Sian,

What you wrote is very interesting and I think right on the money.

I really was nodding my head a lot when you said:

"Canadians, on the other hand, don't have that kind of definition; we don't have a pledge of allegiance (I'm Joe and I am Canadian, doesn't count, does it?) and we've only recently 'brought the constitution home', and our flag isn't that old and we keep changing the words to our national anthem."

This is partly what I meant when I said that Canada is still working out what it means to be a nation in a way that the US settled a long time ago.

And I loved this:

"We don't have a definition of what Canadian is so a lot of our music explores what it's like to be 'in' Canada and maybe by 'describing' what that is, it will be like 'almost' having a definition - but better. And it's the musicians and poets and artists who are best placed to do this."

Amen!