I tend to get up north fairly often (I've been to Montreal 4-5 times this year, with two more trips planned), so I figured I'd try to give my opinion. It's very hard for me to make comparisons, since I'd be comparing (mostly) my part of the US (rural southern towns) with Montreal (large city with a diverse population), but here goes:
I find that Canda does tend to be a little full of itself, especially when talking to/about Americans. However, they often have good reasons to do so.
The health care isn't exactly the quickest or most personally attentive, but then again, I'm from a town where the doctor not only knows you name, he asks how your mother, father, and grandfather are, and says how sorry he is about your grandmother and uncle. They know you personally. It's hard not to in a town of 4,000. Having been without healthcare before, I definitely respect the ability for anyone to get what they need done without going bankrupt. However, when I was up there one time, ophelia and I went to see one of her friends in ER and they had her on a gurney in the middle of a giant room with everyone else that was staying over that night. Here, when you're sick, you get a private (or at least semi private) room.
I find that the culture tends to be quite diverse, at least in Montreal.
As for politics, I tend to agree with the overall liberal and accepting mindset, but tend to find myself disagreeing with some specific policies.
I find that a lot of Canadians tend to poke fun at Americans for being "die hard patriots", yet insist of having everything they own embroidered with maple leaves.
Overall, I love Canada, and honestly, I'll probably end up living there for at least a portion of my life. I don't see it as America Jr. or anything like that, although I do think it's quite like a more liberal brother...maybe America's the brother that's a CEO, right-wing politics, aggressive, capitalist...Canada's the 24 year old grad student in the family, still idealistic, still reading all the banned books, clinging hard to the liberal politics and long ponytail.