During the Depression, under then president Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, the US was the progressive force, while Canada stubbornly held to conservative economic policies.
By the mid-1960s, though, Canada shifted to a far more activist government, moving to a national health insurance system. Not long afterward, the Vietnam War began siphoning popularity from former President Johnson's Great Society experiment. The trends have only widened since.
Not all analysts see a big, lasting divergence. Some like Peter Jennings, the ABC News broadcaster who was born in Toronto and became a dual American and Canadian citizen in May, believe that Canadians have actually drawn closer to Americans. Nevertheless, Jennings said, Canada had become "a socially more relaxed kind of place."
"Canada, as it is with some of the European countries," he added, "is trying to balance some of the market forces with public policy, which is not as apparent in the United States, where the pursuit of happiness and individualism are very much alive."
Still, a cultural gulf is widening.
Douglas Coupland, the Canadian author known for his cultural commentaries on both sides of the border, recalled, "In the '70s we were taught Canada would be absorbed by the United States, and in the '80s it looked like it was happening."
"Then came the latter part of the '90s," he added, "and it was like some high-school class 16mm film where you see the chromosome duplicates, then realigns, and finally the cell splits."
And that process only seems to be quickening in recent months.
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