Discover Canada, in points

Who must take the test

• Applicants aged 18–54 must show adequate knowledge of English or French and pass the knowledge test.
• Adults 55+ do not write the citizenship test and are exempt from the language requirement.
• The test is usually written, but it could be an interview.
• It checks two things:
  • Knowledge of Canada, and of a citizen’s rights and responsibilities
  • Adequate knowledge of English or French
• Every question is based on the Discover Canada guide. It is the only official study guide.
• Topics you must know: voting procedures, history, symbols, democratic institutions, geography, rights and responsibilities.

After the test

• Pass + meet other requirements → you get a Notice to Appear to Take the Oath of Citizenship (date, time, place of ceremony).
• At the ceremony you:
  • Say the Oath of Citizenship
  • Sign the form for the oath
  • Receive your Canadian Citizenship Certificate
• Fail → you get a notification with next steps.
• Keep the Call Centre updated with your address while your application is processed.

The Oath of Citizenship

• Canadians pledge loyalty to a person, the Sovereign (King or Queen), not to a document, a flag, or a country.
• The Sovereign stands for Canada, and Canada for the Sovereign: each personifies the other.
• Three terms describe Canada: it is a constitutional monarchy, it is a parliamentary democracy, and it is a federal state.

Where Canadian law comes from

• Statutes from Parliament and from the provincial legislatures
• The civil code of France
• English common law
• The unwritten constitution inherited from Great Britain

Magna Carta and habeas corpus

• Magna Carta, signed in England in 1215, also called the Great Charter of Freedoms. It began an 800-year tradition of ordered liberty.
• The four fundamental freedoms:
  • Freedom of conscience and religion
  • Freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including speech and the press
  • Freedom of peaceful assembly
  • Freedom of association
• Habeas corpus lets a person challenge being held unlawfully by the state. It comes from English common law.

The Charter of Rights and Freedoms

• In 1982 the Constitution was changed so that the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms became part of it. Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed the amended Constitution in Ottawa.
• It opens: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.”
• Key Charter rights:
  • Mobility rights: live and work anywhere in Canada, enter and leave freely, apply for a passport
  • Aboriginal peoples’ rights: Charter rights won’t harm treaty or other Aboriginal rights
  • Official language rights and minority language educational rights: English and French have equal status in Parliament and government
  • Multiculturalism: a fundamental characteristic of Canadian heritage and identity

Equality of women and men

• Women and men are equal under the law.
• Violence based on gender is not accepted in Canada. That includes spousal abuse, “honour killings”, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. These crimes are severely punished.

The six citizenship responsibilities

• Obeying the law: rule of law is a founding principle. Nobody, and no group, is above the law.
• Taking responsibility for oneself and one’s family: having a job, looking after your family, working hard.
• Serving on a jury: when called, you are legally required to serve.
• Voting in elections: federal, provincial or territorial, and local.
• Helping others in the community: volunteering.
• Protecting and enjoying our heritage and environment: avoid waste and pollution, protect natural, cultural and architectural heritage.

Defending Canada

• No compulsory military service in Canada.
• You can serve in the regular Canadian Forces (navy, army, air force) or the part-time reserves (navy, militia, air).
• Young people can join the cadets.
• Other options: Coast Guard, police, fire department and other emergency services.

Canada at a glance

• Oldest continuous constitutional tradition in the world.
• The only constitutional monarchy in North America.
• Committed to “Peace, Order and Good Government”, from the British North America Act, 1867.
• Poets and songwriters called Canada the “Great Dominion”.
• Three founding peoples: Aboriginal, French and British.
• John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir), Governor General 1935–40, said immigrant groups should keep their individuality and each contribute to the national character.

Aboriginal peoples

• Ancestors believed to have migrated from Asia thousands of years ago.
• Territorial rights first guaranteed by the Royal Proclamation of 1763 (King George III). Aboriginal and treaty rights are in the Constitution.
• Residential schools (1800s to 1980s) tried to assimilate Aboriginal children. They were poorly funded and some students were abused. The federal government formally apologized in 2008.
• Three distinct groups:
  • First Nations (“Indians”: all Aboriginal people other than Inuit and Métis). Term used since the 1970s. About half live on reserves in about 600 communities.
  • Inuit means “the people” in Inuktitut. They live in small communities across the Arctic.
  • Métis: a distinct people whose ancestry is both Aboriginal and European, mostly in the Prairies (Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta). They speak Michif.
• Share of Aboriginal people: 65% First Nations, 30% Métis, 4% Inuit.

