Sad but true: Nobody appreciates the nice, wholesome girl next door. Well, they appreciate her, but they take her for granted. Because she's always so darned nice. Stand her up -- she'll forgive you. Forget her birthday -- she won't throw a drink in your face. Steal a kiss and then snub her -- she won't slap you. She may be pretty, but she's missing that naughty edge that would make her truly hot.

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You know, like Canada.

I just got a press release with the subject line "New Branding & Ad Campaign for Canada," and the title is: "Like the girl next door, Canada is tired of being taken for granted."

I was shocked by the strong wording. Coming from Canada, this sounds like a declaration of war.

The new branding campaign "embarks on a brand walk on the wild side and focuses on intriguing experiences."

Oh my God, Wilbur! Where are my smelling salts? Canada has gone slutty!

I don't go up there looking for Mounties in fishnet stockings. To me, the whole point of Canada is that it's "too nice, too pretty, too pristine and too safe," according to the press release. Yes! Yes! That's Canada's brand, and it's great! The moose aren't armed!

But now I suppose Canada is going to tart itself up and try to give us attitude. I'm sorry -- attitude, eh?

Apparently the No. 1 "foreign" destination for Americans doesn't feel foreign enough. (It's like that in the press release. "Foreign" in quotation marks. Last I checked, Canada is indeed a foreign country, with, like, a whole separate government and different money and everything. It just doesn't feel foreign, unless you go to Quebec and all the Tim Horton's have poutine on the menu.)

(You don't want to know.)

It's not that I'm unsympathetic. Canada has a problem: It's worried we won't want to visit anymore when we need a passport to do it. If the girl next door's only qualities are that she's trustworthy, friendly and clean, will you still visit her when she moves to another neighborhood?

Sure, Canada has lumber and oil and maple syrup, but it still gets a whole lot of revenue from Americans popping over the border to take pictures of each other standing in front of things. Will we stop doing that when we have to let the State Department take pictures of us first?

This is a risk our hockey-loving neighbor is loath to take.

Thus the re-branding, which emphasizes "urban edge" and "sophisticated adventures" in the great outdoors. The official campaign slogan is "Keep exploring," which I'm not sure is the greatest, to be honest. Doesn't that kind of sound like it may take you a while to locate something interesting?

Also, I wonder whether Canadians have been advised that they are getting a national makeover. Somebody should probably tell them. In fact, I forwarded the press release to a friend of mine in Calgary, and he didn't seem to know anything about it. Though he is always happy to talk up the Stampede. I believe he knows some of the horses personally.

The press release includes some racy activity suggestions: "Swim with Beluga whales in Manitoba; take your spa treatment to new heights by catching a helicopter ride to a five-star luxury outpost; engage in gastronomic journeys on Vancouver Island where pan seared scallops mingle with campfire roasted marshmallows; go 'nose to nose' with a polar bear to find out if they really have fish breath. ..."

I don't know who would be more grossed out: me smelling fish on a polar bear's breath, or a polar bear smelling scallops with marshmallows on mine.

It's the perennial problem of the nice girl, the girl next door. She's genuine, unpretentious and likes you. Bo-ring!

But that's not fair, is it? Most of us don't really know Canada. We run up to Toronto for theater or Niagara Falls for a watery photo op, but we could make that passport red tape really worthwhile.

Have you ever been heli-skiing in the Rockies? Seen the aurora borealis? Gone clubbing in Montreal? Driven the winding Caledonian roads of Cape Breton? Explored the Thousand Islands, with their vast dressing factories?

Hey, it's a foreign country, not a "foreign" one, and maybe it's worth planning more than a long weekend there. Most Canadians speak English, and they drive on the right side of the road, and you can still eat at McDonald's if you absolutely must, but they do have stuff up there that we don't have here. And it's cool.

Also, if you go in the summer, it won't be snowing. Probably.

Give the girl next door another look. She's in danger of bleaching her hair and walking around with her thong sticking out of her pants. You'll be able to see Saskatoon.