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Travel to Canada — Unbiased reviews and great deals from
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Sovereign: Queen Elizabeth II
(1952)
Governor-General: Michaëlle Jean
(2005)
Prime Minister: Stephen Harper
(2006)
Current government officials
Land area: 3,511,003 sq mi (9,093,507 sq km);
total area: 3,855,102 sq mi (9,984,670 sq km)
Population (2008 est.): 33,679,263
(growth rate: 0.8%); birth rate: 10.7/1000; infant mortality rate:
4.5/1000; life expectancy: 80.4; density per sq mi: 3
Capital (2004 est.):
Ottawa, Ontario, 1,142,700 (metro. area)
Largest cities (metropolitan areas)
(2004 est.): Toronto, 5,203,600; Montreal, 3,606,700; Vancouver,
2,160,000; Calgary, 1,037,100; Edmonton, 1,101,600; Quebec, 710,700;
Hamilton, 710,300; Winnipeg, 702,400; London, 459,700; Kitchener,
450,100
Monetary unit: Canadian dollar
Languages:
English 59.3%, French 23.2% (both official);
other 17.5%
Ethnicity/race:
British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%,
other European 15%, indigenous Indian and Inuit 2%, other, mostly
Asian, African, Arab 6%, mixed background 26%
National Holiday:
Canada Day, July 1
Religions:
Roman Catholic 43%, Protestant 23% (including
United Church 10%, Anglican 7%, Baptist 2%, Lutheran 2%), other
Christian 4%, Muslim 2%, none 16% (2001)
Literacy rate: 99% (2003 est.)
Economic summary: GDP/PPP (2007
est.): $1.266 trillion; per capita $38,400. Real growth rate:
2.7%. Inflation: 2.1%. Unemployment: 6%. Arable
land: 5%. Agriculture: wheat, barley, oilseed, tobacco,
fruits, vegetables; dairy products; forest products; fish. Labor
force: 16.3 million (Dec. 2005); agriculture 2%, manufacturing
14%, construction 5%, services 75%, other 3% (2004).
Industries: transportation equipment, chemicals, processed
and unprocessed minerals, food products, wood and paper products,
fish products, petroleum and natural gas. Natural resources:
iron ore, nickel, zinc, copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, potash,
diamonds, silver, fish, timber, wildlife, coal, petroleum, natural
gas, hydropower. Exports: $364.8 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.):
motor vehicles and parts, industrial machinery, aircraft,
telecommunications equipment; chemicals, plastics, fertilizers; wood
pulp, timber, crude petroleum, natural gas, electricity,
aluminum. Imports: $317.7 billion f.o.b. (2005 est.):
machinery and equipment, motor vehicles and parts, crude oil,
chemicals, electricity, durable consumer goods. Major trading
partners: U.S., Japan, UK, China, Mexico (2004).
Communications: Telephones: main lines
in use: 19,950,900 (2003); mobile cellular: 13,221,800 (2003).
Radio broadcast stations: AM 245, FM 582, shortwave 6 (2004).
Television broadcast stations: 80 (plus many repeaters)
(1997). Internet hosts: 3,210,081 (2003). Internet
users: 16.11 million (2002).
Transportation: Railways: total: 48,683
km (2004). Highways: total: 1.408 million km; paved: 497,306
km (including 16,900 km of expressways); unpaved: 911,494 km (2002).
Waterways: 631 km; note: Saint Lawrence Seaway of 3,769 km,
including the Saint Lawrence River of 3,058 km, shared with United
States (2003). Ports and harbors: Fraser River Port,
Goderich, Montreal, Port Cartier, Quebec, Saint John's
(Newfoundland), Sept Isles, Vancouver. Airports: 1,326 (2004
est.).
International disputes: managed maritime
boundary disputes with the US at Dixon Entrance, Beaufort Sea,
Strait of Juan de Fuca, and around the disputed Machias Seal Island
and North Rock; working toward greater cooperation with US in
monitoring people and commodities crossing the border; uncontested
sovereignty dispute with Denmark over Hans Island in the Kennedy
Channel between Ellesmere Island and Greenland.
Major sources and definitions
Population by Provinces and
Territories
Canadian Prime Ministers Since 1867
Canadian Governors-General Since 1867
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Geography
Covering most of the northern part of the North
American continent and with an area larger than that of the United States,
Canada has an extremely varied topography. In the east the mountainous
maritime provinces have an irregular coastline on the Gulf of St. Lawrence
and the Atlantic. The St. Lawrence plain, covering most of southern Quebec
and Ontario, and the interior continental plain, covering southern
Manitoba and Saskatchewan and most of Alberta, are the principal
cultivable areas. They are separated by a forested plateau rising from
Lakes Superior and Huron.
