You're gonna need a couple of mental leaps for this, but Canada's relationship to Celine Dion works something like this:
Imagine if New Zealand were rather bigger (in population and land mass) and was the predominant cultural and sporting power down there (I know it's hard, but bear with me), the country that everyone else around the world immediately thought of when someone said "Australasia" (in fact, it'd probably be "Newzealasia"). Then you have to imagine that poor second-banana Australia had produced a middling female pop star (like, say, Dannii Minogue) who did a decent, bland, inoffensive album and who you then inflicted on the New Zealanders once you got bored with her. Except, as soon as she arrived she got a major song in a hit movie and was immediately beamed round New Zealand and the wider world as the face of Australian music (at the expense of several lesser-known but much more talented artists), making several ridiculously popular (and bland, and inoffensive, and boring) records over the next decade and generally being extremely famous, to the point where if you went to Auckland and said "name a famous Australian", 9 out of 10 blokes on the street would say "Dannii Minogue". At the same time, you're secretly quite proud that there's an Australian in New Zealand who made it as big as it's possible to make it; you just wish it could have been someone better.
It's not a perfect analogy by any means, but it'll do to be getting on with.
