That's an interesting take. Thanks, Graham. I studied comparative colonialisms a bit, so I can see where you are going with that ... There has been some of work done on what the colonial experience impresses on the collective cutural norms and attitudes of those under imperial rule. A lot of it is social-psychological jargon-infested muck though and highly biased by the new "bottom up" historiography.

I still wonder if the whole "mosaic" phenomenon in Canada is behind a lot of it though. My close friend, Vlad, lives in Toronto. He was born and raised in Ukraine, went to college and grad school in the U.S., and now works (obviously) in Canada. I've visited him a couple times and was amazed how segmented the city's neighborhoods are by ethnic group. It kind of reminded me of the "ghettoization" of many urban Catholic ethnic groups in the 19th century U.S. It wasn't really until after WWI that many American ethnic groups stopped clinging so much to their "hyphenated" (i.e. German-American) identity. So much of the nationalism in the U.S. is centered on ascribing to the "idea" of America--freedom, liberty, meritocracy, representative democracy, etc. On the other hand, I haven't felt any impression of national cohesion in my visits to Canada. It just seems like a bunch of people who are, for the most part, tolerant of one another and believe in large government and quasi-socialistic principles (I haven't been to the Prairie provinces which are far more conservative). I'm not saying this is a bad thing, it's just an observation of a foreigner.

ETA: Graham, why did you delete your post?