That's an excellent question. Do Americans know much about us? The answer is no. In fact, the levels of public fluency on Canada are relatively abysmal.
I'll give you one anecdote. I haven't updated this, but I know that when we tested in the early part of this decade the number of Americans who could identify our Prime Minister--who'd been around, at that point, for 11 years--it was about 7%. At the same time, they were able to name the Mexican president--who had just taken office and who did less business with them--to the tune of 25%.
Now, that's a good and a bad thing. Obviously, on some issues it would be best to have higher levels of fluency, because in some cases a higher level of fluency produces higher levels of sympathy. The trade and borders issue is a crucial one on which I think we should be summoning public opinion. One of the reasons I'm regretful that I don't have the most recent data to tell you about what Americans think about these issues is that I believe it would be highly useful for our embassy--and I think even at a sub-national level, for Canadians--to lobby to make the point of view known that the American public itself is not all that concerned about security threats emanating from Canada. In fact, there are other areas where, for example, it would be important to point out that the majority of Americans remain committed to free trade despite some concerns about what's going on with the economy.
I do think it would be important in certain areas to get some of the information in a more timely fashion and to share that with some of the key decision-makers. It's not just the American public. As you rightfully point out, the level of knowledge in even key decision-makers in Congress and so forth is not really what we had hoped it would be. I think this would be an area that requires concerted attention.