Canada has no goals or direction, yet shares so much of the American character and experience that the role of dialogue and liaison has become entirely natural to Canadians wherever they are …. In the age of the electronic information environment the big nations of the First World are losing both their identities and goals … In this new world the decentralized and soft-focus image of the flexible Canadian identity appears to great advantage… Today they are even more suited to the Third World tone and temper as the Third World takes over the abandoned goals of the First World. Sharing many characteristics of the Third World, Canada mediates between the First and Third Worlds.
McLuhan, M. P., Bruce R. (1989). The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century, Oxford,: Oxford University Press. pp. 149-150