Will Ferguson (BFA '90) hates Canadians. Or rather, the former York film student hates "old school nationalists" who hail from what he calls "the mountie and moose" school.

    In his recent book, Why I Hate Canadians (Douglas & McIntyre), he hopes to build a new definition of what it means to be a Canuck, instead of a shmuck.

    The infiltration of American culture into Canada doesn't bother Ferguson. In fact, growing up in Fort Vermilion, a small town in northern Alberta, he never had the chance to take in American television or pop culture. "That's what I was missing," he says. "That's the common experience I was missing from my childhood that everyone else I knew encountered."

    He says 'old schoolers' are constantly afraid Canadians will be assimilated. "They bemoan the fact that Canada is becoming Americanized. That any day now, we're all going to morph into Americans. For 30 years we've been listening to the baby boom generation talk about impending Americanization."

    He counters nationalists' fears of a cultural take-over. "Watching American TV is very voyeuristic. It's like looking through your neighbour's window. But it doesn't turn me into my neighbour."

    Ferguson says we can't escape our ties to the United States. We are bound culturally, economically and geographically. So why not play off it? "The thing is to define your nationalism based on that, to define it on that common experience. It's like martial arts. You use the attack against you.

    "Canadian humour comes out of this," says Ferguson, pointing to the differences between the two nations. Where the Americans are tacky and exhibitionists, Canadians are subversive. "You've heard it, it's a kind of standard: Canadians excel at irony. There's really truth to that. The best of Canadian humour is about attitude."