Connecting with Canadians isn't about what you say, it's about what you're listening to. It's about what you understand.
Certainly in a world where terrorism is a daily reality in the news, it's easy for people to be afraid. But the fact is that we laid out very clearly - and Canadians get - that it's actually not a choice between either immigration or security: that of course they go together.
I'm from Canada, and I think, like everyone growing up anywhere else in the world, you are very aware of America - it sort of looms large in its legend, and so did Detroit.
I remember trying to explain the class system to a Canadian friend when we started at RADA. The funniest thing was when I told her what bonfire night is all about. It's quite dark when you start breaking it down.
We're half an hour from Toronto, which offers everything you could want from a city, and a couple of hours from beautiful vacation country. We have it all here, plus George W. Bush is not our president.
I think that Canadians in general very much understand... that we need to engage in the world and stand up for human rights.
At the end of the day, what would be a Canadian sensibility? Is it Michael Ondaatje? Alice Munro? Is Margaret Atwood more Canadian than Neil Bissoondath?
The Canadian version of Julius Caesar's memoirs? I came, I saw, I coped.
So having a little more of an awareness of what's going on in the rest of the world I think is what many Canadians would hope for Americans.
I'm a Canadian who can't vote, so far be it from me to speak for what Americans want. But, I am also a close observer of politics and media in this country, and the intersection of both - and how both intersect, and overlap with, each other.
I think being Canadian helps you as a journalist in America, because you're sort of on the outside watching this big party going on, and you're sort of taking mental notes as it goes on. I think if you're in the party the whole time, you don't notice it as much. And I think Canadians are very good observers of American culture.
I'm Canadian. I think that's it. When you're a Canadian, you're always watching America from the outside, from afar.
