Interesting view from US reporter visiting Toronto recently:

I felt in some strange way that I was leaving the kind of place that, at least in spirit, the U.S. had been in another time — prior to colour-coded alerts, scenes of towers crumbling, midnight anti-terror laws and everywhere the pervasive selling of fear and vigilance. I could almost feel that fear leave me crossing the bridge to Sarnia and returning in some fashion, crossing to Niagara Falls, New York.