By Will Ashworth, InvestorPlace Contributor

Canadian stocks often get overlooked in favor of their American counterparts, but investors are passing up on some solid investment opportunities.

Most recently, Hudson’s Bay Company (HBAYF ) posted solid second-quarter earnings results. Saks is fueling the company, and the stock has gained more than 5% in the past month. But that’s hardly the best of the Canadian stocks out there.

The iShares MSCI Canada ETF (EWC ) tracks the performance of the MSCI Canada Index. which is composed of 95 Canadian stocks, covering approximately 85% of the free float-adjusted market capitalization in Canada. Year-to-date, the EWC is up 7% — ahead of last year’s annual return.

With one quarter left in the books, it appears Canadian stocks will finish the year with a bang rather than a thud. Here are three Canadian stocks to buy that I believe will do well for the remainder of the year and into 2015.

Two of the Big Five Canadian banks have made significant investments in the U.S. over the years: TD Bank (TD ) and Bank of Montreal (BMO). TD gets most of the press, but a recent article in Crain’s Chicago Business suggests BMO is making huge strides south of the border thanks to its $3.7 billion acquisition of Milwaukee-based Marshall & Ilsley Corp. in 2011.

Although BMO has been in the U.S. since 1984 when it acquired Harris Bank, its most recent purchase has given it much needed market share both in terms of deposits and loans. BMO CEO William Downe said recently, “We’ve gone from rationalizing the business to now the business is growing again, and we expect the business to continue to grow.” According to Downe, BMO is the No. 3 bank in the Midwest, No. 1 in Wisconsin and No. 2 in Chicago.

Although its U.S. personal and commercial (P&C) business can’t hold a candle to its bread and butter P&C in Canada, BMO is making strides. In Q3, the U.S. P&C biz increased adjusted earnings by 6.2% year-over-year to C$171 million, its best gain since Q2 2013. Scotia Capital analyst Sumit Malhotra says this about BMO’s overall business:

“The strong performance of BMO’s Canadian personal-and-commercial segment has been the primary driver of the stock, but improving trends in the US have also played a key role.”

BMO’s one-two punch along with a 3.9% dividend yield — an impressive number when you consider its stock is up more than any other major Canadian bank — makes this my favorite of these Canadian stocks to buy.

Canadian National Railway (CNI )

Railroad investments have done extremely well in 2014. Investors Business Daily ranks the Transportation-Rail group third out of 197 industries which means relative to almost every publicly traded company, railroad stocks are outperforming. Drill down into the specific companies within the Transportation-Rail group and you’ll find that Canadian National Railway (CNI) is ranked first in its group, meaning it’s on a mighty tear — up 25% year-to-date .

Railroad stocks are doing well because of the increased traffic resulting from a resurgent domestic oil & gas business. Canadian National and many of its peers are experiencing double-digit growth on both the top- and bottom-line for the first time in a couple of years.

How long can this last?

Well, if you believe what analysts have to say — indefinitely. Garey Aitken is the chief investment officer for Bissett Investment Management. CN is the second-largest holding in the C$2.6 billion Bissett Canadian Equity Fund. As Aitken recently told Bloomberg. “They’re firing on all cylinders.” Stephen Groff is a fund manager with Toronto-based CI Investments. He believes, “CN still is the gold standard today, and they continue to execute very well.” Perhaps this is why Bill Gates is CNs largest shareholder owning 13% of the company.

As far as Canadian stocks go, it’s hard to argue with CN’s success.

Like a good Canadian, I faithfully pay my Enbridge (ENB) gas bill every month. It’s not a lot, mind you, but when you multiply that number over more than two million customers, the revenues tend to add up fast. And that’s only one of Enbridge’s businesses. It also transports oil and natural gas through pipelines as well as generating and transmitting 1,800 megawatts of emissions-free energy.

ENB is built to withstand any economic hardships because a majority of its earnings come from fees paid by customers for essential energy delivery services. You can go without snack foods for a few months, but try going without natural gas and electricity for any period of time. These are the last bills to go unpaid.

Investors look to Enbridge for reliable dividend growth. Over the past decade, it has grown the dividend paid per share by 13% annually. In that time the payout ratio’s barely budged growing from 65% in 2005 to 71% in 2013. So, even though its stock is currently trading within 3% of its 52-week high and up 20% year-to-date, a $50 purchase price is not the end of the world thanks to the consistency of its dividend. While currently yielding less than 3%, a decade of growing the dividend per share by 10% or more will bump that yield on a cost basis to more than 7%.

Enbridge’s current estimate is that it will spend $41 billion between 2013 and 2017 on investments in all three of its business segments — investments that will foster organic growth for many years to come. Like these other Canadian stocks, Enbridge is a great blue-chip stock to buy.

As of this writing, Will Ashworth did not own a position in any of the aforementioned securities.