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Business.
Central European business has a regional organisation, Central European Business Association (CEBA), founded in 1996 in New York as a non-profit organization dedicated to promoting business opportunities within Central Europe and supporting the advancement of professionals in America with a Central European background.
Tourism.
Central European countries, especially Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland are some of the most competitive tourism destinations.
Education.
Education performance.
Student performance has varied across Central Europe, according to the Programme for International Student Assessment. In the 2012 study, countries scored medium, below or over the average scores in three fields studied.
Higher education.
Universities.
The first university established east of France and north of the Alps was in Prague in 1348 by Charles IV, Holy Roman Emperor. The Charles University was modeled upon the University of Paris and initially included the faculty of law, medicine, philosophy, and theology.
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Central European University.
In 1991, Ernest Gellner proposed the establishment of a truly Central European institution of higher learning in Prague (1991–1995). Eventually, the Central European University (CEU) project was taken on and financially supported by the Hungarian philanthropist George Soros, who had provided an endowment of US$880 million, making the university one of the wealthiest in Europe. Over its 30-year history CEU has become one of the most internationally diverse and recognisable universities in the world. For example, as of 2019, 1217 students were enrolled in the university, of which 962 were international students, making the student body the fourth most international in the world. CEU offers highly selective programs with a student to faculty ratio of 7:1. In 2021, the admission rate into its programs was 13%. CEU has thus become a leading global university in Europe promoting a distinctively Central European perspective while emphasizing academic rigor, applied research, and academic honesty and integrity. CEU is a founding member of CIVICCA, a group of prestigious European higher education institutions in the social sciences, humanities, business management and public policy, such as Sciences Po (France), The London School of Economics and Political Science (UK), Bocconi University (Italy) and the Stockholm School of Economics (Sweden). In 2019, Central European University leadership announced their preparatory work on moving CEU to Vienna due to legal constraints against academic freedom in Hungary.
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Culture and society.
Research.
Research centres of Central European literature include Harvard University (Cambridge, MA), Purdue University, and Central European Studies Programme (CESP), Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic.
Religion.
Central European countries are mostly Catholic (Austria, Croatia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Poland and Slovenia) or historically both Catholic and Protestant (the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and Switzerland). Large Protestant groups include Lutheran, Calvinist, and the Unity of the Brethren affiliates. Significant populations of Eastern Catholicism and Old Catholicism are also prevalent throughout Central Europe. Orthodox Christianity is a minority denomination observed to varying extents across Central Europe.
Central Europe has been the center of the Protestant movement for centuries, with the majority of Protestants suppressed and annihilated during the Counterreformation.
Historically, people in Bohemia in today's Czech Republic were some of the first Protestants in Europe. As a result of the Thirty Years' War following the Bohemian Revolt, many Czechs were either killed, executed (see for Old Town Square execution), forcibly turned into Roman Catholics, or emigrated to Scandinavia and the Low Countries. In the aftermath of the Thirty Years' War, the number of inhabitants in the Kingdom of Bohemia decreased from three million to only 800,000 due to multiple factors, including devastating ongoing battles such as the significant Battle of White Mountain and the Battle of Prague (1648). However, in recent years, most Czechs report as overwhelmingly non-religious, with some describing themselves as Catholic (10.3%).
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Before the Holocaust (1941–45), there was also a sizeable Ashkenazi Jewish community in the region, numbering approximately 16.7 million people. Poland, Lithuania and Hungary had the largest Jewish populations in Europe as a percentage of their total populations, with Jews constituting 9.5% of the Polish population in 1933.
Certain countries in Central Europe, particularly the Czech Republic, Germany and Switzerland have sizeable atheist and non-religious populations. In 2021, 48% of the Czech population declared that they had no religion. In 2022, 43.8% of the German population declared that they had no religion. Meanwhile, 33.5% of the Swiss population stated that they were not affiliated with any religion.
Cuisine.
Central European cuisine has evolved over centuries due to social and political change and is generally diverse. However, the national cuisines of western Central Europe share notable similarities, as do the cuisines of eastern Central Europe. Sausages, salamis and cheeses are popular in most of Central Europe, with the earliest evidence of cheesemaking in the archaeological record dates back to 5,500 BCE (Kuyavia region, Poland). Other popular food items in Central Europe include soups, stews, pickled and fermented vegetables. Schnitzel, goulash and cabbage rolls are popular in the region.
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Another common feature among Central European cuisines, particularly Austrian, Croatian, Lithuanian, Slovenian and Swiss cuisine, is the use of wild ingredients in traditional dishes, spanning from wild herbs to mushrooms and berries. Beer consumption is also prominent in parts of Central Europe, where the Czech Republic has the highest beer consumption per capita globally, followed by Austria, with Germany coming 4th. The cuisines of Central European countries that are included in broader definitions of Eastern Europe share similarities and traditions with other Eastern European cuisines. This is particularly evident in the cuisines of Lithuania and Poland, which feature dishes like borscht, pierogi and sour rye soup.