Westward toward the Pacific, most of British
Columbia, the Yukon, and part of western Alberta are covered by parallel
mountain ranges, including the Rockies. The Pacific border of the coast
range is ragged with fjords and channels. The highest point in Canada is
Mount Logan (19,850 ft; 6,050 m), which is in the Yukon. The two principal
river systems are the Mackenzie and the St. Lawrence. The St. Lawrence,
with its tributaries, is navigable for over 1,900 mi (3,058 km).
Government
Canada is a federation of ten provinces
(Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and
Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and
Saskatchewan) and three territories (Northwest Territories, Yukon, and
Nunavut). Formally considered a constitutional monarchy, Canada is
governed by its own House of Commons. While the governor-general is
officially the representative of Queen Elizabeth II, in reality the
governor-general acts only on the advice of the Canadian prime
minister.
History
The first inhabitants of Canada were native
Indian peoples, primarily the Inuit (Eskimo). The Norse explorer Leif
Eriksson probably reached the shores of Canada (Labrador or Nova Scotia)
in 1000, but the history of the white man in the country actually began in
1497, when John Cabot, an Italian in the service of Henry VII of England,
reached Newfoundland or Nova Scotia. Canada was taken for France in 1534
by Jacques Cartier. The actual settlement of New France, as it was then
called, began in 1604 at Port Royal in what is now Nova Scotia; in 1608,
Quebec was founded. France's colonization efforts were not very
successful, but French explorers by the end of the 17th century had
penetrated beyond the Great Lakes to the western prairies and south along
the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico. Meanwhile, the English Hudson's Bay
Company had been established in 1670. Because of the valuable fisheries
and fur trade, a conflict developed between the French and English; in
1713, Newfoundland, Hudson Bay, and Nova Scotia (Acadia) were lost to
England. During the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), England extended its
conquest, and the British general James Wolfe won his famous victory over
Gen. Louis Montcalm outside Quebec on Sept. 13, 1759. The Treaty of Paris
in 1763 gave England control.
At that time the population of Canada was almost
entirely French, but in the next few decades, thousands of British
colonists emigrated to Canada from the British Isles and from the American
colonies. In 1849, the right of Canada to self-government was recognized.
By the British North America Act of 1867, the dominion of Canada was
created through the confederation of Upper and Lower Canada, Nova Scotia,
and New Brunswick. In 1869, Canada purchased from the Hudson's Bay Company
the vast middle west (Rupert's Land) from which the provinces of Manitoba
(1870), Alberta (1905), and Saskatchewan (1905) were later formed. In
1871, British Columbia joined the dominion, and in 1873, Prince Edward
Island followed. The country was linked from coast to coast in 1885 by the
Canadian Pacific Railway.
During the formative years between 1866 and
1896, the Conservative Party, led by Sir John A. Macdonald, governed the
country, except during the years 1873–1878. In 1896 the Liberal Party took
over and, under Sir Wilfrid Laurier, an eminent French Canadian, ruled
until 1911. By the Statute of Westminster in 1931 the British dominions,
including Canada, were formally declared to be partner nations with
Britain, “equal in status, in no way subordinate to each other,” and bound
together only by allegiance to a common Crown.
Newfoundland became Canada's tenth province on
March 31, 1949, following a plebiscite. Canada also includes three
territories—the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories, and the newest
territory, Nunavut. This new territory includes all of the Arctic north of
the mainland, Norway having recognized Canadian sovereignty over the
Sverdrup Islands in the Arctic in 1931.
The Liberal Party, led by William Lyon Mackenzie
King, dominated Canadian politics from 1921 until 1957, when it was
succeeded by the Progressive Conservatives. The Liberals, under the
leadership of Lester B. Pearson, returned to power in 1963. Pearson
remained prime minister until 1968, when he retired and was replaced by a
former law professor, Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Trudeau maintained Canada's
defensive alliance with the United States but began moving toward a more
independent policy in world affairs.
Faced with an increasingly violent separatist
movement in the predominantly French province of Quebec, Trudeau
introduced the Official Languages Bill, which encouraged bilingualism in
the federal government; he also gave an economic portfolio to a
French-speaking minister, Jean Chrétien. Both measures increased the power
of French-speaking politicians in the federal government.
In 1976, the Parti Québécois (PQ) won the
provincial Quebec elections, and René Lévesque became premier. The Quebec
government passed Bill 101 in 1977, which established numerous rules
promoting the French-speaking culture; for example, only French was to be
used for commercial signs and for most public school instruction. Many of
Bill 101's provisions have since been amended, striking more of a
compromise; commercial signs, for example, may now be in French and
English, provided that the French lettering is twice the size of the
English. Quebec held a referendum in May 1980 on whether it should seek
independence from Canada; it was defeated by 60% of the voters.