English and French

• English and French are the official languages. The federal government must provide services in both.
• About 18 million Anglophones and 7 million Francophones.
• Most Francophones live in Quebec. About 1 million live in Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba.
• Only one province is officially bilingual: New Brunswick.
• Acadians: descendants of French colonists who settled the Maritimes (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island) from 1604. Between 1755–1763 more than two-thirds were deported. This is called the “Great Upheaval”.
• Quebecers: mostly descendants of 8,500 French settlers (1600s–1700s). In 2006 the House of Commons recognized that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada.
• About 1 million Anglo-Quebecers have a 250-year heritage in Quebec.
• English-speaking life was shaped by English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish settlers. That is why Anglophones are called English Canadians.

Diversity

• Most Canadians have been born in Canada since the 1800s, but Canada is called a land of immigrants.
• Largest groups: English, French, Scottish, Irish, German, Italian, Chinese, Aboriginal, Ukrainian, Dutch, South Asian, Scandinavian.
• Since the 1970s, most immigrants come from Asian countries.
• After English, Chinese languages are spoken at home more than any other in Vancouver (13%) and Toronto (7%).
• Most Canadians are Christian. The largest affiliation is Catholic, then Protestant churches.
• Governments have long worked with faith communities on schools, health care, refugee resettlement and social welfare.
• Gay and lesbian Canadians have full equal protection under the law, including civil marriage.
• From the 1780s on, people of African origin came to Canada: Black Loyalists (who sided with Britain in the American Revolution), people escaping slavery, and freed men and women. Slavery was still legal in the U.S. until 1863.
• Newcomers must not bring violent, extreme or hateful prejudices. They are expected to embrace the rule of law.

Aboriginal ways of life

• Europeans called them “Indians” because they thought they had reached the East Indies.
• Huron-Wendat (Great Lakes) and Iroquois: farmers and hunters.
• Cree and Dene (Northwest): hunter-gatherers.
• Sioux: nomadic, followed the bison (buffalo) herd.
• Inuit: lived off Arctic wildlife.
• West Coast peoples preserved fish by drying and smoking.
• Many died of European diseases. Even so, for the first 200 years Aboriginal people and Europeans built close ties in trade, religion and war.

The first Europeans

• Vikings from Iceland reached Labrador and Newfoundland about 1,000 years ago. Their settlement, L’Anse aux Meadows, is a World Heritage site.
• John Cabot (1497) an Italian who had moved to England, sailed for the English king. He drew the first map of Canada’s Atlantic shore and claimed Newfoundland for England. English settlement there began in 1610.
• Jacques Cartier made three voyages (1534–1542) and claimed the land for France’s King Francis I.
  • No European before him had travelled the St. Lawrence River or seen where Québec City and Montreal now stand.
  • Heard the Iroquoian word “kanata”, meaning “village”. “Canada” appeared on maps by the 1550s.

Royal New France

• 1604: first European settlement north of Florida. Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain started it on St. Croix Island, then moved it to Port-Royal in Acadia (Nova Scotia).
• 1608: Champlain built a fortress at Québec City.
• Champlain allied with the Algonquin, Montagnais and Huron against the Iroquois (confederation of five, later six, nations). Peace came in 1701.
• The fur trade was driven by European demand for beaver pelts.
• Under its leaders Jean Talon (chief administrator), Bishop Laval (first bishop) and Count Frontenac (governor), the French empire in North America reached from the Gulf of Mexico up to Hudson Bay.
• Frontenac (1690) refused to surrender Quebec to the English: “My only reply will be from the mouths of my cannons!”
• Pierre Le Moyne, Sieur d’Iberville: hero of New France who won many victories over the English.

Struggle for a continent

• 1670: King Charles II granted the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC), a British fur-trading company, the sole right to trade in the lands that drain into Hudson Bay.
• French-Canadian fur traders, the voyageurs and coureurs des bois, travelled by canoe and allied with First Nations.
• In the 1700s France and Britain fought for North America.
• 1759: at Québec City, the British won the Battle of the Plains of Abraham against the French. Both commanders, Wolfe and Montcalm, were killed. This ended France’s empire in America.

The Province of Quebec

• After the war the colony was given a new British name: the “Province of Quebec”. French-speaking Catholics were called habitants or Canadiens.
• Quebec Act, 1774, one of Canada’s constitutional foundations:
  • Religious freedom for Catholics, and they could hold public office (not allowed in Britain then)
  • Restored French civil law and kept British criminal law
• Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester), the British governor, defended the Canadiens, defeated an American invasion in 1775 and oversaw the Loyalist migration.

