1. Words cannot express how surreal it feels to be sitting up here in Toronto watching the trauma & tragedy that is unfolding back in the US. https://twitter.com/joe_cressy/status/1283736997446799362

2. And don't think Canada is not divided (sorry for the double negative).

3. From my vantage point in Toronto, we have a centrist-conservative mayor in John Tory, sort of in the Mike Bloomberg mold, a right-populist Premier in Ontario in Doug Ford whose brother Rob was the original populist, and left-liberal Prime Minister in Justin Trudeau.

4. Yet, despite pretty big ideological differences all were able to work well together.

5. Moreover, all listened to science & public health officials. Canada has a deep bench of capable public servants at all levels.

6. Canada also benefits from a much deeper social safety net, from economic support & social services to universal health care.

7. But my observation & sense of the matter is simply that Toronto (and Canada) is a much more socially cohesive place that the US. It simply is not pulling apart & fracturing in the same way. So people pull together ...

8. As an American living in Toronto, looking back on my home country, I have never experienced such a surreal feeling ...