That's funny Sian; I immediately thought of Margaret Atwood too. (Of course, there's Timothy Findley, Matt Cohen, Robertson Davies, Ondaatje I guess...but Atwood is the definitive modern Canadian novelist who could have used a lifetime supply of Prozac about thirty five years ago).

The CBC, definitely. For those of us who listen to it constantly, anyway. My theory is that the Canadian version of "everyone has fifteen minutes of fame" is "every Canadian gets on CBC national radio at least once." My moment was about fifteen years ago when I wrote a homage to Stan Rogers which Gzowski read on Morningside. (Made him cry, too. We were all pretty maudlin about that tragedy.) My daughter Emily's was yesterday when Bill Richardson read her essay about procrastination (a subject she is an expert on) and awarded her a merit badge in that department.

Its said only about 10% of Canadians are CBC listeners though, so maybe its just us elitist cultural snobs that make up the national identity. Add another few percent for community/campus radio listeners, and the other 85% is indistinguishable from American radio even with Cancon rules.

W-O