Tonight we're devoting a full hour to a topic of importance to all Canadians, but particularly to newcomers to this country: The federal government's new citizenship guide, "Discover Canada".

If you look at it one way, the new guide is no big deal: it's a study text to help new Canadians pass their citizenship test, nothing more. But looking at it another way, it's potentially very significant: This guide will contribute to immigrants' formative impressions of Canada and what it means to be Canadian. That's pretty profound.

This is just the latest of several Agenda episodes to tackle the nature of Canadian citizenship and to what degree it is evolving. I'd like to get your thoughts on what it means to be Canadian now. How much must we remain tied to British culture and institutions? How is the increasingly diverse nature of the Canadian population changing, if at all, what it should mean to be Canadian? Are we remembering our past and traditions enough? Conversely, are we too obsessed with remembering history and traditions from the bygone, mostly white, Canada, that have little bearing on the realities of today? Please share your thoughts by commenting to this blog.

To help get your thoughts flowing, you might want to watch some of the past episodes, available below, where The Agenda has dealt with this topic.

First off is an excellent discussion produced by my colleague Alan Echenberg earlier this week in the wake of the official visit to Canada by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall. It dealt with Canada's longstanding relationship with the United Kingdom and whether our two countries are drifting apart:

That same episode, another colleague of mine, Mark Brosens, produced a very interesting interview with Anthony Cary, Britain's High Commissioner to Canada. Cary discussed with Steve the differences between the U.K. and Canada over climate change. He also talked about the future of the British Commonwealth:

Finally, here is a debate a third colleague, Stavros Rougas, produced in April of this year on the idea of dual citizenship. That concept has become a touchy subject of late amid criticisms that some dual citizens aren't committed to this country, and are simply "Canadians of convenience."

Apart from some of our recent Agenda programming on Canadian citizenship, here's one more thing to get you thinking about the topic: an article in Policy Options titled "Giving Meaning to Canadian Citizenship" .

I look forward to reading your comments and discussing this issue with you further.