Human rights.
Generally, the countries in the region have been progressive on the issue of human rights: death penalty is illegal in all of them, corporal punishment is outlawed in most of them and people of both genders can vote in elections. However, Central European countries are divided on the subject of same-sex marriage and abortion. Austria, the Czech Republic, Germany, and Poland also have a history of participation in the CIA's extraordinary rendition and detention program, according to the Open Society Foundations.
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Literature.
Regional writing tradition revolves around the turbulent history of the region, as well as its cultural diversity. Its existence is sometimes challenged. Specific courses on Central European literature are taught at Stanford University, Harvard University and Jagiellonian University as well as cultural magazines dedicated to regional literature. Angelus Central European Literature Award is an award worth 150,000.00 PLN (about $50,000 or £30,000) for writers originating from the region. Likewise, the Vilenica International Literary Prize is awarded to a Central European author for "outstanding achievements in the field of literature and essay writing".
Sport.
There is a number of Central European Sport events and leagues. They include:
Football is one of the most popular sports. Countries of Central Europe hosted several major competitions. Germany hosted two FIFA World Cups (1974 and 2006) and two UEFA European Championships (1988 and 2024). Yugoslavia hosted the UEFA Euro 1976 before the competition expanded to 8 teams. Recently, the 2008 and 2012 UEFA European Championships were held in Austria & Switzerland and Poland & Ukraine respectively.
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Politics.
Organisations.
Central Europe is a birthplace of regional political organisations:
Democracy Index.
Central Europe is a home to some of world's oldest democracies. However, most of them have been impacted by totalitarianism, particularly Fascism and Nazism. Germany and Italy occupied all Central European countries, except Switzerland. In all occupied countries, the Axis powers suspended democracy and installed puppet regimes loyal to the occupation forces. Also, they forced conquered countries to apply racial laws and formed military forces for helping German and Italian struggle against Communists. After World War II, almost the whole of Central Europe (the Eastern and Middle part) had been transformed into communist states, most of which had been occupied and later allied with the Soviet Union, often against their will through forged referendum (e.g., Polish people's referendum in 1946) or force (northeast Germany, Poland, Hungary et alia). Nevertheless, these experiences have been dealt in most of them. Most of Central European countries score very highly in the Democracy Index.
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Global Peace Index.
In spite of its turbulent history, Central Europe is currently one of world's safest regions. Most Central European countries are in top 20%.
Central European Time.
The time zone is a standard time which is 1 hour ahead of Coordinated Universal Time. Countries using CET include:
In popular culture.
Central Europe is mentioned in the 35th episode of "Lovejoy", entitled "The Prague Sun", filmed in 1992. While walking over the well-regarded and renowned Charles Bridge in Prague, the main character, Lovejoy, says: "I've never been to Prague before. Well, it is one of the great unspoiled cities in Central Europe. Notice: I said: 'Central', not 'Eastern'! The Czechs are a bit funny about that, they think of Eastern Europeans as "turnip heads"."
Wes Anderson's Oscar-winning film "The Grand Budapest Hotel" depicts a fictional grand hotel located somewhere in Central Europe which is in actuality modeled on the Grandhotel Pupp in Karlovy Vary in the Czech Republic. The film is a celebration of the 1920s and 1930s Central Europe with its artistic splendor and societal sensibilities. |
Geography of Canada
Canada has a vast geography that occupies much of the continent of North America, sharing a land border with the contiguous United States to the south and the U.S. state of Alaska to the northwest. Canada stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean. Greenland is to the northeast with a shared border on Hans Island. To the southeast Canada shares a maritime boundary with France's overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the last vestige of New France. By total area (including its waters), Canada is the second-largest country in the world, after Russia. By land area alone, however, Canada ranks fourth, the difference being due to it having the world's largest proportion of fresh water lakes. Of Canada's thirteen provinces and territories, only two are landlocked (Alberta and Saskatchewan) while the other eleven all directly border one of three oceans.
Canada is home to the world's northernmost settlement, Canadian Forces Station Alert, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island—latitude 82.5°N—which lies from the North Pole. Much of the Canadian Arctic is covered by ice and permafrost. Canada has the longest coastline in the world, with a total length of ; additionally, its border with the United States is the world's longest land border, stretching . Three of Canada's Arctic islands, Baffin Island, Victoria Island and Ellesmere Island, are among the ten largest in the world.