United Empire Loyalists

• 1776: the 13 British colonies to the south declared independence (the American Revolution) and became the United States.
• More than 40,000 Loyalists (loyal to the Crown) moved to Nova Scotia and Quebec.
• Thousands of Loyalist Mohawk came to Canada, led by Joseph Brant.
• About 3,000 Black Loyalists came north. In 1792 some moved on to found Freetown, Sierra Leone.

Beginnings of democracy

• First representative assembly: Halifax, Nova Scotia, 1758. Then Prince Edward Island (P.E.I., 1773) and New Brunswick (1785).
• Constitutional Act, 1791:
  • Split Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario: Loyalist, Protestant, English) and Lower Canada (later Quebec: Catholic, French)
  • First elected legislative assemblies for Upper and Lower Canada
  • The name “Canada” became official
• The Atlantic colonies and the two Canadas together were called British North America.

Abolition of slavery

• 1793: Upper Canada, under Lt. Governor John Graves Simcoe, became the first province of the British Empire to move toward abolishing slavery.
• Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada, founded York (now Toronto).
• 1807: Britain banned buying and selling slaves. 1833: slavery abolished across the Empire.
• Thousands escaped slavery in the U.S. by following “the North Star” along the Underground Railroad, an anti-slavery network run by Christians.
• Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a Black anti-slavery activist, became the first woman publisher in Canada in 1853 with her newspaper, The Provincial Freeman.

A growing economy

• The Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) dominated the northwest fur trade. Its posts became cities: Fort Garry (Winnipeg), Fort Edmonton, Fort Langley (near Vancouver), Fort Victoria.
• 1832: the Montreal Stock Exchange opened.
• For centuries the economy relied on farming and exporting fur, fish and timber.

The War of 1812

• Britain was at war with Napoleon’s France. The U.S. resented British interference with its shipping and invaded Canada in June 1812.
• Canadian volunteers and First Nations, including the Shawnee led by Chief Tecumseh, helped British soldiers.
• Major-General Sir Isaac Brock captured Detroit, then was killed at Queenston Heights (a battle the Americans lost).
• 1813: Charles de Salaberry and 460 soldiers, mostly Canadiens (French Canadians), turned back 4,000 Americans at Châteauguay.
• 1813: in York (Toronto), American forces set fire to Government House and the Parliament Buildings.
• 1814: Major-General Robert Ross burned the White House in Washington in retaliation.
• Laura Secord (1813) walked 30 km (19 miles) to warn British Lt. James FitzGibbon of an American attack, helping win the Battle of Beaver Dams.
• By 1814 the invasion had failed. The war ensured Canada stayed independent of the U.S. and partly set today’s border.
• Defences built afterwards: Citadels at Halifax and Québec City, Halifax naval drydock, Fort Henry at Kingston.
• The Duke of Wellington, a famous British general, chose Bytown (Ottawa) as the end of the Rideau Canal, so he helped found the capital.

Rebellions and responsible government

• 1837–38: armed rebellions near Montreal and in Toronto, by people who wanted faster democratic reform. They failed for lack of public support.
• Lord Durham, sent from Britain to report on the rebellions, recommended merging Upper and Lower Canada and giving them responsible government. He also wrongly said Canadiens should assimilate into English Protestant culture.
• 1840: Upper and Lower Canada united as the Province of Canada.
• Reformers: Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine in the Canadas, Joseph Howe in Nova Scotia.
• Responsible government: ministers need the support of a majority of elected representatives. If the government loses a confidence vote, it must resign.
• First colony with full responsible government: Nova Scotia, 1847–48.
• 1848–49: Governor General Lord Elgin brought it to the Province of Canada. La Fontaine was the first leader of a responsible government (a role like prime minister) in 1849.

Confederation

• 1864–1867: the Fathers of Confederation built a new country. They came from the Province of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.
• The new country had two levels of government: federal and provincial. Province of Canada was split into Ontario and Quebec.
• The British North America Act, 1867 was passed by the British Parliament.
• Dominion of Canada born July 1, 1867: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick.
• July 1 was “Dominion Day” until 1982. Now Canada Day.
• Sir Leonard Tilley (New Brunswick) suggested the name “Dominion of Canada” in 1864, inspired by Psalm 72: “dominion from sea to sea”.

