Canada
This article is licensed under theGNU Free Documentation License.It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Canada" (click for full Wikipedia text) 'Canada ' (International Phonetic Alphabet in English language and in French language) is the world's List of countries by area country by total area, occupying most of northern North America. Extending from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, Canada shares land borders with the United States to the south and to the northwest. Inhabited first by Aboriginal peoples in Canada, Canada was founded as a union of British overseas territories, some of which had been French colonial empires. Canada gained independence from the United Kingdom in an incremental process that began in Constitution Act, 1867 and ended in Canada Act 1982. Canada is a federation constitutional monarchy and Parliamentary system, consisting of ten Provinces and territories of Canada and three Provinces and territories of Canada#Territories of Canada, and defines itself as a Bilingualism in Canada and multiculturalism nation; both Canadian English and French in Canada are official languages. A technologically advanced and industrialized nation, its diversified Economy of Canada relies heavily on an abundance of natural resources and on trade, particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a Canada-United States relations.
Origin and history of the name
The name
Canada comes from a First Nations word meaning "village" or "settlement". In 1535, inhabitants of the area near present-day Quebec City used the word to tell Jacques Cartier the way to the village of Stadacona.
Cartier used the word 'Canada' to refer to not only that village, but the entire area subject to Donnacona, Chief at Stadacona; by 1547, maps began referring to this and the surrounding area as Canada. The French colony of Canada, New France, New France, was set up along the Saint Lawrence River and the northern shores of the Great Lakes. Later, it was split into two British colonies, called Upper Canada and Lower Canada until their union as the British Province of Canada in 1841. Upon Canadian Confederation in 1867, the name Canada was officially adopted for the new dominion, which was referred to as the
Dominion of Canada until the 1950s. As Canada increasingly acquired political authority and autonomy from United Kingdom, the federal government increasingly used simply
Canada on state documents and treaties. The Canada Act 1982 refers only to
Canada and, as such, is currently the only legal (and bilingual) name. This was reflected again in 1982 with the renaming of the national holiday from Dominion Day to Canada Day.
History
Although Aboriginal tradition holds that the Aboriginal peoples in Canada inhabited parts of Canada since the dawn of time, archaeological studies date human presence in northern Yukon to 26,000 years ago, and in southern Ontario to 9,500 years ago.
Europeans first arrived when the Vikings settled briefly at L'Anse aux Meadows circa AD 1000. The next Europeans to explore Canada's Atlantic coast included John Cabot in 1497 and Martin Frobisher in 1576, for Kingdom of England; and Jacques Cartier in 1534 and Samuel de Champlain in 1603, for France. The first permanent European settlements were established by the French at Port Royal, Nova Scotia in 1605 and Quebec City in 1608, and by the English in Newfoundland, around 1610. European explorers and trappers brought European diseases that spread rapidly through native trade routes and decimated the Aboriginal population. For much of the 17th century, the English and French colonies in North America were able to develop in relative isolation from each other. French colonists extensively settled the St. Lawrence River valley, while English colonists largely settled in the Thirteen Colonies to the south. However, as competition for territory, naval bases, furs and fish escalated, several wars broke out between the French, Kingdom of England and Native tribes. The French and Iroquois Wars erupted between the Iroquois and the Algonquin, with their French allies, over control of the fur trade. A series of four French and Indian Wars were fought between 1689 and 1763; these culminated with a complete British victory in the Seven Years' War. By the terms of Treaty of Paris (1763) in 1763, Britain gained control of all of France's North American territory east of the Mississippi River, except for the remote islands of St. Pierre and Miquelon. Following the war, the British found themselves in possession of a mostly French-speaking, Roman Catholic territory, whose inhabitants had recently taken up arms against Britain. To avert conflict, Britain passed the Quebec Act of 1774, re-establishing the French language, Catholic faith, and French civil law in Quebec. The act had unforseen consequences for Britain, however, as it angered many residents of the Thirteen Colonies, helping to fuel the American Revolution.
Following the independence of the United States, approximately 50,000 United Empire Loyalists moved to Province of Quebec (1763-1791), Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.
