DoDo, I was just being flip early on a Saturday morning. As a Canadian, I can't speak to this, except to mention the geographic relativism. For example, when I grew up on  the prairies, people in my family used "down east" in reference to southern Ontario, from whence they had quite recently migrated to Sakstatoon by rail and red-river-wagon (the remains of these wagons can still be seen all over the Prairies). But everyone knows "eastern Canada" really means the Maritimes and Newfoundland, about 1500km east of "down east."

Am I missing something important here?