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Canada can be divided into seven physiographic regions: the Canadian Shield, the interior plains, the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Lowlands, the Appalachian region, the Western Cordillera, Hudson Bay Lowlands and the Arctic Archipelago. Canada is also divided into fifteen terrestrial and five marine ecozones, encompassing over 80,000 classified species of life. Since the end of the last glacial period, Canada has consisted of eight distinct forest regions, including extensive boreal forest on the Canadian Shield; 42 percent of the land acreage of Canada is covered by forests (approximately 8 percent of the world's forested land), made up mostly of spruce, poplar and pine. Canada has over 2,000,000 lakes—563 greater than —which is more than any other country, containing much of the world's fresh water. There are also freshwater glaciers in the Canadian Rockies, the Coast Mountains and the Arctic Cordillera. A recent global remote sensing analysis also suggested that there were 6,477 km2 of tidal flats in Canada, making it the 5th ranked country in terms of how much tidal flat occurs there. Protected areas of Canada and National Wildlife Areas have been established to preserve ecosystems.
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Canada is geologically active, having many earthquakes and potentially active volcanoes, notably the Mount Meager massif, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley, and the Mount Edziza volcanic complex. Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada range from Arctic weather in the north, to hot summers in the southern regions, with four distinct seasons.
Physiography.
Canada covers and a panoply of various geoclimatic regions, of which there are seven main regions. Canada also encompasses vast maritime terrain, with the world's longest coastline of . The physical geography of Canada is widely varied. Boreal forests prevail throughout the country, ice is prominent in northerly Arctic regions and through the Canadian Rocky Mountains, and the relatively flat Canadian Prairies in the southwest facilitate productive agriculture. The Great Lakes feed the St. Lawrence River (in the southeast) where lowlands host much of Canada's population.
The National Topographic System is used by Natural Resources Canada for providing general purpose topographic maps of the country. The maps provide details on landforms and terrain, lakes and rivers, forested areas, administrative zones, populated areas, roads and railways, as well as other man-made features. These maps are used by all levels of government and industry for forest fire and flood control (as well as other environmental issues), depiction of crop areas, right-of-way, real estate planning, development of natural resources and highway planning.
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Appalachian Mountains.
The Appalachian mountain range extends from Alabama in southern United States through the Gaspé Peninsula and the Atlantic Provinces, creating rolling hills indented by river valleys. It also runs through parts of southern Quebec.
The Appalachian Mountains (more specifically the Chic-Choc, Notre Dame, and Long Range Mountains) are an old and eroded range of mountains, approximately 380 million years in age. Notable mountains in the Appalachians include Mount Jacques-Cartier (Quebec, ), Mount Carleton (New Brunswick, ), The Cabox (Newfoundland, ). Parts of the Appalachians are home to a rich endemic flora and fauna and are considered to have been nunataks during the last glaciation era.
Canadian Shield.
The northeastern part of Alberta, northern parts of Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, all of Labrador and the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland, eastern mainland Northwest Territories, most of Nunavut's mainland and, of its Arctic Archipelago, Baffin Island and significant bands through Somerset, Southampton, Devon and Ellesmere islands are located on a vast rock base known as the Canadian Shield. The Shield mostly consists of eroded hilly terrain and contains many lakes and important rivers used for hydroelectric production, particularly in northern Quebec and Ontario. The Shield also encloses an area of wetlands around the Hudson Bay. Some particular regions of the Shield are referred to as mountain ranges, including the Torngat and Laurentian Mountains.
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The Shield cannot support intensive agriculture, although there is subsistence agriculture and small dairy farms in many of the river valleys and around the abundant lakes, particularly in the southern regions. Boreal forest covers much of the shield, with a mix of conifers that provide valuable timber resources in areas such as the Central Canadian Shield forests ecoregion that covers much of Northern Ontario.
The Canadian Shield is known for its vast mineral reserves such as emeralds, diamonds and copper, and is there also called the "mineral house".
Canadian Arctic.
While the largest part of the Canadian Arctic is composed of seemingly endless permafrost and tundra north of the tree line, it encompasses geological regions of varying types: the Arctic Cordillera (with the British Empire Range and the United States Range on Ellesmere Island) contains the northernmost mountain system in the world. The Arctic Lowlands and Hudson Bay lowlands comprise a substantial part of the geographic region often designated as the Canadian Shield (in contrast to the sole geologic area). The ground in the Arctic is mostly composed of permafrost, making construction difficult and often hazardous, and agriculture virtually impossible.
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The Arctic, when defined as everything north of the tree line, covers most of Nunavut and the northernmost parts of Northwest Territories, Yukon, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Labrador. The archipelago consists of 36,563 islands, of which 94 are classified as major islands, being larger than , and cover a total area of .
Western Cordillera.