As they were unwelcome in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick was carved out of that colony for them in 1784. To accommodate the English-speaking Loyalists in Quebec, the province was divided into francophone Lower Canada and anglophone Upper Canada under the Constitutional Act in 1791. Canada was a major front in the War of 1812 between the United States and British Empire and its successful defence had important long-term War of 1812#Effects on British North America, including the building of a sense of unity and nationalism among British North Americans. Large-scale immigration to Canada began in 1815 from Britain and Ireland. A series of agreements led to long-term peace between Canada and the United States, interrupted only briefly by raids made by political insurgents such as the Hunters' Lodges and the Fenian Brotherhood. Following the failed Rebellions of 1837, which demanded responsible government, colonial officials studied the political situation and issued the Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839) in 1839. One goal—which proved unacceptable for the alliance of anglophone and francophone reformers that had rebelled in 1837-was to assimilate the French Canadians into British culture.
The Canadas were merged into a single, quasi-federal colony, the United Province of Canada, with the Act of Union (1840). The signing of the Oregon Treaty by Britain and the United States in 1846 ended the Oregon boundary dispute, extending the border westward along the 49th parallel north and ending joint occupation of the Oregon Country/Columbia District. This led to the creation of the colony of Colony of Vancouver Island in 1849 and, with the outbreak of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush, the colony of Colony of British Columbia in 1858, but both were entirely separate from the United Province of Canada. By the late 1850s, leaders in Canada launched a series of western exploratory expeditions, with the intention of assuming control of Rupert's Land and the Arctic region. The Canadian population grew rapidly due to high birth rates; high European immigration was offset by emigration to the United States, especially by French Canadians moving to New England. Following the Great Coalition, the Charlottetown Conference the Quebec Conference, 1864 of 1864, and the London Conference of 1866 of 1866, the three colonies—Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—undertook the process of Canadian Confederation. The Constitution Act, 1867 created "one dominion under the name of Canada's name#Adoption of Dominion", with four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.
After Canada assumed control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory, which together formed the Northwest Territories in 1870, inattention to the Métis people (Canada) led to the Red River Rebellion and ultimately to the creation of the province of Manitoba and its entry into Confederation in July 1870. British Columbia and Vancouver Island (which had United Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia in 1866) and the colony of Prince Edward Island joined the Confederation in 1871 and 1873, respectively. To connect the union and assert authority over the western provinces, Canada constructed three trans-continental railways, most notably the Canadian Pacific Railway, encouraged immigrants to develop the prairies with the Dominion Lands Act, and established the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. As settlers went to the prairies on the railway and the population grew, regions of the Northwest Territories were given provincial status forming Alberta and Saskatchewan in 1905. Canada automatically entered the First World War in 1914 with Britain's declaration of war, and sent formed divisions, composed almost entirely of volunteers, to the Western Front to fight as a national contingent. Casualties were so high that Prime Minister Robert Borden was forced to bring in Conscription Crisis of 1917 in 1917; this move was extremely unpopular in Quebec, resulting in his Conservative party losing support in that province. Although the Liberals were deeply divided over conscription, they became the dominant political party. In 1919, Canada joined the League of Nations in its own right, and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster 1931 confirmed that no act of the British Parliament would extend to Canada without its consent. At the same time, the worldwide Great Depression of 1929 affected Canadians of every class; the rise of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Alberta and Saskatchewan presaged a welfare state as pioneered by Tommy Douglas in the 1940s and 1950s. After supporting appeasement of Germany in the late 1930s, Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King secured Parliament’s approval for Military history of Canada during World War II in 1939, mobilizing the military before Germany invaded Poland.
The economy boomed during the war mainly due to the amount of military materiel being produced for Canada, Britain, China and the Soviet Union. Canada finished the war with one of the largest militaries in the world.
In 1949, the formerly independent Dominion of Newfoundland joined the Confederation as Canada's 10th province. By Canada's centennial in 1967, heavy post-war immigration from various war-ravaged European countries had changed the country's demographics.
In addition, throughout the Vietnam War, thousands of American draft dodgers fled to and settled in various parts of Canada.
Increased immigration, combined with the baby boom, an economic strength parallelling that of the 1960s United States, and reaction to the Quiet Revolution in Quebec, initiated a new type of Canadian nationalism. At a meeting of First Ministers in November 1981, the federal and provincial governments agreed to the patriation of the constitution, with Amendments to the Constitution of Canada. Despite the fact that the Quebec government did not agree to the changes, on 17 April, 1982, Canada, by Proclamation of Queen Elizabeth II, patriated its Constitution from Britain, thereby making Canada wholly sovereign, though the two countries continue to share the same monarch. After Quebec underwent profound social and economic changes during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, some Québécois began pressing for greater provincial autonomy, or partial or complete independence from Canada. Alienation between English-speaking Canadians and the Québécois over the language, cultural and social divide had been exacerbated by many events, including the Conscription Crisis of 1944. While a referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980 Quebec referendum was rejected by a solid majority of the population, a second referendum in 1995 Quebec referendum was rejected by a margin of just 50.6% to 49.4%.
