@CanadianJohn2 Thanks for responding.
Actually, I was thinking of when I travelled to Canada, Toronto specifically, to visit a friend for a few weeks (I'm in Sydney). This was a long time ago, pre online times, and the travel agent I used was absolutely adamant that I must have travel insurance (which I would probably ultimately have gotten) but to be annoying I said no, I don't need it for Canada, and after Canada I was travelling to the UK and Italy and both countries provided Australians with reciprocal health care, so didn't really need it. She was insistent that I may somehow find myself in the USA, even briefly, say at Niagara Falls, have an accident and find myself financially up the creek for the rest of my life.
I was laughing about when I arrived in Toronto it to my friend who saw it as a sort of reflection of an Australian travel agent's lack of knowledge of the differences between the two countries whilst I saw it as travel agent who probably had had a bad experience with a client and the cost of American health care.
In some ways, many Australians are at least aware of the wider world, and a large proportion of the people I know have travelled and would at least be able to find Canada on a map, and appreciate that Iceland and Greenland are two difference places.