Leaders of Confederation

• Sir John A. Macdonald: first Prime Minister (1867). Born in Scotland on January 11, 1815, lawyer in Kingston. January 11 is Sir John A. Macdonald Day. He appears on the $10 bill.
• Sir George-Étienne Cartier: key architect of Confederation from Quebec. Railway lawyer from Montreal who helped bring the Northwest Territories, Manitoba and British Columbia into Canada.
• Other Fathers: Sir Étienne-Paschal Taché, Tilley.

Expansion of the Dominion

Challenge in the West: Louis Riel

• 1869: Canada took over the huge northwest region from the Hudson’s Bay Company without consulting the 12,000 Métis of Red River (today’s Winnipeg area) who lived there.
• Louis Riel, a Métis leader, led an uprising and seized Fort Garry (now Winnipeg). The federal government sent soldiers to retake it in 1870. Riel fled to the U.S. and Canada created Manitoba.
• Voters elected Riel to Parliament, but he never sat as an MP.
• 1885: Riel led a second rebellion, in present-day Saskatchewan. It failed, and he was executed for high treason, which was strongly opposed in Quebec.
• Many see Riel as a hero, defender of Métis rights and father of Manitoba.
• The greatest military leader of the Métis was Gabriel Dumont.

The Mounties

• In 1873 Macdonald set up the North West Mounted Police (NWMP) to bring order to the West and to help in talks with First Nations.
• NWMP founded Fort Calgary, Fort MacLeod and others. Headquarters: Regina.
• Today they are the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), the national police force and a famous symbol. A famous Mountie hero: Sir Sam Steele.

A railway from sea to sea

• British Columbia joined in 1871 because the federal government promised a railway to the West Coast.
• November 7, 1885: Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona), a railway director, drove the last spike of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), completing it, a symbol of unity.
• Financed by British and American investors, built by European and Chinese labour.
• Afterwards, Chinese immigrants had to pay the Head Tax, an entry fee charged only to them, because of their race. Canada apologized in 2006.

Moving westward

• Boom in the 1890s–early 1900s: 1 million British and 1 million Americans immigrated.
• Sir Wilfrid Laurier: first French-Canadian Prime Minister since Confederation. Encouraged settlement of the West. On the $5 bill.
• Before 1914 the West was settled by 170,000 Ukrainians, 115,000 Poles and many Germans, French, Norwegians and Swedes.

South African (Boer) War

• 1899–1902: over 7,000 Canadians volunteered to fight for the British Empire in South Africa, against the Boers (settlers of Dutch descent). Over 260 died.
• 1900: victories at Paardeberg (“Horse Mountain”) and Lillefontein boosted national pride.

First World War (1914–1918)

• The Canadian Expeditionary Force was raised by the federal government. It was later called the Canadian Corps.
• More than 600,000 served out of a population of 8 million, mostly volunteers.
• 1914–1920: more than 8,000 people who had come from Austria-Hungary (an enemy country in the war), most of them Ukrainian men, were held as “enemy aliens” in 24 labour camps.
• Vimy Ridge, April 9, 1917: Canadians captured it with 10,000 killed or wounded. This earned them the name “shock troops of the British Empire”. April 9 is Vimy Day.
• Sir Arthur Currie, a reserve officer who commanded the Canadian Corps, was Canada’s greatest soldier.
• Battle of Amiens, August 8, 1918: “the black day of the German Army”. Canadians then won more battles at Arras, Canal du Nord, Cambrai and Mons.
• The war ended with the Armistice (agreement to stop fighting) on November 11, 1918. 60,000 Canadians killed, 170,000 wounded.
• The Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps had over 3,000 nurses, nicknamed the “Bluebirds”.
• Canadian soldiers have worn the maple leaf on their uniforms since the 1850s.

Women get the vote

• At Confederation only property-owning adult white males could vote.
• Dr. Emily Stowe: founder of the women’s suffrage movement and first woman to practise medicine in Canada.
• 1916: Manitoba was the first province to give women the vote.
• 1917: PM Sir Robert Borden gave the federal vote first to nurses at the front, then to women related to men in active service.
• 1918: most women 21 and over could vote federally.
• 1921: the first woman MP was Agnes Macphail, who farmed and taught school.
• 1940: Quebec gave women the vote, thanks to Thérèse Casgrain and others.

Remembrance Day

• November 11. Canadians wear the red poppy and fall silent for a moment at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
• Honours over 1 million who served and the 110,000 who died in all wars.
• Lt.-Col. John McCrae, a medical officer, wrote “In Flanders Fields” in 1915.

