Who tips better - Canadians or Americans?

Next to softwood lumber and the vexing question of who’s responsible for Justin Bieber, it’s probably one the most contentious issue in Canadian-American relations: tipping. Search “Canadians tipping” and you get a list of articles filled with either American service industry workers complaining about tight-fisted Canucks, or Canadian op-ed writers defending themselves from such unfounded accusations.

The most recent article in this never-ending dialogue was published in the Buffalo News last week. An hour-and-a-half away from Toronto, Canadian dollars play a huge role in certain parts of the city’s economy. Still, it seems like the city’s servers were unimpressed, with stories of flat five dollar tips and people leaving pennies on the dollar abounding.

"“If you get 10 percent out of a Canadian, you’re floored,” said a waitress at a downtown restaurant, opening her mouth, widening her eyes and throwing her hands upward to mimic shock," the story said.

But what do Canadians in the service have to say about the difference between Canadian and American tipping habits? It seems to depend who you ask.

Caitlin, who didn’t want her last name used, spent four years serving in restaurants ranging from high end bistros to family restaurants in Toronto. She says that in at least one of her jobs, she had the opposite experience. American tourists, who she estimates were 40 per cent of her clientele, were frequently the worse tippers.

“Americans generally tipped 10 to 12 percent,” she said.

“Canadian were generally around 15 percent.”

She adds that Americans were often more demanding, as well.

“They had ruder methods of getting servers attention,” she said.

“Snapping, waving their hands, calling across the room, although that wasn’t all Americans. Just a handful.”

Jennifer Toole spent 10 years working as a server in Montreal and Toronto and says, by and large, there’s no real difference between Canadians and Americans when it comes to tipping. At her last restaurant job, working in a downtown Toronto casual fine dining restaurant, she says that she could generally expect a tip in the neighbourhood of 20 percent, regardless of where the customers were from.

“Americans were great tippers, Canadians were great tippers, they were pretty much on par,” she said. “I really didn’t notice any difference.”

While Toole doesn’t think there’s a difference between Americans and Canadians when it comes to tipping, that doesn’t mean she doesn’t believe what the servers in the Buffalo News article are saying.

“Sometimes when people are travelling, they think they can get away with feigning ignorance,” she said.

“Like ‘Oh, I didn’t know,’ but really, our customs in terms of tipping are pretty similar.”

But while Toole says there’s no gap to speak of, Mark, who spent more than a decade driving limousines both in Toronto and South Florida and didn’t want his last name used, says that the gap is huge.

He says that in Florida, all his customers were “great tippers, unless they were a celebrity or a doctor. Neither of them tipped very well,” adding that three and four digit tips were not at all uncommon for him in the U.S.

In Toronto, he said, it was a different story.

“I gave them the same great service that might have gotten me a $1,000 tip in Florida, and I’d be lucky to get $20,” he says.

He’s quick to add that Canadians were always polite, just not particularly generous.

“Americans like to party harder and are looser with their money,” he says.

Helena Pappas, who spent four year bartending at various Toronto music venues, says that American are more generous tippers, but didn’t think the gap between Canadians and Americans was the yawning chasm the Buffalo News article made it sound like.

“Even touring American bands [were generous], which was unexpected,” Pappas said.

“I found that most American bands would ask what an appropriate tip was and try to use that as a guideline.”

That she said, she found that the real difference separating the good tippers from the bad wasn’t geography, but age.

“A lot of younger bands were either poor or else didn’t understand bar etiquette yet,” she said.