"What has stayed constant is a certain chippiness. Canadians feel both superior to and dependent on America, thus resenting it; they often get mistaken for Americans, and are afraid of being culturally subsumed. They feel the rest of the world ignores them, which is a pretty accurate perception. And they're always trying to define who they are (not American, not British, not boring) and not quite succeeding, being presented with the daunting challenge of a country that covers five-and-a-half time zones, speaks two languages and contains a province that periodically wishes to secede (and if it did so would set the four Atlantic provinces adrift)."