>>213441632 (OP)
In general everyone was content that we were doing better than the Americans re the financial crisis. The economy was still kinda shit but Canada avoided the worst of it by just kicking the problem down the road.
In general, Canada used to be a very high trust society. There was more sense of community, it was super common to talk and even hang out with strangers in public, there was a productive sense of civic nationalism that transcended left or right. Caring about politics was super gay because it was very boring granular shit like "should we spend the trade surplus?!" Everyone thought Jack Layton was going to be elected PM after Harper and institute a bunch of reforms to healthcare. The pre-Trudeau government was trying to push this kind of militarist Commonwealth-nostalgic sense of national identity and it worked on a lot of millennials.
Big cities had their own distinct character before everything got gutted and replaced with the same High Street shops and condos you can find anywhere on the planet. Only Vancouver and Winnipeg were seen as shitholes at the time, Toronto was seen as just kinda boring.
