The utility of a variationist approach (e.g. Weinreich et al. 1968; Labov 1972) resides in its capacity to uncover the underlying constraints on inherent variability, permitting the degree, directionality and social embeddedness of linguistic change to be accurately ascer- tained (Poplack and Tagliamonte 2001). In the ensuing sections, I illustrate how this methodological framework has contributed to more refined structural characterizations of varieties of Canadian English.