Between the wars

• After the First World War the British Empire became the British Commonwealth of Nations. Canada is still a leading member.
• “Roaring Twenties”: boom times. The 1929 stock market crash led to the Great Depression (“Dirty Thirties”).
• Unemployment hit 27% in 1933. Drought and low grain prices made things worst for farmers in the West.
• 1934: Bank of Canada created to manage the money supply and stabilize the financial system.
• Canada turned refugees away, including Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939.

Second World War (1939–1945)

• Began in 1939 when Hitler invaded Poland.
• More than 1 million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served out of 11.5 million. 44,000 were killed.
• Heavy Canadian losses at Hong Kong (1941, against Japan) and in the Dieppe raid (1942, on the coast of France).
• The Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) fought in the Battle of Britain. Canada trained over 130,000 Allied air crew under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
• Royal Canadian Navy’s finest hour: the Battle of the Atlantic, protecting convoys of supply ships sailing to Britain from German submarines. By war’s end Canada had the third-largest navy in the world.
• Canadians helped liberate Italy (1943–44).
• D-Day, June 6, 1944, the Allied landing in Normandy, France: 15,000 Canadian troops captured Juno Beach. About 1 in 10 Allied soldiers on D-Day was Canadian.
• Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands (1944–45). Germany surrendered May 8, 1945.
• Japan attacked the Aleutian Islands (Alaska) and a lighthouse on Vancouver Island, and mistreated Canadian prisoners of war. Japan surrendered August 14, 1945.
• During the war the government forcibly moved Japanese Canadians from their homes and sold their property. Canada apologized and paid compensation in 1988.

Trade and prosperity

• Postwar trade opened up through GATT (the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade), which later became the World Trade Organization (WTO).
• 1947: oil discovered in Alberta, the start of the modern energy industry.
• 1951: for the first time, most Canadians could afford adequate food, shelter and clothing.

Social programs

International engagement

• Cold War: Canada joined NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance of Western democracies) and, with the U.S., NORAD (North American Aerospace Defence Command, a shared air-defence system).
• Joined the United Nations and took part in the UN operation that defended South Korea, the Korean War (1950–53): 500 Canadians dead, 1,000 wounded.
• UN peacekeeping in Egypt, Cyprus and Haiti. Other operations in the former Yugoslavia and Afghanistan.

Canada and Quebec

• 1960s: Quebec went through fast social and political change, called the Quiet Revolution. Many Québécois began to want Quebec to separate from Canada.
• 1963: Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, which led to the Official Languages Act (1969).
• 1970: Canada helped found La Francophonie, the association of French-speaking countries.
• Quebecers voted against sovereignty (separating from Canada) in referendums in 1980 and 1995.
• 1982: the Constitution was amended without Quebec’s agreement.

A changing society

• 1948: Japanese Canadians, the last Asian group denied the vote, could vote.
• 1960: Aboriginal people got the vote. Today every citizen 18+ can vote.
• Refugees: about 37,000 Hungarians (1956), over 50,000 Vietnamese (after 1975).
• By the 1960s one-third of Canadians were neither British nor French in origin.

Arts and culture

Sports

• 1891: Canadian James Naismith invented basketball.
• Donovan Bailey: world-record sprinter, double Olympic gold (1996).
• Chantal Petitclerc: world champion wheelchair racer, Paralympic gold.
• Wayne Gretzky: one of the greatest hockey players ever, with the Edmonton Oilers 1979–88.
• Terry Fox (1980): lost a leg to cancer at 18, ran the “Marathon of Hope” for cancer research.
• Rick Hansen (1985): wheeled around the world for spinal cord research.
• Paul Henderson (1972): winning goal of the Canada–Soviet hockey Summit Series, “the goal heard around the world”.
• Grey Cup: Canadian Football League championship, donated by Governor General Lord Grey in 1909.

Science and inventions

• Pioneer thinkers: Marshall McLuhan and Harold Innis.
• Canadian Space Agency astronauts have joined space missions since 1989.
• Nobel Prize scientists: Gerhard Herzberg (who fled Nazi Germany), John Polanyi, Sidney Altman, Richard E. Taylor, Michael Smith, Bertram Brockhouse.

Federal state

• Levels: federal, provincial, territorial and municipal.
• Federal and provincial powers were set in 1867 by the British North America (BNA) Act, now the Constitution Act, 1867.
• Federalism lets provinces tailor policies and try new ideas.
• Each province has an elected Legislative Assembly. The 3 territories are not provinces but their assemblies do many of the same things.