The Coast Mountains in British Columbia run from the lower Fraser River and the Fraser Canyon northwestward, separating the Interior Plateau from the Pacific Ocean. Its southeastern end is separated from the North Cascades by the Fraser Lowland, where nearly a third of Western Canada's population reside.
The coastal flank of the Coast Mountains is characterized by an intense network of fjords and associated islands, very similar to the Norwegian coastline in Northern Europe; while their inland side transitions to the high plateau with dryland valleys notable for a series of large alpine lakes similar to those in southern Switzerland, beginning in deep mountains and ending in flatland. They are subdivided in three main groups, the Pacific Ranges between the Fraser River and Bella Coola, the Kitimat Ranges from there northwards to the Nass River, and the Boundary Ranges from there to the mountain terminus in Yukon at Champagne Pass and Chilkat Pass northwest of Haines, Alaska. The Saint Elias Mountains lie to their west and northwest, while the Yukon Ranges and Yukon Basin lie to their north. On the inland side of the Boundary Ranges are the Tahltan and Tagish Highlands and also the Skeena Mountains, part of the Interior Mountains system, which also extend southwards on the inland side of the Kitimat Ranges.
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The terrain of the main spine of the Coast Mountains is typified by heavy glaciation, including several very large icefields of varying elevation. Of the three subdivisions, the Pacific Ranges are the highest and are crowned by Mount Waddington, while the Boundary Ranges contain the largest icefields, the Juneau Icefield being the largest. The Kitimat Ranges are lower and less glacier-covered than either of the other two groupings, but are extremely rugged and dense.
The Coast Mountains are made of igneous and metamorphic rock from an episode of arc volcanism related to subduction of the Kula and Farallon Plates during the Laramide orogeny about 100 million years ago. The widespread granite forming the Coast Mountains formed when magma intruded and cooled at depth beneath volcanoes of the Coast Range Arc whereas the metamorphic formed when intruding magma heated the surrounding rock to produce schist.
The Insular Mountains extend from Vancouver Island in the south to the Haida Gwaii in the north on the British Columbia Coast. It contains two main mountain ranges, the Vancouver Island Ranges on Vancouver Island and the Queen Charlotte Mountains on Haida Gwaii.
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Hudson Bay Lowlands.
Extreme points.
The northernmost point of land within the boundaries of Canada is Cape Columbia, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut . The northernmost point of the Canadian mainland is Zenith Point on Boothia Peninsula, Nunavut . The southernmost point is Middle Island, in Lake Erie, Ontario (41°41′N 82°40′W); the southernmost water point lies just south of the island, on the Ontario–Ohio border (41°40′35″N). The southernmost point of the Canadian mainland is Point Pelee, Ontario . The lowest point is sea level at 0 m, whilst the highest point is Mount Logan, Yukon, at 5,959 m / 19,550 ft .
The westernmost point is Boundary Peak 187 (60°18′22.929″N 141°00′7.128″W) at the southern end of the Yukon–Alaska border, which roughly follows 141°W but leans very slightly east as it goes North . The easternmost point is Cape Spear, Newfoundland (47°31′N 52°37′W) . The easternmost point of the Canadian mainland is Elijah Point, Cape St. Charles, Labrador (52°13′N 55°37′W) .
The Canadian pole of inaccessibility is allegedly near Jackfish River, Alberta (59°2′N 112°49′W). The furthest straight-line distance that can be travelled to Canadian points of land is between the southwest tip of Kluane National Park and Reserve (next to Mount Saint Elias) and Cripple Cove, Newfoundland (near Cape Race) at a distance of .
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Climatology.
Climate varies widely from region to region. Winters can be harsh in many parts of the country, particularly in the interior and Prairie provinces, which experience a continental climate, where daily average temperatures are near , but can drop below with severe wind chills. In non-coastal regions, snow can cover the ground for almost six months of the year, while in parts of the north snow can persist year-round. Coastal British Columbia has a temperate climate, with a mild and rainy winter. On the east and west coasts, average high temperatures are generally in the low 20s °C (70s °F), while between the coasts, the average summer high temperature ranges from , with temperatures in some interior locations occasionally exceeding .
Much of Northern Canada is covered by ice and permafrost; however, the future of the permafrost is uncertain because the Arctic has been warming at three times the global average as a result of climate change in Canada. Canada's annual average temperature over land has warmed by , with changes ranging from in various regions, since 1948. The rate of warming has been higher across the North and in the Prairies. In the southern regions of Canada, air pollution from both Canada and the United States—caused by metal smelting, burning coal to power utilities, and vehicle emissions—has resulted in acid rain, which has severely impacted waterways, forest growth and agricultural productivity in Canada.
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Biogeography.
