MONTREAL — Over the years, Canadians have shared a passion for such unifying institutions as hockey, beavers and maple syrup.
Now, one of the world’s largest online search engines suggests we can add our penchant for Googling Britney Spears to that list.

On Wednesday, California-based Internet giant Google released the most-popular Canuck search queries during the first 11 months of 2008.
Google says Canadians searched for Facebook — the popular social-networking site — more than anything else, but the top-10 lists also suggest they queried en masse for Spears, the Green party and music lyrics.
It’s the first time Canadians have had a peek at their Google behaviour — American lists have been available annually since 2001 — and the results provide interesting research fodder for pop culture enthusiasts.
Google also released similar results for 35 other countries around the world.
“You can get an indication, a kind of barometer of what’s in and what’s out,” University of Victoria media expert Kim Blank said about search-engine results.
“A long time ago when John Lennon said that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus, well, Google could have really proved it.”
Facebook’s popularity shows that online relationships have become important to Canadians, said Google Canada spokesman Andrew Swartz.
“Canadians are involved in social networks on an increasing scale,” he said Wednesday.
The word Google was the sixth most-searched term in its own search engine, but Swartz said Canadians weren’t necessarily lost in cyberspace.
He said these surfers might have been looking for Google tools, such as Google Maps, or they may have just punched in the word out of habit.
“Some people may ... intend to go to Google, forgetting that that might actually be Google itself,” he said.
When it comes to political searches, the Greens didn’t win a seat in the House of Commons, but the party did beat out the Conservatives, Liberals, NDP and Bloc Quebecois in the Google ranking.
And with his run for the White House, U.S. President-elect Barack Obama’s search popularity rose faster than any other term compared with 2007.
Earlier this month, Yahoo Canada also released its most-searched items for 2008.
Yahoo says Canadians queried the online multiplayer adventure game RuneScape more than anything else this year.
Blank said RuneScape is a “powerfully addictive” role-playing game.
“It’s kind of like Harry Potter on crack, really,” he said.
Yahoo also ranked Spears up high, one spot behind Miley Cyrus, the most-searched celeb.
Blank said he wasn’t surprised the Yahoo and Google lists featured many stars beloved by “tweenies” — or young teens.
“(They) show that for the most part, the celebrity (searches) are driven by younger people. You’re not going to get Jack Nicholson there — or Meryl Streep.”