Toronto Letter: What is the matter with Canada? The country is in the midst of an economic boom, driven by a surge in global demand for commodities like oil, zinc and copper. Unemployment is at its lowest level in more than 30 years. The federal budget is in surplus and the Canadian dollar, known as the "loonie", is soaring towards parity with its US counterpart.
Canada continues to punch above its weight in international institutions, its armed forces are respected and its writers and artists are admired everywhere. All its citizens enjoy free healthcare and, as Ruadhán Mac Cormaic reported in these pages on Wednesday, Canada has one of the world's more successful immigration and integration policies.
However, to hear Canadians talking, you would think the country was about to fall apart at any moment, to be swallowed up by the US - or just fold in upon itself for want of purpose.
Walk into a Toronto bookshop and you'll find any number of Jeremiads, from Mark Milke's A Nation of Serfs to Mel Hurtig's The Vanishing Country: Is It Too Late to Save Canada? In her latest book, Holding the Bully's Coat, Linda McQuaig argues that Canada has abandoned its foreign policy independence to curry favour with the US.
A visit to the newsagents is no more uplifting, with the cover of the news weekly McLeans showing a well-dressed young man begging with an empty Starbucks cup, with the headline "Why Do You Feel So Poor?"
Some of Canada's problems are undoubtedly real and prosperity has brought its own difficulties, such as overheated house prices and traffic congestion. The equalisation system, whereby richer provinces transfer funds to poorer parts of the country, has become so complicated that it is becoming almost unworkable, so that donor provinces could end up worse off than the regions they are helping.
The country has its share of scandals too, and a government-appointed investigator last week called for a major shake-up of the administration and culture of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police after senior officers were found abusing the police retirement fund. The Mounties may always get their man, but they can't be sure of getting their pension.
Canadian history has its dark and brutal side, notably in the treatment of native communities and the relationship between Quebec and the rest of Canada remains complex. Disparities of wealth have driven other provinces apart from one another too, and Canada's sense of national self-esteem cannot benefit from living next door to the world's only superpower.
On a personal level, Canadian modesty is attractive and refreshing, but the national refusal to celebrate its achievements sometimes goes too far, as the Canadian women's hockey team discovered at last year's Winter Olympics in Turin.
The Canadian team won every game, defeating their opponents by wide margins and taking home the gold medal.
"This is beautiful, and it was just a great team effort to bring home another gold medal for our country," team captain Cassie Campbell said. At home, however, the team's success was making people feel uncomfortable, with some pundits complaining that it was "un-Canadian" to win by such comprehensive margins. One newspaper columnist even proposed abolishing women's hockey because other countries could not compete with Canada.
Canadian self-effacement was on display again in Toronto this week as President Mary McAleese opened Ireland Park, a memorial to the city's reception of more than 38,000 Famine victims in 1847. Toronto had a population of only 20,000 at the time and many of its own citizens died helping the typhus-infected Irish immigrants.
To attend an Irish event in North America is usually to participate in a festival of self-congratulation, with the litany of our virtues and achievements growing longer and more outlandish with every iteration.
The President made clear that this week's commemoration was different and was about the generosity and heroism of the people of Toronto rather than the charm, the wit, the poetry etc of the Irish.
In every speech during her four-day visit, Mrs McAleese stressed the uniqueness of Toronto's story and spoke of the exemplary way the city's people took moral responsibility for strangers in distress.
As the President told them how proud they should be, the Canadians shifted slightly in their seats or studied their feet.
At a concert to mark the opening of Ireland Park, an Irish-born poet told the story of Toronto's summer of 1847, but when Canadian folk singer Lorena McKennitt performed, she spoke of Yeats, Celts and the marvels of the Irish landscape.
Then everybody was able to relax again.
