The reality is quite complicated. Canadian English is a version of North American English, with a distinctive pronunciation and sub-dialect, but still has vestiges of British English that are lost in America.

I feel like Canada is of two minds, awkwardly and indecisively straddling North American English and British English. It wasn’t until I worked overseas that I realized North America has a very distinctive English that imprints on people, even if they lived there a few years. As in Londoners who spent a few years in North America as toddlers have obvious North American tonality, which is baffling to me.

I have native relatives in Canada and the UK and I find the language dynamics across the anglosphere fascinating.