Parliamentary democracy

• Voters choose their members of the House of Commons (Ottawa) and of the provincial and territorial legislatures.
• These elected members pass laws, approve and monitor spending, and keep the government accountable.
• Cabinet ministers must keep the “confidence of the House” (the support of most MPs) and resign if they lose a non-confidence vote.
• Parliament has three parts: the Sovereign, the Senate and the House of Commons.
• A provincial legislature = the Lieutenant Governor + the elected Assembly.
• The Prime Minister picks Cabinet ministers and runs government operations and policy.
• Members of Parliament (MPs), who sit in the House of Commons, are elected, by tradition once every four years.
• Senators are not elected. The Governor General appoints them on the PM’s advice, and they serve until age 75.
• A bill becomes law only after passing both chambers and receiving Royal Assent (formal approval) from the Governor General.

How a bill becomes law

Constitutional monarchy

• Head of State: the hereditary Sovereign (King or Queen). Non-partisan, focus of citizenship and allegiance, symbol of sovereignty.
• Head of Government: the Prime Minister, the person who really runs the government.
• The Sovereign is also Head of the Commonwealth, which ties Canada to 53 other nations.
• Other constitutional monarchies: Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, Spain, Thailand, Japan, Jordan, Morocco.

• Elected provincial members are called MLAs (Members of the Legislative Assembly), MNAs (Members of the National Assembly, Quebec), MPPs (Members of Provincial Parliament, Ontario) or MHAs (Members of the House of Assembly, Newfoundland and Labrador), depending on the province.

Three branches of government

Basics

• A federal election must be held every four years, on the third Monday in October. The PM may ask the Governor General to call one earlier.
• Canada is divided into electoral districts, called ridings or constituencies. Each elects one MP.
• Any citizen 18 or older may run. People who run are candidates. The one with the most votes becomes the MP.

Who can vote

• A Canadian citizen
• Aged 18 or older on voting day
• On the voters’ list

• Voters’ lists come from the National Register of Electors, kept by Elections Canada, a neutral agency of Parliament.
• You can get on the list whenever you like, even on election day.
• Secret ballot: no one, including family, employer or union, can insist you tell them how you voted.

Voting step by step

After an election

• The Governor General asks the leader of the party with the most seats to form the government. That leader becomes Prime Minister.
• Majority government: at least half the seats. Minority government: fewer than half.
• The government rules while it has the confidence of most MPs. Losing a vote on a major issue like the budget usually leads to an election.
• Cabinet = PM + ministers (mostly MPs). They run departments, draw up the budget and put forward most new laws.
• Parties not in power are the opposition. The largest one is called the Official Opposition, or Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. Its job is to challenge what the government proposes, or to try to improve it, by peaceful means.
• The three major federal parties: Conservative, New Democratic and Liberal.

Other levels of government

• Municipal councils pass by-laws. Led by a mayor (or reeve) with councillors or aldermen.
• Municipalities handle planning, streets, sanitation (garbage), snow removal, firefighting, ambulance, recreation, public transit, some local health and social services. Most big cities have their own police.
• Provincial, territorial and municipal elections also use a secret ballot, but their rules differ.
• First Nations have band chiefs and councillors responsible for housing, schools and other services on reserves.

Principles

• Due process: the government has to respect every legal right a person has.
• Presumption of innocence: innocent until proven guilty.
• Its foundations: democratic principles, the rule of law and freedom under the law.
• The law applies to everyone. Police, politicians and judges are not above it.
• Laws are made by elected representatives. Courts settle disputes and police enforce the laws.
• The blindfolded Lady Justice stands for impartiality.

Courts

• Supreme Court of Canada: the highest court.
• Federal Court of Canada: matters concerning the federal government.
• Most provinces have a trial court and an appeal court. The trial court may be named the Court of Queen’s Bench or the Supreme Court.
• Provincial courts for lesser offences, plus family, traffic and small claims courts (civil cases for small sums).

Police and legal help

• Ontario and Quebec have their own provincial police. All provinces have municipal police.
• The RCMP enforce federal laws everywhere and also serve as the provincial police everywhere except Ontario and Quebec.
• You may question the police about how they serve or behave.
• Can’t afford a lawyer? Legal aid is available free or at low cost in most communities.

The Crown

• The Crown has symbolized the state in Canada for 400 years.
• Since 1867, in Queen Victoria’s reign, Canada has been a constitutional monarchy in its own right.
• Queen Elizabeth II was Queen from 1952: Golden Jubilee 2002, Diamond Jubilee (60 years) 2012.
• The Crown symbolizes government: Parliament, legislatures, courts, police and the Canadian Forces.

