The world would love to be Canadian

According to a recent international survey commissioned by the Historica-Dominion Institute, 53 per cent of adults in the world's 24 leading economies said they would immigrate to Canada. It's always nice to read these things.

Still, I couldn't help thinking about an anecdote while visiting France in my early twenties. Those were the days when the Canadian passport had a mystical aura (Harper put a few dents in it since his arrival) and I was hitchhiking my way around with a Canadian flag. At one point, I was picked up by an old French couple who told me that when they saw the Canadian flag they instantly knew I could only be a good person. I candidly told them that we also had thugs in Canada; they simply wouldn't believe it.

More recently, I was chatting with a colleague who moved from France in the early 90s, during the biker war in Montréal. He, like the old couple, had an idealized vision of Canada and was shocked to discover thugs also existed on this side of the Atlantic.

With his usual caustic humor, La Presse's Pierre Foglia pens down a delightful column this morning. He makes a blatant point at how lame these surveys can be.

Click here [Google translation] to read it.