Is Canada Affected by the NSA Surveillance?

With recent notices of entire countries blocking the use of VPN and encryption technologies (China has been doing this for years), it makes me wonder where our Internet traffic originating within Canada actually goes in order to finalize a connection.  Our infrastructure is vast, covering the majority of our populated areas, but we still rely heavily on many of the US Internet providers' routes to gain access to sites.  This means that traffic entering and leaving the US is susceptible to, and going to be, NSA surveillance.  

Our traffic is routed through US exchange points.  As Byron Holland has stated, Canada should invest in the construction of its own exchange points, reducing the amount of traffic that relies upon the US infrastructure.  This could also set Canada up to regulate the types of traffic and protocols that are allowed in or out of the country, but its doubtful that will happen.  

Protesters have set up camp across the globe, most recently hitting Washington with their Stop Watching Us campaign.  However, protest marches do not really solve the problem, do they?  If Canadians want to prevent their information from being intercepted by the NSA, we need to keep that data safe within our own country.  This is practically impossible, though, with today's markets and infrastructure.   

Another problem is that Canada is guilty of spying on other countries (Brazil), too.  Our CSEC is likely involved more heavily in the spying activities that the NSA is reportedly undertaking anyway.  The "Five Eyes", five countries who have agreed to pass along intelligence information in the name of anti-terrorism, are probably all spying on each other and on foreign citizens, passing along this information because they believe it is for the sake of national security.  

So, yes, Canada IS affected by the NSA surveillance but keep in mind that this has likely been happening for years.  Also, Canada is monitoring their own information.  Provided the government bodies are protecting this data accurately, if this information helps leak intended targets before a bomb goes off or a plane flies into a building, I am okay with this surveillance.  If it weren't for these allies and their spies during World War II, the war could have been much longer and much, much for tragic.  I believe their intentions are good - but they do need to assure their citizens the spying is not as adverse as in those areas such as China or India.