In 1997, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled Reference re Secession of Quebec; Quebec's sovereignty movement has continued nonetheless.
Economic integration with the United States has increased significantly since World War II. The Canada-United States Free Trade Agreement of 1987 was a defining moment in integrating the two countries. In recent decades, Canadians have worried about their cultural autonomy as American television shows, movies and corporations became omnipresent.
However, Canadians take special pride in their Health care in Canada and their commitment to multiculturalism.
Government
Canada is a constitutional monarchy with Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen of Canada as head of state
, and a parliamentary democracy with a federation of Parliament and strong democratic traditions. Constitution of Canada governs the legal framework of the country and consists of written text and unwritten traditions and conventions.
The Constitution includes the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees basic rights and freedoms for Canadians that, generally, cannot be overridden by legislation of any level of government in Canada. It contains, however, a "Section Thirty-three of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms", which allows the federal parliament and the provincial legislatures the power to override some other sections of the Charter temporarily, for a period of five years. The position of Prime Minister of Canada, Canada's head of government, belongs to the leader of the political party that can obtain the confidence of a majority in the Canadian House of Commons. The Prime Minister and his or her cabinet are formally appointed by the Governor General (who is the queen's representative in Canada.) However, the Prime Minister chooses the cabinet, and by convention, the Governor General respects the Prime Minister's choices. The Cabinet of Canada is traditionally drawn from members of the Prime Minister's party in both legislative houses, and mostly from the House of Commons. Executive power is exercised by the prime minister and cabinet, all of whom are sworn into the Privy Council of Canada and become Ministers of the Crown. The Prime Minister exercises a lot of political power, especially in the appointment of other officials within the government and civil service. Stephen Harper, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, has served as Prime Minister since February 6, 2006. The Parliament of Canada is made up of the Queen and two houses: an elected House of Commons and an appointed Canadian Senate. Each member in the House of Commons is elected by plurality electoral system in a electoral district (Canada); general elections are called by the Governor General when the Prime Minister so advises. While there is no minimum term for a Parliament, a new election must be called within five years of the last general election. Members of the Senate, whose seats are apportioned on a regional basis, are chosen by the Prime Minister and formally appointed by the Governor General, and serve until age 75. Canada's four major political parties are the Conservative Party of Canada, Liberal Party of Canada, New Democratic Party (NDP), and the Bloc Québécois. The current government is formed by the Conservative Party of Canada. While the Green Party of Canada and other smaller parties do not have current representation in Parliament, the list of List of political parties in Canada#Historical parties that have won seats in Parliament is substantial.
Law
Canada's judiciary plays an important role in interpreting laws and has the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court and final arbiter and is led by the Right Honourable Madam Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, P.C. Its nine members are appointed by the Governor General of Canada on the advice of the Prime Minister. All judges at the superior and appellate levels are appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the prime minister and minister of justice, after consultation with non-governmental legal bodies. The federal cabinet appoints justices to superior courts at the provincial and territorial levels. Judicial posts at the lower provincial and territorial levels are filled by their respective governments (see Court system of Canada for more detail). Common law prevails everywhere except in Quebec, where civil law (legal system) predominates. Criminal law in Canada is solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada. Law enforcement, including criminal courts, is a provincial responsibility, but in most provinces policing is contracted to the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP).
Foreign relations and military
Canada has a close U.S.-Canada relations, sharing the world's longest undefended border, co-operating on some military campaigns and exercises, and being each other's largest trading partners. Canada also shares history and long relationships with the United Kingdom and France, the two imperial powers most important in its founding. These relations extend to other former-members of the British and French empires, through Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and La Francophonie. Over the past 60 years, Canada has been an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to resolve global issues in collaboration with other nations.
[ ] This was clearly demonstrated during the Suez Crisis of 1956 when Lester B. Pearson eased tensions by proposing peacekeeping efforts and the inception of the UN peacekeeping.
