Was there foresight before 1867 that Canada was a country?

Well, Canada is still to this day a part of Britain, our Head of State is the British Monarch. While in 1867 we gained the status of "country" we are still very close to Britain. Overall not many changes to how Canada was viewed by the rest of the world occurred when Canada became a country, since not many significant changes were made in relations to other nations. Most of the significant changes were within the country (constitution, etc.) and did not affect the rest of the world. Most of the world considered Canada to be a country long before it officially became one.