It’s six years now since this Australian immigrant arrived in P.E.I., and sincethen I have gained my Canadian citizenship, am into my fourth job, and havemade a place in a community where my wife and I feelcomfortable. There are people in both countries who share a common heritage — but in many cases, that’s where the similarity ends.

My comparison starts where my day starts — going out for my morning newspaper. One of the first differences I notice is, apart from a few short summer months, it’s damn cold, colder thanmost Aussies will ever experience. I think the cold has consequences inthe daily life of all Canadians that almost force one to be a goodneighbour, if for preservation only.

The front page of P.E.I.’s The Guardian sometimes shows a nationalfigure, usually a folksy local interest story, or the latest adventures ofthe allegedly popular premier. Apart from Stanley Cup time, there israrely a front page picture of sporting struggle on the rink ordiamond. In Australia, expect to see daily — on the front page and almost everyother page — the ugly sight of rugby players and cricketers battling itout in never-ending macho conflict. Sports coverage gets much more newsprintthan here, and uses the most deadly pictures of combat, the uglier thebetter.

On the inside pages, it seems the sameultra right wing fascists write to newspapers in both countries, and thesame more liberal-minded reformers and pleaders and questioners appear in theopinion pages. The scripts are often the same. Some differences I do notice:the Aussies demand far more draconian treatment of perceived “deviants” thanthe writers here. “Bring back the noose” is a popular demand there that I don’t read here.

I don’t read such vehement denunciation of gays and women’s rights advocateshere as in Aussie. It seems to me Canadians, at least Atlantic citizens, area little more liberal. Fundamentalist Christians seem equally vocal in bothplaces, and equally strange. In Australia, you will read far more opinionsopposed to any sort of rights for native people than here. (I should mentionthat I haven’t read any Alberta papers.)

The politics reported here are generally to the left of what I amfamiliar with. For example, the Alliance would be seen as fairly moderate inrural Queensland, while the Australian National Party and worse still theConfederate Action Party (now deceased) would be more at home in Texasthan the Maritimes. Meanwhile the NDP would find an audience in urbanAustralia among the supporters of the Democrats, who are seen as left ofcentre.

The Australian Liberal Party for most of its 60 years has been more likeCanada’s Progressive Conservatives, while the Liberals here sound like theLabor Party back in Oz, at least the modern post-Hawke Labor Party.

I am perplexed by the Canadian Senate, as one of our P.E.I. good ol’ boys hasjust been bumped up there by the P.M. as a reward for faithful service(servility?). The Aussie Senate is elected, is vigorous and has power,having just defeated the government’s media ownership legislation. I think the Canadian Prime Minister enjoys more untrammelled power than in most Britishdemocracies.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation is more formal than the CBC. Ittoo is publicly funded, a situation that is under threat with the currentright wing “liberal” government of John Howard. As I don’t, can’t, and won’tlisten to commercial radio in either country, I can’t comment except to saythat in my work place I have to endure “Magic 93” at times, and it is trulydreadful, worse than anything I have ever heard.

Here in slow-paced P.E.I., with only thesnow to battle in winter, the drive to work is relaxed. I do notice good ol’ countryboys and girls, their cars stopped abreast in the middle of the road forgossiping, showing no apparent concern for urban workers like me who have touse the road to get to town. A nice anarchic touch. Speed limits and stopsigns are more likely to be ignored here, and the police are much lessvisible. Drunk driving is alarmingly common onP.E.I. and seems to be more tolerated than at home.

I have worked in four quite different work places now, and find that, in general,P.E.I is very antiquated in terms of industrial safety and work placeamenities. Indeed, this is an area where P.E.I. can hang its head in shame. Ican’t speak for the rest of Canada. Working conditions in Australiaare much better and safety standards more rigidly enforced. Everybody inAustralia gets four weeks annual paid holiday, plus a 17 per cent pay bonus for three ofthose weeks. Employers complain like hell, but it puts a lot of money incirculation during holiday time, which generally finds its way back to thesesame employers.

