We've probably got more red tape than you guys but I'd argue that Canada is the more freer and more transparent society than the US is right now (I tend to think the two waver back and forth). If we've got Mad Cow, we tell people. If we've got SARS, we tell people. If a defense minister doesn't know what the hell is going on in Afghanistan oh we tell people, if some guy breaks into the P.M.'s house in the middle of the night and has a near confrontation with the P.M. yes we tell people about that too. Nevermind that youths are protected under the justice act, no death penalty of any kind, and so on and so forth.
The thing is, to implement security at Canadian borders they didn't have to walk all over the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (and that was never quite as grandious in freedoms as the US Constitution but its close). The other point to be made is that there are probably less people pissed off in the world at Canadian's although apparently its seen that Canada may be a good staging area for a terrorist attack except that in actual fact (at least in theory) Canadian immigration laws were tougher than US ones pre-911 (I have no idea now).
This country has plenty of flaws, plenty of flaws...but I'd say were a bit freer because we talk about them, argue about them, have national debates about them, one provincial government even wanted to separate from the country (and the people got to decide that one), and best of all, if anyone has seen This Hour Has 22 Minutes or Royal Canadian Air Farce you'll see that our media is quite adept at making fun of ourselves as well.
All in good humor it seems
I worry about you guys south of the border. I like your country and I like visiting it virtually every summer. But it gets harder to want to somedays.