Flags

• Today’s flag was first raised in 1965.
• The red-white-red pattern was taken from the flag of the Royal Military College in Kingston (founded 1876).
• Red and white became Canada’s national colours in 1921, assigned by King George V.
• The Union Jack is the official Royal Flag.
• The Canadian Red Ensign (a red flag with the Union Jack in the corner) was the flag for about 100 years. Veterans have officially carried it since 2005.

Maple leaf, fleur-de-lys, beaver

• Maple leaf: best-known symbol. Adopted by French Canadians in the 1700s, on uniforms since the 1850s, carved on soldiers’ headstones.
• Fleur-de-lys (lily flower): adopted by the French king in 496. Quebec’s flag (1948) combines a cross with the fleur-de-lys.
• Beaver: symbol of the Hudson’s Bay Company, then of the St. Jean Baptiste Society (a French-Canadian patriotic group, 1834). It appears on the five-cent coin and on the coats of arms of Saskatchewan, Alberta, Montreal and Toronto.

Coat of arms and motto

• Adopted after the First World War.
• Motto A mari usque ad mare = Latin for “from sea to sea”.
• Contains symbols of England, France, Scotland and Ireland plus red maple leaves. It appears on public buildings, government documents and dollar bills.

Parliament Buildings

• Gothic Revival style, completed in the 1860s. They reflect French, English and Aboriginal traditions.
• Centre Block burned in 1916 and was rebuilt in 1922. Only the Library survives from the original building.
• Peace Tower completed 1927 in memory of WWI. Its Memorial Chamber holds the Books of Remembrance with names of those who died serving Canada.
• The Quebec National Assembly is French Second Empire style. Other legislatures are Baroque, Romanesque and neoclassical.

Sports

• Hockey: most popular spectator sport and national winter sport, developed in Canada in the 1800s.
• Stanley Cup (National Hockey League championship): donated by Governor General Lord Stanley, 1892.
• Clarkson Cup (women’s hockey, 2005): from Adrienne Clarkson, the 26th Governor General, who was the first of Asian origin.
• Canadian football: second most popular sport.
• Curling: brought by Scottish pioneers.
• Lacrosse: ancient Aboriginal sport, the official summer sport.
• Soccer: most registered players.

Official languages

• For over 300 years English and French speakers have lived side by side, as partners and sometimes in tension.
• Official Languages Act, 1969. Its three objectives:
  • French and English are equal in Parliament, in the Government of Canada and in institutions covered by the Act
  • Maintain and develop official language minority communities
  • Promote the equal standing of the two languages in Canadian society

Anthems

• O Canada proclaimed national anthem in 1980. It was sung for the first time in Québec City, in 1880. The French and English versions use different words.
• Royal Anthem: “God Save the Queen (or King)”, sung to honour the Sovereign.

Honours

• Canada’s own honours system started with the Order of Canada in 1967, Confederation’s centennial.
• The highest honour is the Victoria Cross (V.C.), given for outstanding bravery when facing the enemy. Awarded to 96 Canadians since 1854.

National holidays and important dates

• Other icons: the RCMP Musical Ride, and the Snowbirds (431 Air Demonstration Squadron, the air force’s aerobatic flying team).

A trading nation

• Canada has always been a trading nation. Trade drives economic growth.
• 1988: free trade with the United States. 1994: Mexico joined in the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (444 million people, over $1 trillion in trade in 2008).
• Canada’s economy is among the world’s ten largest. Member of the G8, a group of leading economies: U.S., Germany, U.K., Italy, France, Japan, Russia and Canada.

Three main types of industry

• Service industries: transport, education, health, construction, banking, retail, tourism, government. Over 75% of working Canadians.
• Manufacturing: paper, high-tech equipment, aerospace, cars, machinery, food, clothing.
• Natural resources: forestry, fishing, agriculture, mining, energy. A large share of exports.

Canada and the U.S.

• Canada and the U.S. are each other’s largest trading partner. More than three-quarters of what Canada exports goes to the U.S.
• No two countries in the world trade more with each other.
• Known as “the world’s longest undefended border”.
• The Peace Arch, on the border at Blaine, Washington, reads “children of a common mother” and “brethren dwelling together in unity”.

Big picture

• Second largest country on earth: 10 million km².
• Three oceans: Pacific (west), Atlantic (east), Arctic (north). The U.S. border runs along the south.
• 10 provinces and 3 territories in 5 regions.
• Population about 34 million. Most live in cities.
• Ottawa, on the Ottawa River, was chosen as capital in 1857 by Queen Victoria. It is the 4th largest metropolitan area. The National Capital Region covers 4,700 km².