Unionism is much stronger in Australia and more entrenched in the industrialrelations arena. Disputes can be arbitrated in a dedicated court, theIndustrial Court, whose judgements have the power of law. While the rightcomplains all the time, in general it has produced a relatively fair societywith less gap in wealth than I notice here. There are no food banks in mosttowns.

In everyday communication with Canadians I notice a big difference from theAustralian culture. Aussies use a lot of “baby talk.” They talk aboutChrissie pressies at Christmas time, they refer towomen as sheilas and men as blokes, and in general their speech isdismembered and coarse. Canadians do not have such a lazy tongue and, ingeneral, I find them more pleasant to listen to. Another marked difference is that Canadianspeech is far less sexist than in Australia, which is as male chauvinisticas it sounds.

Aussies are generally more profane and crudethan Canucks. Even a Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, got away with calling aheckler a “silly old buggar” on national TV. However, having said that, atone of my work places, I learned the full richness of the Maritimer’s talentfor creative profanity, and often nearly died laughing.

I go to the library for rest and recuperation.God bless the library. While it doesn’t seem to be as well-funded asmany capital city libraries in Australia, I must remember that I choose to live in one of the “have-not” provinces. I often browse in the local newsshop for favourite magazines, and a big difference I notice is the lack ofsoft/hard porn on display. Go into any news agent in Australia and you willsee some pretty raunchy stuff, with high school boys and dirty old mengloating through the pages with ill-disguised interest. I just don’t seethis stuff on display here, which I find a pleasant change.

A big difference I notice at lunchtime are the hordes of sloppy high schoolstudents roaming from Tim’s to McDonalds. Aussie kids are much morerestricted in their movements, being not allowed outside the school fence.They also look a lot smarter in their school uniforms. I did some substituteteaching in local high schools, and was amazed at the informality, the highstandard of the top kids, and in my eyes, an abysmal standard of literacyand numeracy of the others. Is that just P.E.I.?

The concept of “have-not” provinces is new to me, and I wonder why Alberta’soil is not Canada’s oil, and why there is such a gap between thewell-endowed provinces and the less fortunate. Of course, in Australia, thereis the annual brawl between the Federal Treasurer and the state financialministers over “Loans Council” grants, but it seems to be a little moregenerous than the so-called equalization system here. Queensland, closest toAlberta in politics, is always threatening to separate at Loans Councilmeetings, but really, it’s only the frenzied right blowing off steam onceagain. Just like Alberta.

Australia just doesn’t have anything like the cultural range that Iexperience here. We don’t have a large part of our population speakinganother language. I think Canada is much the richer culture. I love to hearFrench spoken, and regret being monolingual.

Both Australia and Canada are becoming very multicultural, particularly inthe big cities. Governments over there must be careful in administering theimmigration policy not to exceed the limits of tolerance of large parts ofthe Australian community. The “Yellow Peril,” that is fear of Asians, isstill a force in the Aussie mind. They tend to stereotype people who aredifferent, and derogatory labels like “Wogs” for southern Europeans and“slopes” for Asians are all too commonly heard. I don’t hear that here.About the worst I have heard here is that somebody is “different.”

I don’t watch TV, as we don’t own one.Of the little I have seen in other people’s houses, I’m happy not to have aTV. In Australia, the Special Broadcasting Service, a publiclyfunded channel for ethnic minorities, is a shining beacon of excellence in asea of mediocrity. It’s a miracle it even exists. Some of the ABC programming is worth watching, but, as the CBC is, it is being gradually gutted by penny-pinching governmentsobsessed with privatization.

Both Canada and Australiaare among the world’s better places. Each has a way to go yet, and there aremany debits and credits in each national ledger. On balance I am proud of myCanadian citizenship, just as I am proud of my Australian roots.

My parting shot: cricket is a much more difficult game than baseball tomaster, and much more fascinating, subtle and rich in its complexity.Cricket is to baseball as bridge is to crib. Fair dinkum, mate. Right on,buddy.