So I continue to fail students who use the queen's English in my assignments. It's not cause I hate the queen, it's cause I thought they were wrong. Turns out there is in fact a "Canadian English" that is allowed to poach from either American or British (queen's) English.
"Canadian English should not be described as a mixture of American and British English with an insignificant number of Canadianisms added. Canadian English, like all ‘Englishes’, possesses an important characteristic, referred to as wholesale borrowing, which has allowed it to develop a very rich vocabulary. Canadians have in the past and will most likely in the future continue to borrow freely from both American and British English; however, once a lexeme is borrowed, it has the possibility to evolve differently. In other words, Canadians appropriate it to suit their needs. "
And when it comes to the analyse v. analyze....
"Canadians unlike Americans have a choice in matter pertaining to spelling. Canadians can choose to spell the following words either the American or British way: center/centre, practice/practise[5], analyze/analyse, color/colour. However, consistency must govern usage. Thus, if a Canadian in a formal paper chooses to use British spelling, he or she must take care to use all British suffixes where there are common suffixes to chose from. This is the advice given by the Canadian Oxford English Dictionary in the Style Guide section under Appendices. The aforementioned dictionary is considered, and for good reason, the authority on matters pertaining to style."
-Canadian English
So bottom line: Canada has its own English. It's just either British or American English, but not both.
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