Provinces, territories and capitals

Atlantic provinces

Fishing, farming, forestry, mining. Cool winters, cool humid summers.

• Newfoundland and Labrador: most easterly point in North America, its own time zone, oldest colony of the British Empire. Fisheries, offshore oil and gas, Labrador hydro power.
• Prince Edward Island: smallest province. Beaches, red soil, potatoes. Birthplace of Confederation. Linked to New Brunswick by the Confederation Bridge (almost 13 km, longest bridge over water that freezes). Setting of Anne of Green Gables (Lucy Maud Montgomery).
• Nova Scotia: most populous Atlantic province, “gateway to Canada”. The Bay of Fundy has the highest tides in the world. Halifax is the largest east coast port and home of Canada’s largest naval base. Celtic and Gaelic culture, 700+ festivals.
• New Brunswick: in the Appalachians, founded by United Empire Loyalists. St. John River system (2nd largest on North America’s Atlantic coast). Saint John = largest city, Moncton = Acadian centre, Fredericton = capital. Only officially bilingual province, about one-third French-speaking.

Central Canada

More than half of Canadians live near the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence. Ontario + Quebec make over three-quarters of manufactured goods.

• Quebec: about 8 million people, mostly along the St. Lawrence. Over three-quarters French first language.
  • Resources from the Canadian Shield (a vast region of ancient rock): forestry, energy, mining
  • Main producer of pulp and paper and largest producer of hydro-electricity
  • Leaders in pharmaceuticals and aeronautics
  • Montreal: Canada’s second largest city. Among mainly French-speaking cities worldwide, only Paris is bigger
• Ontario: over 12 million, more than one-third of Canadians.
  • Toronto: largest city and main financial centre
  • Niagara: vineyards, wines, fruit
  • Founded by United Empire Loyalists. Largest French-speaking population outside Quebec
  • Five Great Lakes: Ontario, Erie, Huron, Michigan (in the U.S.), Superior (largest freshwater lake in the world)

Prairie provinces

Energy resources and some of the world’s most fertile farmland. Dry, cold winters, hot summers.

• Manitoba: agriculture, mining, hydro-electric power. Winnipeg’s Portage and Main is Canada’s most famous intersection. St. Boniface has the West’s largest Francophone community (45,000). 14% Ukrainian origins. Largest Aboriginal population of any province (over 15%).
• Saskatchewan: “breadbasket of the world”, “wheat province”. 40% of Canada’s arable land, largest grain and oilseed producer. World’s richest uranium and potash. Regina has the RCMP training academy. Saskatoon is the largest city.
• Alberta: most populous Prairie province. Named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta, Queen Victoria’s fourth daughter (so is Lake Louise). Five national parks incl. Banff (1885). Badlands dinosaur fossils. Largest producer of oil and gas (oil sands). Major beef producer.

West Coast

• British Columbia: westernmost province, about 4 million people, mild coastal climate.
  • Port of Vancouver: Canada’s largest and busiest, gateway to Asia-Pacific
  • About half of what it produces is forestry products. No province has a more valuable forestry industry
  • Mining, fishing, Okanagan Valley orchards and wine
  • Most extensive park system: about 600 provincial parks
  • Chinese and Punjabi are the most spoken languages after English in its cities
  • Victoria: capital, tourist centre, HQ of the navy’s Pacific fleet

Northern territories

• One-third of Canada’s land but only about 100,000 people. Gold, lead, copper, diamond and zinc mines.
• “Land of the Midnight Sun”: up to 24 hours of daylight in summer, about 3 months of darkness in winter.
• Much of it is tundra: rocky Arctic plain, no trees, permanently frozen soil.
• Yukon: Gold Rush of the 1890s (poetry of Robert W. Service). White Pass and Yukon Railway (1900). Coldest temperature recorded in Canada: −63°C. Mount Logan, Canada’s highest mountain, is here.
• Northwest Territories: formed in 1870 from Rupert’s Land (the former Hudson’s Bay Company lands) and the North-Western Territory. Yellowknife = “diamond capital of North America”. Over half the population is Aboriginal. The Mackenzie River (4,200 km) is North America’s second-longest river system.
• Nunavut: means “our land” in Inuktitut. Created in 1999 from the eastern N.W.T. Capital Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay). 19-member assembly chooses premier and ministers by consensus. About 85% Inuit.
• Canadian Rangers: they belong to the Canadian Forces Reserves. They patrol the Arctic by snowmobile and ATV and keep the flag flying in the North.