The French town we chose was Ste. Hyacinthe, about 30 miles from Montreal, where, claimed newspaper editor Yves Michaud, who appears in the film, ‘there is a higher proportion of French-speaking people than in Paris, France.’
Another community we decided to film was at Rock Island, Quebec, so much on the border with the U.S.A. that several houses are actually in both countries. One woman we filmed had to sleep in the Canadian part of her house, because she would have forfeited her Canadian pension (due at an earlier age) had she slept in one of the American rooms.
Only a few Canadians have such a dramatic proximity to the United States, but all of them, particularly the 90 per cent who live within 200 miles of the U.S. border are highly vulnerable to American influence. This influence is sometimes obvious, sometimes subtle.
As I walked round Guelph, surrounded by American signs, American stores with American goods, American magazines, American cars (they are assembled in Canada, but are all designed in the U.S.A.), I could easily imagine that I was back in Higginsport, Ohio, where I once lived.
Now I understood why Canadian intellectuals are on that worried search for their ‘national identity’. It is part of the desperate reaction against the U.S.A.