Canada is divided into fifteen major terrestrial and five marine ecozones, that are further subdivided into 53 ecoprovinces, 194 ecoregions, and 1,027 ecodistricts. These eco-areas encompass over 80,000 classified species of Canadian wildlife, with an equal number yet to be formally recognized or discovered. Due to pollution, loss of biodiversity, over-exploitation of commercial species, invasive species, and habitat loss, there are currently more than 800 wild life species at risk of being lost.
Canada's major biomes are the tundra, boreal forest, grassland, and temperate deciduous forest. British Columbia contains several smaller biomes, including; mountain forest which extends to Alberta, and a small temperate rainforest along the Pacific coast, the semi arid desert located in the Okanagan and alpine tundra in the higher mountainous regions.
Over half of Canada's landscape is intact and relatively free of human development. Approximately half of Canada is covered by forest, totaling around . The boreal forest of Canada is considered to be the largest intact forest on Earth, with around undisturbed by roads, cities or industry. The Canadian Arctic tundra is the second-largest vegetation region in the country consisting of dwarf shrubs, sedges and grasses, mosses and lichens.
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Approximately 12.1 percent of the nation's landmass and freshwater are conservation areas, including 11.4 percent designated as protected areas. Approximately 13.8 percent of its territorial waters are conserved, including 8.9 percent designated as protected areas.
Hydrography.
Canada holds vast reserves of water: its rivers discharge nearly 7% of the world's renewable water supply, Canada has over 2,000,000 lakes—563 greater than —which is more than any other country and has the third largest amount of glacier water. Canada is also home to about twenty five percent (134.6 million ha) of the world's wetlands that support a vast array of local ecosystems.
Canada's waterways host forty-seven rivers of at least in length, with the two longest being the Mackenzie River, that begins at Great Slave Lake and ends in the Arctic Ocean, with its drainage basin covering a large part of northwestern Canada, and the Saint Lawrence River, which drains the Great Lakes into the Gulf of St. Lawrence ending in the Atlantic Ocean. The Mackenzie, including its tributaries is over in length and lies within the second largest drainage basin of North America, while the St. Lawrence in length, drains the world's largest system of freshwater lakes.
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The Atlantic watershed drains the entirety of the Atlantic provinces (parts of the Quebec-Labrador border are fixed at the Atlantic Ocean-Arctic Ocean continental divide), most of inhabited Quebec and large parts of southern Ontario. It is mostly drained by the economically important St. Lawrence River and its tributaries, notably the Saguenay, Manicouagan, and Ottawa rivers. The Great Lakes and Lake Nipigon are also drained by the St. Lawrence. The Churchill River and Saint John River are other important elements of the Atlantic watershed in Canada.
The Hudson Bay watershed drains over a third of Canada. It covers Manitoba, northern Ontario and Quebec, most of Saskatchewan, southern Alberta, southwestern Nunavut, and the southern half of Baffin Island. This basin is most important in fighting drought in the prairies and producing hydroelectricity, especially in Manitoba, northern Ontario and Quebec. Major elements of this watershed include Lake Winnipeg, Nelson River, the North Saskatchewan and South Saskatchewan Rivers, Assiniboine River, and Nettilling Lake on Baffin Island. Wollaston Lake lies on the boundary between the Hudson Bay and Arctic Ocean watersheds and drains into both. It is the largest lake in the world that naturally drains in two directions.
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The continental divide in the Rockies separates the Pacific watershed in British Columbia and Yukon from the Arctic and Hudson Bay watersheds. This watershed irrigates the agriculturally important areas of inner British Columbia (such as the Okanagan and Kootenay valleys), and is used to produce hydroelectricity. Major elements are the Yukon, Columbia and Fraser rivers.
The northern parts of Alberta, Manitoba, and British Columbia, most of Northwest Territories and Nunavut, and parts of Yukon are drained by the Arctic watershed. This watershed has been little used for hydroelectricity, with the exception of the Mackenzie River. The Peace, Athabasca and Liard Rivers, as well as Great Bear Lake and Great Slave Lake (respectively the largest and second largest lakes wholly enclosed by Canada) are significant elements of the Arctic watershed. Each of these elements eventually merges with the Mackenzie, thereby draining the vast majority of the Arctic watershed.
The southernmost part of Alberta drains into the Gulf of Mexico through the Milk River and its tributaries. The Milk River originates in the Rocky Mountains of Montana, then flows into Alberta, then returns into the United States, where it is drained by the Missouri River. A small area of southwestern Saskatchewan is drained by Battle Creek, which empties into the Milk River.
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Natural resources.
Canada's abundance of natural resources is reflected in their continued importance in the economy of Canada. Major resource-based industries are fisheries, forestry, agriculture, petroleum products and mining.