In that spirit, Canada developed and has tried to maintain a leading role in UN peacekeeping efforts; Canada has served in 50 peacekeeping missions, including every UN peacekeeping effort until 1989.
Canada's UN peacekeeping contributions have diminished over the first years of the 21st century. A founding member of the NATO (NATO), Canada currently employs about 62,000 regular and 26,000 reserve military personnel.
The unified Canadian Armed Forces (CF) comprise the Canadian Forces Land Force Command, Canadian Forces Maritime Command, and Canadian Forces Air Command. Major CF equipment deployed includes 1,400 armoured fighting vehicles, 34 combat vessels, and 861 aircraft.
In addition to major participation in the Second Boer War, the First World War, the Second World War, and the Korean War, Canada has maintained forces in international missions under the United Nations and NATO since 1950, including peacekeeping missions, various missions in the former Yugoslavia, and support to coalition forces in the First Gulf War. Since 2001, Canada has had troops deployed in Afghanistan as part of the United States invasion of Afghanistan and the UN-authorized, NATO-commanded International Security Assistance Force. Canada's Disaster Assistance Response Team (DART) has participated in three major relief efforts in the past two years; the two-hundred member team has been deployed in relief operations after Hurricane Katrina in September 2005, after the 2005 Kashmir earthquake in October 2005 and after the 2004 tsunami in South Asia.
Administrative divisions
Canada is composed of ten provinces and three territories. The provinces are Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. The three territories are the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon. The provinces have a Canadian federalism from the federal government, the territories somewhat less. Each has its own List of Canadian provincial and territorial symbols. The provinces are responsible for most of Canada's social programs (such as Health care in Canada, Education in Canada, and welfare (financial aid)) and together collect more revenue than the federal government, an almost unique structure among federations in the world. The federal government can initiate national policies in provincial areas, such as the Canada Health Act; the provinces can opt out of these, but rarely do so in practice. Equalization payments are made by the federal government to ensure that reasonably uniform standards of services and taxation are kept between the richer and poorer provinces. All provinces have unicameral, elected Legislative Assemblies of Canada's provinces and territories headed by a premier (Canada) selected in the same way as the Prime Minister of Canada. Each province also has a Lieutenant-Governor (Canada) representing the Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, analogous to the Governor General of Canada, appointed on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Canada, though with increasing levels of consultation with provincial governments in recent years.
Geography and climate
Canada occupies most of the northern portion of North America. It shares land borders with the contiguous United States to the south and with the US state of Alaska to the northwest, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean. Since 1925, Canada has claimed the portion of the Arctic between 60°W and 141°W longitude;
this claim is not universally recognized. The northernmost settlement in Canada (and in the world) is CFS Alert on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island—latitude 82.5°N—just 834 kilometres (450 nautical miles) from the North Pole. Canada is the world's second-largest country in total area, after Russia. The population density of 3.5 people per square kilometre (9.1/square mile) is among the lowest in the world.
The most densely populated part of the country is the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor along the Great Lakes and Saint Lawrence River in the southeast. To the north of this region is the broad Canadian Shield, an area of rock scoured clean by the Wisconsin glaciation, thinly soiled, rich in minerals, and dotted with lakes and rivers—Canada by far has more lakes than any other country in the world and has a large amount of the world's freshwater.
In eastern Canada, the Saint Lawrence River widens into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the world's largest estuary; the island of Newfoundland lies at its mouth. South of the Gulf, the Canadian Maritimes protrude eastward from the Gaspé Peninsula of Quebec. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are divided by the Bay of Fundy, which experiences the world's largest tidal variations. Ontario and Hudson Bay dominate central Canada. West of Ontario, the broad, flat Canadian Prairies spread toward the Rocky Mountains, which separate them from British Columbia. Northern Canadian vegetation tapers from coniferous forests to tundra and finally to Arctic barrens in the far north. The northern Canadian mainland is ringed with a vast Canadian Arctic islands containing some of the world's largest islands. Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada range depending on the location. Winters can be harsh in many regions of the country, particularly in the Prairie provinces, where daily average temperatures are near −15 °Celsius (5 °Fahrenheit), but can drop below -40 °C (-40 °F) with severe wind chills.
