Talking to Canadians

One thing that has been causing me great weirdness is the culture shock I've been going through in returning to Canada. It's weird in that I only went to Europe, which is pretty 'normal', or a close-cultural parity, by my standards. I've been more than my usual irritableness and irksomeness about Canadians, and I couldn't figure out what was really bothering me this time about Canada. Until someone helped clarify my vision for me: I realize that one of the major things that drive me absolutely batty about Canadian culture is our arrogant individualistic rights-orientated culture.
The more I hear about what people are protesting and complaining about in this country and the predominant issues that consume Canadian discussions, the more I hear voices that say, "well, it doesn't work for ME, so it's no good - damned if it actually benefits all of society, but I won't have anything to do with it because it doesn't help me or my family". And then (because we are Canadian), we politely spin it so it doesn't appear that much that way.
It is no wonder, therefore, without a corporate/communal identity, and without a responsibilities-orientated culture, we live such lonely, addicted, mentally despairing, highly consumeristic lives. No wonder that we cannot think long-term, or what kinds of legislation might benefit future generations. No wonder we closely hover over our children, because we cannot give them responsibility (and discipline, due to their 'rights') and we do not trust our communities, thus they grow up to be small obese emperors that can talk about their 'rights', but cannot share the load of their responsibilities.
That seemed to click for me; therein lies one of the major failings of our society. As grand and beautiful and kind as Canadians are, I do not see how we can move beyond our culture of being coddled and lying about our bassinettes, crying about our rights, meanwhile being unable to get out and start to crawl towards the future...