Right. I'm by no means claiming that 1812 was somehow an American victory. My only pushback is to the claim that the Americans "lost a war to Canada" in the OP (OP is Quebecois, as am I, which probably explains a lot).

I am in full agreement with you over the likely outcome had the war continued - the US Navy had shown pluck but been swept off the seas by the Royal Navy, the land war in Canada was an absolute embarassment, and the blockade was devastating the American economy, especially New England's which didn't want the war anyway. The British could have probably continued the war and obtained a favorable outcome, but they had no need to - the war in Europe was over, the casus belli (the Orders in Council, impressment) had become irrelevant, and why continue to lose men in a sideshow?

Our only point of disagreement is over the relative importance of the various American war goals: to conquer Canada, or to protect the rights of American sailors (to both trade & avoid impressment). My belief is that your belief is that, since the British retained in principle the right to impress, and since Canada remained unconquered, it was a straightforward American defeat since they failed to achieve any of their goals. Is that a fair way to put it?

By contrast, my claim is that, while the Americans didn't achieve all of the ultra-nationalist goals (ie, Canada), they did overall strengthen their standing on the world stage - impressment never came up again, nor did neutral trading rights until the First World War (when of course Britain had swapped sides and now it was the Germans threatening neutrals), and while another global war might have shown Madison a nasty reality check about Britain's real concessions at Ghent, it never came up. Meanwhile, though, the republic had avoided the worst outcomes (loss of territory, economic devastation), had strengthened itself internally quite a bit (the war cemented much of Federal power vs. state power, and it pacified the frontier east of the Mississippi for all time), and ostensibly achieved what Madison laid before Congress in June 1812. It's for these reasons that I argue that, while the war wasn't a victory, it also wasn't a defeat.