Resolving a dispute that had occupied Trudeau
since the beginning of his tenure, Queen Elizabeth II signed the
Constitution Act (also called the Canada Act) in Ottawa on April 17, 1982,
thereby cutting the last legal tie between Canada and Britain. The
constitution retains Queen Elizabeth as queen of Canada and keeps Canada's
membership in the Commonwealth. This constitution was accepted by every
province except Quebec.
In the national election on Sept. 4, 1984, the
Progressive Conservative Party scored an overwhelming victory,
fundamentally changing the country's political landscape. The
Conservatives, led by Brian Mulroney, won the highest political majority
in Canadian history. The dominant foreign issue was a free-trade pact with
the U.S., a treaty bitterly opposed by the Liberal and New Democratic
parties. The conflict led to elections in Nov. 1988 that solidly reelected
Mulroney and gave him a mandate to proceed with the agreement.
The issue of separatist sentiments in
French-speaking Quebec flared up again in 1990 with the failure of the
Meech Lake Accord. The accord was designed to bring Quebec into the
constitution while easing its residents' fear of losing their identity
within the English-speaking majority by giving it status as a “distinct
society.”
The economy continued to be mired in a long
recession that many blamed on the free-trade agreement. Brian Mulroney's
popularity continued to decline, causing him to resign before the next
election. In June 1993 the governing Progressive Conservative Party chose
Defense Minister Kim Campbell as its leader, making her the first female
prime minister in Canadian history. The national election in Oct. 1993
resulted in the reemergence of the Liberal Party and the installation of
Jean Chrétien as prime minister.
The Quebec referendum on secession in Oct. 1995
yielded a narrow rejection of the proposal, and separatists vowed to try
again. Since then, however, the Quebec Liberal Party has replaced the Bloc
Québecois as the ruling party.
On April 1, 1999, the Northwest Territories were
officially divided to create a new territory in the east that would be
governed by Canada's Inuits, who make up 85% of the area's population.
In July 2000, Stockwell Day of the new
right-wing Canadian Alliance Party unexpectedly emerged as the leader of
Canada's opposition. In Nov. 2000 elections, however, Prime Minister Jean
Chrétien of the Liberal Party won a landslide victory for a third
five-year term. After the election, the conservatives rapidly lost
steam.
In recent years, Canada has introduced some of
the world's most liberal social policies. Medical marijuana for the
terminally or chronically ill was legalized in 2001; the country began
legally dispensing marijuana by prescription in July 2003. In 2003,
Ontario and British Columbia legalized same-sex marriage; and more
provinces and territories followed in 2004. In July 2005, Canada legalized
gay marriage throughout the country, becoming one of four nations (along
with Belgium, the Netherlands, and Spain) to do so.
Canada sent 2,000 soldiers to help fight the
U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, but its relations with the U.S. were strained
when it refused to join Washington's coalition supporting the war in
Iraq.
In Dec. 2003, Chrétien stepped down and handed
the prime ministership to the new leader of Canada's Liberal Party, former
finance minister Paul Martin. Chrétien had announced in 2002 that he would
not seek a fourth term—conflict between Chrétien and Martin had divided
and weakened the Liberal Party in recent years. In June 2004, Martin was
reelected prime minister, but the Liberal Party lost its majority in
parliament, which it had dominated for 11 years. In 2005, a scandal
involving the misappropriation of government funds by the Liberal Party
threatened the stability of Martin's government. Martin himself was not
implicated in the scandal, but his predecessor came under fire. In Jan.
2006 parliamentary elections, Conservatives won 36% of the vote, ending
twelve years of Liberal rule. Conservative leader Stephen Harper became
prime minister in February. In June 2006, police arrested 17 suspected
Islamist terrorists in Toronto and are believed to have foiled a major
terrorist attack on the country. In November, Prime Minister Harper
succeeded in passing a motion to recognize Quebec as “a nation within a
united Canada.”
In February 2007, Canada's Supreme Court struck
down a law that permitted foreign terrorism suspects to be detained
indefinitely without charges while waiting for deportation. “The
overarching principle of fundamental justice that applies here is this:
before the state can detain people for significant periods of time, it
must accord them a fair judicial process,” said Chief Justice Beverley
McLachlin.
See also Encyclopedia: Canada.
U.S. State Dept. Country Notes:
Canada
Statistics Canada www.statcan.ca/ .
See also Canada Day and other Canadian
holidays.
Fact Monster/Information Please®
Database, © 2008 Pearson Education, Inc. All rights reserved.
More on Canada from Infoplease:
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