Nobody's praising Canada for having a trade surplus. Canada is being praised for being fiscally conservative. The trade surplus is simply helping them have more money to manage responsibly. But it's the responsible management (being fiscally conservative), combined with strict regulation of the banking industry that is the reason Canada's banks are in such good shape.

The US, on the other hand, has been engaging in reckless deregulation and criminal fiscal irresponsibility, and that's why the banking system in the US is in the toilet, Alaska's trade surplus notwithstanding (Alaska is still a part of the US, as far as I am aware).