Thanks Tammy for your response! We do plan on adding the hreflang  tag to the different versions.

That being said  - I've seen many seos advise to use  set up # 2

but I’ve seen many brands do it differently

for example:

apple does it like # 1

ikea like # 3

so I wasn't sure whether there is any real difference.

Regarding tld .ca -- we  do own it and plan to redirect it to our subfolder. At the moment we prefer to use that route so we don't split up our link juice among two different sites.  Evnetually we can always separate them if we feel it will be better for use

Our organization is currently only operating in the USA but will soon be entering the Canadian market.

We did a lot of research and decided that for our needs it would be best to use  a subfolder for Canada.

Initially we will be targeting the english speaking community but eventually we will want to expand to the french speaking Canadians as well.

The question is - is there a preferred version in setting up the subfolders:

www.website.org/ca/ -- default will be english

www.website.org/ca/fr/ - french

www.website.org/en-ca/ - english

www.website.org/fr-ca/ - french

www.website.org/ca/en/ -english

www.website.org/ca/fr/ - french

Thanks