Discover Canada – The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship
By Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada
Latest version downloadable from Canada's CIC website
Magna Carta in 1215 in England (also known as the Great Charter of Freedoms), including: Freedom of conscience and religion; Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of speech and of the press; Freedom of peaceful assembly; and Freedom of association.
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Peace, Order and Good Government, a key phrase in Canada’s original constitutional document in 1867, the British North America Act.
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From the 1800s until the 1980s, the federal government placed many Aboriginal children in residential schools
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Indian refers to all Aboriginal people who are not Inuit or Métis.
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half of First Nations people live on reserve land in about 600 communities while the other half live off-reserve, mainly in urban centres.
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The Métis are a distinct people of mixed Aboriginal and European ancestry, the majority of whom live in the Prairie provinces.
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65% of the Aboriginal people are First Nations, while 30% are Métis and 4% Inuit.
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18 million Anglophones—people who speak English as a first language—and seven million Francophones—people
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New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province.
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Acadians are the descendants of French colonists
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Chinese languages are the second most-spoken at home, after English, in two of Canada’s biggest cities. In Vancouver, 13% of the population speak Chinese languages at home; in Toronto, the number is 7%.
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The Huron-Wendat of the Great Lakes region, like the Iroquois, were farmers and hunters. The Cree and Dene of the Northwest were hunter-gatherers.
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Warfare was common among Aboriginal groups as they competed for land, resources and prestige.
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European exploration began in earnest in 1497 with the expedition of John Cabot,
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Between 1534 and 1542, Jacques Cartier made three voyages across the Atlantic,
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Cartier heard two captured guides speak the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning “village.” By the 1550s, the name of Canada began appearing on
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Champlain allied the colony with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron, historic enemies of the Iroquois,
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In 1759, the British defeated the French in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Québec
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The first representative assembly was elected in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1758.
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The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario), which was mainly Loyalist, Protestant and English-speaking, and Lower Canada
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The Act also granted to the Canadas, for the first time, legislative assemblies elected by the people.
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In 1793, Upper Canada, led by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, a Loyalist military officer, became the first province in the Empire to move toward abolition.
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in 1833 abolished slavery throughout the Empire.
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Montreal Stock Exchange opened in 1832. For centuries
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the United States launched an invasion in June 1812.
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in 1814, Major-General Robert Ross led an expedition from Nova Scotia that burned down the White House
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reformers in Upper and Lower Canada believed that progress toward full democracy was too slow. Some believed Canada should adopt American republican values or even try to join the United States. When armed rebellions occurred in 1837–38 in the area outside Montreal and in Toronto,
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They were defeated
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given responsible government. This meant that the ministers of the Crown must have the support of a majority of the elected representatives in order to govern.
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responsible government. This is the system that we have today: if the government loses a confidence vote in the assembly it must resign.
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The old Province of Canada was split into two new provinces: Ontario and Quebec, which, together with New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, formed the new country called the Dominion of Canada.
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British North America Act in 1867. The Dominion of Canada was officially born on July 1, 1867.
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Canada’s First Prime Minister In 1867, Sir John Alexander Macdonald, a Father of Confederation, became Canada’s first Prime Minister.
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Louis Riel led an armed uprising and seized Fort Garry, the territorial capital.
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second rebellion in 1885 in present-day Saskatchewan
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Riel is seen by many as a hero, a defender of Métis rights and the father of Manitoba.
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North West Mounted Police (NWMP) in 1873
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British Columbia joined Canada in 1871 after Ottawa promised to build a railway to the West Coast.
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the CPR’s “ribbons of steel” fulfilled a national dream.
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economic boom of the 1890s and early 1900s.
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Over 7,000 volunteered to fight in the South African War (1899–1902), popularly known as the Boer War, and over 260 died.
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in 1914 and Britain declared war, Ottawa formed the Canadian Expeditionary Force (later the Canadian Corps). More than 600,000 Canadians served in the war, most of them volunteers, out of a total population of eight million.
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Vimy Ridge in April 1917, with 10,000 killed or wounded,
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from 1914 to 1920, Ottawa interned over 8,000 former Austro-Hungarian subjects, mainly Ukrainian men, as “enemy aliens” in 24 labour camps across Canada,
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General Sir Arthur Currie, Canada’s greatest soldier,
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In total 60,000 Canadians were killed and 170,000 wounded.
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the women’s suffrage movement. Its founder in Canada was Dr. Emily Stowe, the first Canadian woman to practise medicine in Canada. In 1916, Manitoba became the first province to grant voting rights to women.
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In 1918, most Canadian female citizens aged 21 and over were granted the right to vote in federal elections. In 1921 Agnes Macphail, a farmer and teacher, became the first woman MP. Due to the work of Thérèse Casgrain and others, Quebec granted women the vote in 1940.
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3,000 nurses, nicknamed “Bluebirds,” served in the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, 2,500 of them overseas
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“Roaring Twenties”
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“Dirty Thirties.” Unemployment reached 27% in 1933
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~ Discover Canada – The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship, Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Canada, represented by the Minister of Citizenship and Immigration Canada
bank of CAD
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1934.
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110,000 who have given their lives.
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Canadians captured Juno Beach
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one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders (Newfoundland was a separate British entity) served in the Second World War,
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of these, 44,000 were killed.
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The discovery of oil in Alberta in 1947 began Canada’s modern energy industry.
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“employment insurance”) was introduced by the federal government in 1940.
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councillors or aldermen.
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Canadian flag was raised for the first time in 1965.
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The Canadian Red Ensign served as the Canadian flag for about 100 years.
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Maple leaves were adopted as a symbol by French Canadians in the 1700s,
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appeared on Canadian uniforms and insignia since the 1850s,
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after the First World War, Canada adopted an official coat of arms and a national motto, A Mari Usque Ad Mare, which in Latin means “from sea to sea.”
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The buildings were completed in the 1860s. The Centre Block was destroyed by an accidental fire in 1916 and rebuilt in 1922. The Library is the only part of the original building remaining. The Peace Tower was completed in 1927 in memory of the First World War. The Memorial Chamber within the Tower contains the Books of Remembrance
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Ice hockey was developed in Canada in the 1800s.
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Canadian football is the second most popular sport. Curling, an ice game introduced by Scottish pioneers, is popular.
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Soccer has the most registered players of any game in Canada.
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Canada O Canada! Our home and native land! True patriot love in all thy sons command With glowing hearts we see thee rise The true North strong and free! From far and wide, O Canada We stand on guard for thee God keep our land glorious and free! O Canada, we stand on guard for thee O Canada, we stand on guard for thee
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Canada started its own honours system with the Order of Canada in 1967, the centennial of Confederation.
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New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province, and about one-third of the population lives and works in French. The province’s pioneer Loyalist and French
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the largest Aboriginal population of any province, at over 15%.
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Saskatchewan, once known as the “breadbasket of the world” and the “wheat province,” has 40% of the arable land in Canada and is the country’s largest producer of grains and oilseeds.
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Regina, the capital, is home to the training academy of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
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British Columbia (B.C.), on the Pacific coast, is Canada’s westernmost province, with a population of four million. The Port of Vancouver is our gateway
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About one-half of all the goods produced in B.C. are forestry products,
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B.C. has the most extensive park system in Canada, with approximately 600 provincial parks.
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Chinese and Punjabi the most spoken languages in the cities after English.
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Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon contain one-third of Canada’s land mass but have a population of only 100,000.
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Gold Rush of the 1890s,
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Yukon holds the record for the coldest temperature ever recorded in Canada (-63°C).
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