Coastal British Columbia is an exception and enjoys a temperate climate with a mild and rainy winter. Average summer high temperatures across Canada range depending on the location. On the east and west coast average high temperatures are generally in the low 20s °C (68 to 74 °F), while between the coasts the average summer high temperature range between 25 °C to 30 °C (78 to 86 °F) with occasional extreme heat in some interior locations exceeding 40 °C (104 °F).
For a more complete description of climate across Canada see Environment Canada's Website.
Economy
Canada is one of the world's wealthiest nations, a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Group of Eight (G8). Canada is a free market economy with slightly more government intervention than the United States, but much less than most European nations. Canada has traditionally had a lower per capita gross domestic product (GDP) than its southern neighbour (whereas wealth has been more equally divided), but higher than the large western European economies. For the past decade, after a period of turbulence, the Canadian economy has been growing rapidly with low unemployment and large government surpluses on the Government of Canada level. Today Canada closely resembles the U.S. in its market-oriented economic system, pattern of production, and high living standards. While as of 2006, Canada's national unemployment rate of 6.4% is among its lowest in 30 years, provincial unemployment rates vary from a low of 3.6% in Alberta to high of 14.6% in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In the past century, the impressive growth of the manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy into one primarily industrial and urban. As with other first world nations, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three quarters of Canadians.
However, Canada is unusual among developed countries in the importance of the primary industry, with the logging and petroleum industries being two of Canada's most important. Canada is one of the few developed nations that is a net exporter of energy.
Canada has vast deposits of natural gas on the east coast and large oil and gas resources centred in Alberta, and also present in neighbouring British Columbia and Saskatchewan. The vast Athabasca Tar Sands give Canada the world's second largest reserves of oil.
In Quebec, British Columbia, Newfoundland & Labrador, Ontario and Manitoba, hydroelectric power is a cheap and relatively environmentally friendly source of abundant energy. Canada is one of the world's most important suppliers of agricultural products, with the Canadian Prairies one of the most important suppliers of wheat and other grains.
Canada is the world's largest producer of zinc and uranium and a world leader in many other natural resources such as gold, nickel, aluminum, and lead;
many, if not most, towns in the northern part of the country, where agriculture is difficult, exist because of a nearby mine or source of timber. Canada also has a sizeable manufacturing sector, centred in southern Ontario, with the automobile industry especially important. In part due to the large primary sector Canada is highly dependent on international trade, especially trade with the United States. The 1989 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (which included Mexico) touched off a dramatic increase in trade and economic integration with the U.S. Since 2001, Canada has successfully avoided economic recession and has maintained the best overall economic performance in the G8.
Demographics
The Canada 2001 Census recorded 30,007,094 people; the population is currently estimated by Statistics Canada to be 32.5 million people.
Population growth is largely accomplished through Immigration to Canada and, to a lesser extent, natural growth. About three-quarters of Canada's population live within 160 kilometres (100 mile) of the U.S. border. A similar proportion live in urban areas concentrated in the Quebec City-Windsor Corridor (notably the Toronto-Hamilton, Ontario, Montreal, and National Capital Region (Canada) census metropolitan areas), the BC Lower Mainland (Vancouver and environs), and the Calgary-Edmonton Corridor in Alberta. Canada is an ethnically diverse nation. According to the 2001 census, it has 34 ethnic groups with at least one hundred thousand members each. The largest ethnic group is "Canadian" (39.4%), followed by English-Canadian (20.2%), French Canadian (15.8%), Scottish-Canadian (14.0%), Irish-Canadian (12.9%), German-Canadian (9.3%), Italian Canadian (4.3%), Chinese Canadian (3.7%), Ukrainian Canadian (3.6%) and First Nations (3.4%).
Canada's Aboriginal peoples in Canada population is growing almost twice as fast as the rest of the Canadian population. In 2001, 13.4% of the population belonged to visible minorities. Canadians adhere to a Religion in Canada. According to the last census,
77.1% of Canadians identified as being Christianity; of this, Catholicism make up the largest group (43.6% of Canadians). The largest Protestant denomination is the United Church of Canada; about 17% of Canadians declared no religious affiliation, and the remaining 6.3% were affiliated with religions other than Christianity, of which the largest is Islam. In Canada, the provinces and territories are responsible for education; thus Canada has no national department of education. Each of the 13 education systems are similar while reflecting their own regional history, culture and geography.
The mandatory school age varies across Canada but generally ranges between the ages of 5-7 to 16-18,
contributing to an adult literacy rate that is 99%.