The fisheries industry has historically been one of Canada's strongest. Unmatched cod stocks on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland launched this industry in the 16th century. Today these stocks are nearly depleted, and their conservation has become a preoccupation of the Atlantic Provinces. On the West Coast, tuna stocks are now restricted. The less depleted (but still greatly diminished) salmon population continues to drive a strong fisheries industry. Canada claims of territorial sea, a contiguous zone of , an exclusive economic zone of with and a continental shelf of or to the edge of the continental margin.
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Fossil fuels are a more recently developed resource in Canada, with oil and gas being extracted from deposits in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin since the mid-1900s. While Canada's crude oil deposits are fewer, technological developments in recent decades have opened up oil production in Alberta's Oil Sands to the point where Canada now has some of the largest reserves of oil in the world. In other forms, Canadian industry has a long history of extracting large coal and natural gas reserves.
Canada's mineral resources are diverse and extensive. Across the Canadian Shield and in the north there are large iron, nickel, zinc, copper, gold, lead, molybdenum, and uranium reserves. Large diamond concentrations have been recently developed in the Arctic, making Canada one of the world's largest producers. Throughout the Shield there are many mining towns extracting these minerals. The largest, and best known, is Sudbury, Ontario. Sudbury is an exception to the normal process of forming minerals in the Shield since there is significant evidence that the Sudbury Basin is an ancient meteorite impact crater. The nearby, but less known Temagami Magnetic Anomaly has striking similarities to the Sudbury Basin. Its magnetic anomalies are very similar to the Sudbury Basin, and so it could be a second metal-rich impact crater. The Shield is also covered by vast boreal forests that support an important logging industry.
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Canada's many rivers have afforded extensive development of hydroelectric power. Extensively developed in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and Labrador, the many dams have long provided a clean, dependable source of energy.
Environmental issues.
Air pollution and resulting acid rain severely affects lakes and damages forests. Metal smelting, coal-burning utilities, and vehicle emissions impact agricultural and forest productivity. Ocean waters are also becoming contaminated by agricultural, industrial, mining, and forestry activities.
Global climate change and the warming of the polar region will likely cause significant changes to the environment, including loss of the polar bear, the exploration for resource then the extraction of these resources and an alternative transport route to the Panama Canal through the Northwest Passage.
Canada is currently warming at twice the global average, and this is effectively irreversible.
Political geography.
Canada is divided into ten provinces and three territories. According to Statistics Canada, 72.0 percent of the population is concentrated within of the nation's southern border with the United States, 70.0% live south of the 49th parallel, and over 60 percent of the population lives along the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence River between Windsor, Ontario, and Quebec City. This leaves the vast majority of Canada's territory as sparsely populated wilderness; Canada's population density is , among the lowest in the world. Despite this, 79.7 percent of Canada's population resides in urban areas, where population densities are increasing.
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Canada shares with the U.S. the world's longest binational border at ; are with Alaska. The Danish island dependency of Greenland lies to Canada's northeast, separated from the Canadian Arctic islands by Baffin Bay and Davis Strait. As of June 14, 2022, Canada shares a land border with Greenland on Hans Island. The French islands of Saint Pierre and Miquelon lie off the southern coast of Newfoundland in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and have a maritime territorial enclave within Canada's exclusive economic zone.
Canada's geographic proximity to the United States has historically bound the two countries together in the political world as well. Canada's position between the Soviet Union (now Russia) and the U.S. was strategically important during the Cold War since the route over the North Pole and Canada was the fastest route by air between the two countries and the most direct route for intercontinental ballistic missiles. Since the end of the Cold War, there has been growing speculation that Canada's Arctic maritime claims may become increasingly important if global warming melts the ice enough to open the Northwest Passage. |
Demographics of Canada
Statistics Canada conducts a country-wide census that collects demographic data every five years on the first and sixth year of each decade. The 2021 Canadian census enumerated a total population of 36,991,981, an increase of around 5.2 percent over the 2016 figure. It is estimated that Canada's population surpassed 40 million in 2023 and 41 million in 2024. Between 1990 and 2008, the population increased by 5.6 million, equivalent to 20.4 percent overall growth. The main driver of population growth is immigration, with 6.2% of the country's population being made up of temporary residents as of 2023, or about 2.5 million people. Between 2011 and May 2016, Canada's population grew by 1.7 million people, with immigrants accounting for two-thirds of the increase.
Canada has one of the highest per-capita immigration rates in the world, driven mainly by economic policy and, to a lesser extent, family reunification. In 2021, a total of 405,330 immigrants were admitted to Canada. New immigrants to Canada settle mostly in major urban areas such as Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver. Canada also accepts large numbers of refugees, accounting for over 10 percent of annual global refugee resettlements.
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Population.
The 2021 Canadian census had a total population count of 36,991,981 individuals, making up approximately 0.5% of the world's total population. A population estimate for 2024 put the total number of people in Canada at 41,012,563.
