What is the importance of Canada in the book, Horse: A Novel?

Although none of the scenes in Horse take place in Canada, the country serves an important symbolic function at the end of the novel. In one of the final chapters, Jarret journeys to New York to purchase a portrait of himself and Lexington from a horseracing journal. He comments that he now lives in Canada with his wife and child; he also notes that the country provides him with a sense of freedom, liberty, and possibility that he could not find in the United States. In this way, Canada acts as an overt emblem of the racial progress that proves elusive to American society.