Postsecondary education is the responsibility of the provincial and territorial governments that provide most of their funding; the federal government provides additional funding through research grants. In 2002, 43% of Canadians aged between 25 and 64 had post-secondary education; for those aged 25 to 34 the postsecondary attainment reaches 51%.
Language
Canada's two official languages, English language and French language, are the mother tongues of 59.7% and 23.2% of the population, respectively.
[ ] On July 7, 1969, under the Official Languages Act (Canada), French was made commensurate to English throughout the federal government. This started a process that led to Canada redefining itself as an officially "bilingual" nation. English and French have equal status in federal courts, Parliament, and in all federal institutions. The public has the right, where there is sufficient demand, to receive federal government services in either English or French. While Official Multiculturalism Act, to become a citizen one must be able to speak either English or French, and 98.5% of Canadians speak at least one (English only: 67.5%, French only: 13.3%, both: 17.7%).
French is mostly spoken in Quebec, but there are substantial francophone populations mainly in the northern parts of New Brunswick, eastern and northern Ontario and southern Manitoba. Of those who speak French as a first language, 85% live in Quebec. French is the official language of Quebec. New Brunswick is the only bilingual province in the country.
[While Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec allow for both English and French to be spoken in the provincial legislatures, and laws are enacted in both languages, New Brunswick is the only province to have a statement of official bilingualism in the constitution. See Canadian Heritage] No provinces other than Quebec and New Brunswick have constitutionally official language(s) as such, but French is used as a language of instruction, in courts, and other government services in all of the majority English or Inuktitut speaking provinces and territories. Several aboriginal languages have official status in Northwest Territories. Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut, and one of three official languages in the territory. Non-official languages are important in Canada, with 5,202,245 people listing one as a first language.
Some significant non-official first languages include Chinese language (853,745 first-language speakers), Italian language (469,485), German language (438,080), and Punjabi (271,220).
Culture
Canadian culture has historically been heavily influenced by English people, French people, Irish people, Scottish people and Aboriginal peoples in Canada cultures and traditions, and over time has been greatly influenced by American culture due to its proximity and the interchange of human capital between the two countries. Many forms of American media and entertainment are popular, if not dominant in Canada; conversely, many Canadian cultural products and entertainers are successful in the US and worldwide. Many cultural products are now marketed toward a unified "North American" market, or a global market generally. The creation and preservation of distinctly Canadian culture has been partly influenced by federal government programs, laws and institutions such as the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), the National Film Board of Canada (NFB), and the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC). As Canada is a geographically vast and ethnically diverse country, there are cultural variations and distinctions from province to province and region to region. Canadian culture has also been greatly influenced by more recent immigration of people from all over the world. Many Canadians value multiculturalism, indeed some see Canadian culture as being inherently multicultural.
Multicultural heritage is enshrined in Section Twenty-seven of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. National symbols of Canada are influenced by natural, historical, and First Nations sources. Particularly, the use of the maple leaf, as a Canadian symbol, dates back to the early 18th century and is depicted on its Flag of Canada and Red Ensign flags, the penny (Canadian coin), and on the Coat of Arms of Canada. Other prominent symbols include the beaver, Canada goose, common loon, Monarchy in Canada, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Canada's official national sports are ice hockey (winter) and lacrosse (summer).
Hockey is a national pastime, and is by far the most popular spectator sport in the country. It is also the most popular sport Canadians play, with 1.65 million active participants in 2004.
Canada's six largest metropolitan areas - Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver, Ottawa, Calgary, and Edmonton - have franchises in the National Hockey League (NHL), and there are more Canadian players in the league than from all other countries combined. After hockey, other popular spectator sports include Canadian football and curling; the Canadian Football League (CFL) is the nation's second most popular professional sports league.
Golf, baseball, skiing, Soccer in Canada, volleyball, and basketball are widely played at youth and amateur levels
, but professional leagues and franchises are not as widespread. Canada will host the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup, and the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver and Whistler, British Columbia, British Columbia.
International rankings
Canada was ranked number one country by the United Nations' Human Development Index 10 times out of 16 between 1980 and 2004.
See also
References
;Origin and history of the name
;History ;Government ;Foreign relations and military ;Provinces and territories ;Geography and climate ;Economy ;Demography and statistics ;Language ;Culture Similar publication online here. Notes
External links
Explain Canada 
Air Canada
aircanada.com - Welcome/Bienvenue!