Provinces and territories.
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Population distribution.
The vast majority of Canadians are positioned in a discontinuous band within approximately 300 km of the southern border with the United States; the most populated province is Ontario, followed by Quebec and British Columbia.
Fertility rate.
The total fertility rate is the number of children born in a specific year cohort to the total number of women who can give birth in the country.
In 1971, the birth rate for the first time dipped below replacement and since then has not rebounded.
Canada's fertility rate hit a record low of 1.4 children born per woman in 2020, below the population replacement level, which stands at 2.1 births per woman. In 2020, Canada also experienced the country's lowest number of births in 15 years, also seeing the largest annual drop in childbirths (−3.6%) in a quarter of a century. The total birth rate is 10.17 births/1,000 population in 2022.
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Mother's mean age at first birth.
Canada is among late-childbearing countries, with the average age of mothers at the first birth being 31.3 years in 2020.
Population projection.
According to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)/World Bank, the population in Canada increased from 1990 to 2008 with 5.6 million and 20.4% growth in population, compared to 21.7% growth in the United States and 31.2% growth in Mexico. According to the OECD/World Bank population statistics, for the same period the world population growth was 27%, a total of 1,423 million people. However, over the same period, the population of France grew by 8.0%. And from 1991 to 2011, the population of the UK increased by 10.0%.
The current population growth rate for Canada in 2022 was 0.75%.
Life expectancy.
Life expectancy in Canada has consistently risen since the country's formation.
School life expectancy (primary to tertiary education)
Infant mortality rate
Age characteristics.
Population by Sex and Age Group (Census 10.V.2016) (To ensure confidentiality, the values, including totals are randomly rounded either up or down to a multiple of '5' or '10.' As a result, when these data are summed or grouped, the total value may not match the individual values since totals and sub-totals are independently rounded. Similarly, percentages, which are calculated on rounded data, may not necessarily add up to 100%.):
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Age structure
Median age
Sex ratio.
at birth: 1.05 male(s)/female
0–14 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
15–24 years: 1.06 male(s)/female
25–54 years: 1.01 male(s)/female
55–64 years: 0.98 male(s)/female
65 years and over: 0.75 male(s)/female
total population: 0.98 male(s)/female (2022 est).
Dependency ratios
Vital statistics.
Note: This table uses the sticky table format to make scrolling easier. If you prefer, you can disable it.
Current vital statistics.
Note: all numbers in this table are provisional. While data for at least two years ago may be final, newer data for recent days are subject to change in the future. For example, as of September 25 2024, The numbers are final up to December 2021, updated from January 2022 to March 2024 and preliminary from April 2024.
Employment.
Unemployment, youth ages 15–24
Ethnicity and visible minorities.
Canadians as ethnic group by province.
All citizens of Canada are classified as "Canadians" as defined by Canada's nationality laws. "Canadian" as an ethnic group has since 1996 been added to census questionnaires for possible ancestral origin or descent. "Canadian" was included as an example on the English questionnaire and "Canadien" as an example on the French questionnaire. The majority of respondents to this selection are from the eastern part of the country that was first settled. Respondents generally are visibly European (Anglophones and Francophones) and no longer self-identify directly with their ethnic ancestral origins. This response is attributed to a multitude of reasons such as generational distance from ancestral lineage, intermarriage with variety of ethnic groups, and loss of ancestral language.
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Ethnic origin.
According to the 2021 Canadian census, over 450 "ethnic or cultural origins" were self-reported by Canadians. The major panethnic groups chosen were; European (), North American (), Asian (), North American Indigenous (), African (), Latin, Central and South American (), Caribbean (), Oceanian (), and Other (). Statistics Canada reports that 35.5% of the population reported multiple ethnic origins, thus the overall total is greater than 100%.
The country's ten largest self-reported specific ethnic or cultural origins in 2021 were Canadian (accounting for 15.6 percent of the population), followed by English (14.7 percent), Irish (12.1 percent), Scottish (12.1 percent), French (11.0 percent), German (8.1 percent), Indian (5.1 percent),
Chinese (4.7 percent), Italian (4.3 percent), and Ukrainian (3.5 percent).
Of the 36.3 million people enumerated in 2021 approximately 24.5 million reported being "White", representing 67.4 percent of the population. The Indigenous population representing 5 percent or 1.8 million individuals, grew by 9.4 percent compared to the non-Indigenous population, which grew by 5.3 percent from 2016 to 2021. One out of every four Canadians or 26.5 percent of the population belonged to a non-White and non-Indigenous visible minority, the largest of which in 2021 were South Asian (2.6 million people; 7.1 percent), Chinese (1.7 million; 4.7 percent) and Black (1.5 million; 4.3 percent).
