Where Were the "Good" Americans?

Everyone has had something to say about Chris Sands' line about "good" Canadians, so I won't spend to long on this. The quote goes something like this:

'Chris, where are all the good Canadians?' When he said that it broke a little bit of my heart, because I'm an American but I love the Canadians. I think what he meant by that was 'Where are the Canadians of World War I and World War II, that people understood to be... even when Europeans didn't, those allies we had come to count on.'

Uhhh, Chris in World War I the "good" Americans cooled their heels until 1917, in World War it was until 1941. The insinuation of this quote is that Canada joined those wars in aid of the US. Except we didn't. We joined WWI because we still lacked a foreign policy independent of Britain's, we had no choice, we were a colony brought along for the ride. In World War II we did have our own foreign policy, but the connection that many still felt to the Mother Country (outside of Quebec) gave us few options.

We were not there because the US was counting on us, we were there because in one instance, Britain made us go, and in another our ties to Britain compelled us nonetheless.

Tags: Canada, US, World War I, World War II, Chris Sands