch paper and stands well back, eh?


<reaches for the "ignore" button>....haven't felt moved to use that for while.

Thank you for the "spot on". TBH, the Canadians wouldn't bother me so much except that they love to feel superior to Americans who, to me, seem just to do the same things but more slickly.

Well, yes, I hope for a bang, men always do. I'm not completely trolling though, I do think there's a horrible streak of superiority among English Canadians.

It's inherited from the Brits but they are trying to get rid of it.

Shot!

Hey we Canadians are a nice lot you can't blame all of us for what Greztky does He by the way who defected to the USA

as for the commercial so we have some dumb (most likely American advertising monger ) writing bad commercials ( Timmy's is now alas owned by an American company)

Well you made the choice to live here didnt you?

I meant Tim Horton's when I mentioned a US based multinational. You have me wrong over Gretzky though I assume he gambles, has had sex with a huge variety of people, drinks, has tried cocaine, drives too fast, parks untidlily and that all of this is filtered out by the Canadian media because Canadians want heros whose "shit don't stink". My complaint is that the lives of famous Canadians are cleaned up because that's what the public wants, while the lives of famous Brits and Americans are sullied, for the same reason. If, in fact, Gretzky who fabulously rich has done none of the above then I despair for him, what was it all for ?

Like Bogart, I was misinformed.

And The Bay too!

I'd heard about that - has the takeover of The Bay succeeded? That would be a shame.

Thought I'd mention too, that I have a lot of respect for Terry Fox in what he envisioned and what he tried to accomplish.

Is the irony in the commercial that Tim Horton's entire staff is made up of timid immigrants? Perhaps it is not a commercial but a recruitment video?

It's only another silly commercial - and nothing more. It says nothing about the "Canadian psyche" (as if there were such a thing). The only thing telling here is your interpretation of a commericial, and it says something about you. Much like a Rorschach Test (ink-blot test) used in psychology.


The way the law works in this country is that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty of a crime. Furthermore, Wayne Gretzky hasn't even been accused of committing any crime.

Actually, what you are doing is called "projecting" in psychology.

To project: "Psychology. To externalize and attribute (an emotion, for example) to someone or something else."

Excerpted from The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

In other words, it's you who is showing "a streak of self-righteousness a mile wide" with your comments as you point the finger at Canadians.