Reporting cross border income as self employment income

[Shrek]

Status: Dual citizen, US resident, commute to and employed in Canada (as an employee) by a large Canadian corp. Non resident in Canada for tax purposes

Question: When filing a 1040, can this foreign CDN income be reported as self employment income?

Apparently, there are several cross border employees in this same situation ( at the same corp.) that are reporting their CDN income as self employment income and taking advantage of better retirement of better retirement savings products.

Thanks in advance

[FunTopic]

My initial reaction was to laugh and say "No."

My think-it-through response: Is Canada issuing you a T4A of some sort, vs. a T4? Pretty hard to turn Canadian employment income (T4) into contractor income (T4A). Plus, your T4 will have CPP/EI withholdings on it etc, which aren't present with legit Canadian self-employed revenues

Then you have the Canadian tax return filing for your Canadian-source income: You're going to file the Canadian return as "employment" income, but then file your 1040 as self-employed?

Pretty tough to find a filing position where this approach is reasonable.