Is that why my Canadian ISP used to route so much local traffic through USA?

(I think it has gotten better now, but Bell used to only freely peer in USA, in Canada you had to pay for transit. Most non-big3 Canadian ISPs would route a lot of domestic traffic through Chicago and other peer points).

lets flip the coin over, suppose the NSA, has been nattering at canada to get up to date, and resume fulfilment of obligations to a current standard.