Niall Ferguson's brilliant take on Canada, Trump and the American views on the Great White North...

The comparison to Scotland and England is quite apt.

I’ve long thought that the attitude Canadians takes towards the United States is similar to the attitude of the Scots to the English. It is at once a sense of moral superiority, anger, resentment and envy.

We get upset when they don’t know enough about us and don’t pay attention to us, then we say we don’t need them and don’t care. It’s a point Niall Ferguson, the public intellectual and writer for the Free Press made in Ottawa recently.

The Scots have an inferiority complex when it comes to England, which shouldn’t exist because they are a small but mighty nation. Or a least they were, then they embraced socialism, nationalism and allowed their obsession with hating England to take over.

Ask any Scot and they will tell how great their country is and perhaps even point to the old poem Wha’s like us? It describes all the great inventions that Scotland has produced from the raincoat to the pneumatic tires that are on your car, from the telephone to the television.

It’s all true, but also in the past.

Canada has had a lot of great inventions and innovations over the years. Like Scotland, we are a smaller country, population wise, sitting atop a global giant.

And like Scotland, we too often opt for envy and self-pity instead of being the world class players we used to be.

We can work with the Americans without becoming them. We can be the nation again that leads the world in innovation.

Too many of my fellow countrymen are just obsessed with the United States and angering the Americans, showing the Americans, owning the Americans. The trouble is, it’s just talk and not action.

Anyway, Niall Ferguson is a Scot who has lived in England and the United States gave a great talk to the Macdonald Laurier Institute in Ottawa back in December and they recently posted the event on YouTube.

The full event is worth watching if you have the time. If not, here is his 10 minute talk about Donald Trump and Canadians. It is well worth the watch.

Now, if you have the time, here is the longer chat which is about whether Western civilization has a future.