Canadians don’t like the United States today. A British Broadcasting Corporation opinion poll in 34 nations published at the beginning of April found that, while the view of the United States was improving in most countries, in Lebanon, Egypt, and Canada it was worsening.

Only 27 per cent of Canadians had a positive view of the U.S., while 62 per cent held dark thoughts, up six per cent from last year.

Moreover, according to an Environics poll done for a group called Canada’s Worl” and published at the beginning of 2008, more than half of Canadians described the United States as a “negative force” in the world.

In second place? Iran, with only 21 per cent calling the oil-rich theocracy a negative force. These are stunning figures.

Their force is compounded by a Globe and Mail self-selected opinion poll that ran online on March 29 and 30. Fifteen thousand readers registered an opinion and 54 per cent said that the United States’ “current decline” will continue.

In other words, more than half of Globe and Mail readers, supposedly an elite group, believe that the United States is likely to slip into irreversible strategic or economic decline tomorrow. There are few signs of unhappiness about this anywhere. Indeed, such is the force of anti-Americanism in Canada that there sometimes seems to be a barely restrained glee at the prospect.

This schadenfreude is simply foolish.

The U.S. is Canada’s greatest market, the sole democratic superpower, and the defender of last resort for every democracy in the world, not least Canada.

If it falls, if it is replaced by new superpowers such as China or India, there will be consequences.

Those Canadians who hope to see the new Asian giants rival the U.S. in a few decades as the great global engine and the new big market for Canada simply do not realize that such a change would be an unmitigated disaster for us.

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