By Sarah Rainey The Telegraph

Mark Carney, the new Governor of the Bank of England, is a remarkable man. He studied economics at Harvard, racked up a Master’s and a doctorate at Oxford, and, for the past four years, he’s been governor of his national bank – all before the age of 50. Carney is married to a glamorous British economist and has four lovely daughters. According to Time magazine, he’s one of the 25 most influential people in the world.

But – wait for it – there’s something even more remarkable about England’s new top banker. He’s a Canadian! Carney, he of the snappy suits and slicked-back hair, hails from the nation affectionately known as “America’s attic”. What’s more, he’s proud of it. He’s a maple syrup-drinking, poutine-loving, moose-spotting, beer-swilling ice-hockey fan, who once dreamed of playing for his local team, the Edmonton Oilers.

A couple of decades on, his selection for the coveted BoE job has raised a few eyebrows – not least because of his nationality. “Canadians have a reputation for being the boring good guys,” says Oxford academic (and bona fide Canadian) Margaret MacMillan. “If you want to say something is really tedious, you say ‘as dull as a Sunday in Canada’. We’ve never been loudly patriotic, probably because we live next to the US. As a result, people think we’re dull and quiet all the time.”

You see, even Canadians admit it: their country has an image problem. It has long been subjected to stereotypes – perpetuated by South Park and Due South – and rather than deny them, Canadians have simply got used to being the butt of bad jokes. “A Canadian,” goes the gag by the author Pierre Berton, “is someone who knows how to make love in a canoe.”

That’s not to say they’re unpatriotic: a recent survey by Ipsos-Reid found that 74 per cent of Canadians display their country’s flag, with a fifth willing to get a maple leaf tattoo. But, on the whole, they tend not to publicise their nationality, meaning that many of our best-loved music, television and sports stars are from Canada – yet we’d struggle to name a single one. Michael J Fox, anyone? Margaret Atwood?

“People assume I come from a place where it snows all year round and there are beavers and grizzly bears roaming in my backyard,” says a colleague who grew up in Canada. A Winnipeg-based friend laments: “Everyone thinks we live in the blistering cold, that our houses are igloos and we have dog sleds.” Misconceptions are so strong that a national website, Canadians.ca, recently published an article debunking popular myths about the country, including: “Canadians all say ‘eh’ and ‘aboot’”, and “Canadians are all Mounties dressed in red uniforms”. Neither of which, it informs us, is true.

I’d like to think we Brits are better than that. Surely we can appreciate Canadians for more than their love of doughnuts and affinity for winter sports? Our relationship with that great country spans centuries: before it became part of the British Empire in 1867, Canada – now a member of the Commonwealth – was a collection of British colonies; at the outbreak of the First World War, millions of national volunteers joined the Allied forces. So, to celebrate the nation from which our new BoE Governor hails, I’ve uncovered some great Canadians you never knew were Canadian.

First up is Jim Carrey, star of The Mask and The Truman Show, who comes from Ontario, and once admitted: “If my career in show business hadn’t panned out, I would probably be working today in Hamilton, Ontario, at the Dofasco steel mill.” He’s joined by a raft of actors: Star Trek’s William Shatner, Friends star Matthew Perry, Juno’s Ellen Page, Ryan Gosling and Keanu Reeves, who would have been a hockey player if injury hadn’t ended his career. O Canada, how grateful we are!

The music world is full of Canadian talent. Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, Alanis Morissette and Céline Dion all come from north of the US border. Next there is singer-songwriter Bryan Adams, born in Ontario, who appeared in a promotional video for the Canadian Army, and crooner Michael Bublé, who carried the torch during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Teeny-bopper Justin Bieber was also born in Ontario, although a poll carried out on Canada Day in June ranked him 13th out of 13 Canadian icons, below hockey, maple leaves and beavers. Other musicians include Neil Young, Rufus Wainwright, Nelly Furtado and country artist Shania Twain.

Baywatch star and glamour model Pamela Anderson hails from British Columbia, the daughter of a waitress and a furnace repairman, who started out as a fitness instructor in Vancouver. Fellow model Linda Evangelista, the face of Revlon and Versace, also deserves a mention, after being given a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in 2003.

The sporting world, too, is awash with Canadians: former tennis champion Greg Rusedski was born in Montreal (he switched his allegiance from Canada to Britain in 1995) and former boxer Lennox Lewis, who was born in West Ham, has dual nationality after moving to Ontario, aged 12.

In the literary world, Alice Munro and Atwood are the best-known writers, but Anne of Green Gables author Lucy Maud Montgomery was Canadian, as is Michael Ondaatje, author of The English Patient. James Cameron, who directed Titanic and Avatar, was – quite unexpectedly – born in Ontario.

Other notable countrymen include economist John Galbraith and environmentalist David Suzuki, while Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone, moved to Canada when he was 23 and carried out his experiments there. Clever Canadians can also take credit for inventing the electric wheelchair, cardiac pacemakers, Trivial Pursuit and peanut butter.

“We’re not often the kind of people who will shout about our national pride,” says Gordon Campbell, Canadian High Commissioner in London. “In industry, leaders such as Sergio Marchionne at Chrysler are turning around businesses, and Moya Greene was recruited to run Royal Mail. You wouldn’t necessarily know they were all Canadians, but they’re all innovative and driven and good at what they do.”

Carney, it seems, is in excellent company. Perhaps his appointment as our highest-ranking banker will encourage other secret Canadians to come clean? “I hope so,” says Prof MacMillan. “It’s about time – just because we like to blend in to the background doesn’t mean we should be ashamed of who we are.”

For more on this story go to:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/canada/9705971/Canada-is-much-more-than-a-land-of-Mounties-and-maple-leaves.html