Most Americans like Canadians, insofar as we think about them, though online you will see nasty messages about both natonalies sometimes. The Internet makes everything worse, in this respect.
But the real truth is Americans think about Canadians and Canada about 1/10th as much as Canadians think about Americans. It just never, or almost never, comes up in conversation in the USA, and when it does it usually involves political systems, health care, etc, and next-to-never does it involve the culture or nation of Canada.
I have a Canadian acquaintance who claims that there is an intense rivalry between Canadian and American hockey fans. That may be true but since hockey is much more popular in Canada than it is in America, I can assure you that the average American is unaware of this ‘intense rivalry.’
My own dealings with Canadians have been positive in real life. I find that there the tone of American and Canadian humor is very close, closer than American and British humor, for example. This probably comes from growing up with a lot of the same TV shows and so on.
As a result it is sometimes easy to forget that a Canadian is even a different nationality, except for the fact that Canadians constantly bring up their nationality when talking to Americans.
Online, Canadians sometimes annoy me as their famed politeness often gives way to a superior smugness, but I have to admit that Americans online are just as bad if not worse, so…like I said, the Internet makes everything worse.
Sometimes Americans make jokes about Canadians but there is usually a subtly ironic undertone that is as much about the US as it is about Canada.
Regarding Canadian political systems, Americans are split between admiration or condemnation/fear, depending on which side of the political aisle they fall on.
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