How to Infiltrate the Canadians

Someday you may need to camouflage yourself in Canada for fun or profit. Maybe you’re an international jewel thief and you need to lay low. Perhaps you’re clandestinely hunting polar bears for your bachelor party. There are lots of reasons you might need to hide your identity north of the border.

You’ve no doubt heard the standard Canadian impression. Drop “eh?” at the end of every sentence and pronounce “sorry” as “sory.” These are fairly accurate so far as accents go, but Americans have a tendency to overdo them. If you’re seriously trying to infiltrate Canada, strutting about like a Dana Carvey impression is apt to draw attention.

There are, however, more subtle methods which will keep you undercover on a northern sojourn:

Apologize constantly, for no reason.

Something that baffled me during my Canadian adventure was how frequently people in Canada apologize for things, often with no pretext at all. It happens so frequently that I think “I’m sorry” might have an entirely different meaning in Canada.

In America “I’m sorry” means “You caught me!” and you temporarily act contrite in hopes that the police aren’t dragged in. Conversely, in Canada “I’m sorry” is meaningless, frequent gibberish shoehorned into every other sentence.

Act vaguely apologetic and your Canadian hosts will think you flew in straight from Prince Edward Island.

Pretend you’re Stephen Harper.

If you know that Stephen Harper is the Prime Minister of Canada, you are well ahead of most Americans and most Canadians. Our northern neighbors are vastly more concerned about American presidential elections than their own premiership. I have literally met Canucks who took three or four seconds to recall their head-of-government’s name, but know all of the characters from The West Wing reflexively.

Because no one pays attention to Canadian national politics, you can easily parade yourself as Stephen Harper if you have a necktie and a little red maple leaf pin. Because Canadians are obscenely polite, none will dare question you even if they’re personally related to Stephen Harper. They will just mumble about how you seemed taller back in college, or apologize for mistaking you as twenty-something tourist with a weird accent.

Feign aversion to warfare.

 Canadians are inherently non-confrontational, and this tendency is as true in foreign policy as it is at bus stops. Canadians eschew military adventures, even in patently obvious scenarios where they’d get some oil out of it. While posing as a Canadian, never outright suggest that subjugating another nation is a good idea, no matter how strongly you hate France. If this seems daunting, count to ten and imagine you’re one of the voices in Alan Alda’s head.

Say “eh” and “sory” a lot.

Yes, I know I advised against this above. That’s because you needed to learn the basics before putting on the finishing touches. Now that you know how to act Canadian, go ahead and talk Canadian.

Good luck!