The US is our trading partner, our neighbour, our ally and our friend... and sometimes we'd like to give them such a smack!
The beaver, which has come to represent Canada as the eagle does the United States and the lion Britain, is a flat-tailed, slow-witted, toothy rodent known to bite off it's own testicles or to stand under its own falling trees.
Before the Civil War, Canada was at the top of the underground railroad. If you made it into Canada, you were safe unless someone came and hauled you back. That was also true during the Vietnam War for draft resisters.
Canada is a country whose main exports are hockey players and cold fronts. Our main imports are baseball players and acid rain.
I always thought of this as God's country.
Canada is a place of infinite promise. We like the people, and if one ever had to emigrate, this would be the destination, not the U.S.A. The hills, lakes and forests make it a place of peace and repose of the mind, such as one never finds in the U.S.A.
I've been to Canada, and I've always gotten the impression that I could take the country over in about two days.
We'll explain the appeal of curling to you if you explain the appeal of the National Rifle Association to us.
It seems that Canada's historic mission is to come to the selfless aid both of its friends and of complete strangers, and then, once the crisis is over, to be well and truly ignored. Canada is the perpetual wallflower that stands on the edge of the hall, waiting for someone to come and ask her for a dance.
After all, we fought the Yanks in 1812 and kicked them the hell out of our country - but not with blanks.
Canadians have an abiding interest in surprising those Americans who have historically made little effort to learn about their neighbour to the North.
Many Canadian nationalists harbour the bizarre fear that should we ever reject royalty, we would instantly mutate into Americans, as though the Canadian sense of self is so frail and delicate a bud, that the only thing stopping it from being swallowed whole by the US is an English lady in a funny hat.
Canada is the linchpin of the English-speakin g world
With or without the Royals, we are not Americans. Nor are we British. Or French. Or Void. We are something else. And the sooner we define this, the better.
I started life washing cars in Canada before moving on to selling life insurance and vacuum cleaners. Later, I went through a programme by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, which literally changed my life. It was the turning point.
Canadians don't have a very big political lever, we're nice guys.
I am deeply moved by the warmth and courage of the Canadian people which I felt so strongly during my recent visit to your country. Your support of the struggle against apartheid restored me in my journey home and reassured me that many just people around the world are with us.
I'm not going to play politics on the floor of the House of Commons.
The Canadian Identity, it seems, is truly elusive only at home. Beyond the borders Canadians know exactly who they are, within they see themselves as part of a family, a street, a neighbourhood, a community, a province , a region, and on special occasions like Canada Day and Grey Cup weekend and, of course, during the Winter Olympics, a country called Canada. Beyond the borders, they pine; within the borders, they more often whine
Some years later I met Queen Elizabeth II, in our capital Ottawa at a Canada Day celebration. David Foster and I were doing the show and we both met her afterwards. She told me how much she loved the Canadian Railroad Trilogy. She looked at me and said, "oh, that song", and then said again, "that song", and that was all she said.
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