Happy Birthday, Canada. Love, America — where a lot of us say we’re smarter, better looking and funnier than you all.
YouGov surveyed 1,237 American adults between June 24 and 25 about their feelings on Canada and Canadians ahead of Canada Day, the holiday that celebrates our neighbor to the north’s creation.
Canada shouldn’t take the results too hard. Americans are more likely to say Canadians have the edge in happiness (42% say Canadians are more likely to be happy while 26% select Americans), tolerance (47% vs 20%) and politeness (50% vs 19%).
But does all that tolerance, politeness and happiness make it a better place to live in Americans’ minds? Depends on who you ask.
More than a third (38%) of American women say Canadians have a better quality of life, while 28 percent say it’s better in the United States (34 percent said they didn’t know.)
Men, on the other hand, are more likely to say life is better in the States: 42 percent of men surveyed said it is better in America, while 36 percent claimed Canada had a better quality of life (22 percent of men said they didn’t know.)
More educated people were more likely to say that Canada had a better quality of life, too. Graduates of four-year colleges (48%) were more likely say Canada had a better quality of life, compared with those who had a high school diploma or less (29%).
A similar trend appears on the question of who’s happier. Americans with a four-year degree are more likely to say that Canadians are happier (53%) than Americans (16%)
Politically speaking, 66 percent of 2016 Trump voters say that America has a better quality of life than Canada. Conversely, 60 percent of Hillary Clinton voters say life is better in Canada.
Differences of opinion exist about how good of a country Canada is to live in, but plenty of Americans seem to think it’s worth seeing what’s going on north of the border, as 46 percent of Americans say they’ve traveled to Canada.
See the full survey results here.
