There are several ways in which being nonaligned would have offered an advantage and disadvantage to a developing nation during the Cold War, but in general they would have been able to trade with both sides.
You can either talk about police, education (school), highway building, or how taxes are used to pay for all those services. And then explain how whatever service you chose affects your family. Like for example, highway building can cause you or your parents to have to leave earlier because of detours. Or with taxes you can talk about how it puts your family on a budget.
Eastern Canada hold more older (European) settlements than Western Canada. Eastern Canada was settled by the French and then the English in an effort to expand their terrortories and then resource (fur trade) extraction. The bulk of the original population of these regions are direct descendants of the original settlers and of the "Loyalists" who moved north from the United States when the US became independant from Britain.