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As data is completely self-reported, and reporting individuals may have varying definitions of "Ethnic origin" (or may not know their ethnic origin), these figures should not be considered an exact record of the relative prevalence of different ethno-cultural ancestries but rather how Canadians self-identify.
Data from this section from Statistics Canada, 2021.
The most common ethnic origins per province are as follows in 2006 (total responses; only percentages 10% or higher shown; ordered by percentage of "Canadian"):
"Italics" indicates either that this response is dominant within this province, or that this province has the highest ratio (percentage) of this response among provinces.
Visible minority population.
Note: Indigenous population decline between 1991 and 1996 censuses attributed to change in criteria in census count; "the 1996 Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples used a more restrictive definition of Aboriginal".
Indigenous population.
"Note: Other Indigenous and mixed Indigenous groups are not listed as their own, but they are all accounted for in total Indigenous"
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Future projections.
Statistics Canada projects that visible minorities will make up between 38.2% and 43.0% of the total Canadian population by 2041, compared with 26.5% in 2021. Among the working-age population (15 to 64 years), meanwhile, visible minorities are projected to represent between 42.1% and 47.3% of Canada's total population, compared to 28.5% in 2021.
Languages.
Knowledge of language.
The question on knowledge of languages allows for multiple responses, and first appeared on the 1991 Canadian census. The following figures are from the 1991 Canadian census, 2001 Canadian census, 2011 Canadian census, and the 2021 Canadian census.
Immigration.
According to the 2021 Canadian census, immigrants in Canada number 8.3 million persons and make up approximately 23 percent of Canada's total population. This represents the eighth-largest immigrant population in the world, while the proportion represents one of the highest ratios for industrialized Western countries.
Immigrants from specific countries are divided into several ethnic groups. For example, there are both Punjabis and Muhajirs from Pakistan, both Turks and Kurds from Turkey and both Sinhalese and Tamil from Sri Lanka. Immigrants from Iran are divided into Mazandaranians, Azeris, Persians, Kurds, Gilaks and Lurs.
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Since confederation in 1867 through to the contemporary era, decadal and demi-decadal census reports have detailed immigration statistics. During this period, the highest annual immigration rate in Canada occurred in 1913, when 400,900 new immigrants accounted for 5.3 percent of the total population, while the greatest number of foreign-born individuals admitted to Canada in single year occurred in 2021, with 405,330 new immigrants accounting for 1.1 percent of the total population.
Statistics Canada projects that immigrants will represent between 29.1% and 34.0% of Canada's population in 2041, compared with 23.0% in 2021, while the Canadian population with at least one foreign born parent (first and second generation persons) could rise to between 49.8% and 54.3%, up from 44.0% in 2021.
Religion.
In 2021, 53.3% of Canadians were Christians, down from 67.3% in 2011. 29.9% were Catholic while 11.4% were Protestant (all other listed denominations excluding Christian Orthodox, Latter Day Saints and Jehovah's Witnesses). 7.6% were Christian not otherwise specified, 2.1% were "other Christian and Christian-related traditions", 1.7% were Christian Orthodox, 0.4% were Jehovah's Witnesses and 0.2% were Latter Day Saints adherents.
34.6% of Canadians were non-religious or secular, up from 23.9% in 2011. Of the non-Christian religions listed, 4.9% of Canadians were Muslim (3.2% in 2011), 2.3% were Hindu (1.5% in 2011), 2.1% were Sikh (1.4% in 2011), 1.0% were Buddhist (1.1% in 2011), 0.9% were Jewish (1.0% in 2011), 0.2% were believers of traditional (North American Indigenous) spirituality (same as 2011), and 0.6% were believers of other religions and spiritual traditions (0.4% in 2011). |
Politics of Canada
The politics of Canada functions within a framework of parliamentary democracy and a federal system of parliamentary government with strong democratic traditions. Canada is a constitutional monarchy where the monarch is the ceremonial head of state. In practice, executive authority is entrusted to the Cabinet, a committee of ministers of the Crown chaired by the prime minister of Canada that act as the executive committee of the King's Privy Council for Canada and are responsible to the democratically elected House of Commons.
Canada is described as a "full democracy", with a tradition of secular liberalism, and an egalitarian, moderate political ideology. Extremism has never been prominent in Canadian politics. The traditional "brokerage" model of Canadian politics leaves little room for ideology. Peace, order, and good government, alongside an Implied Bill of Rights, are founding principles of the Canadian government. An emphasis on multiculturalism and social justice has been a distinguishing element of Canada's political culture. Canada has placed emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion for all its people.
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The country has a multi-party system in which many of its legislative practices derive from the unwritten conventions of and precedents set by the Westminster parliament of the United Kingdom. The two dominant political parties in Canada have historically been the Liberal Party of Canada and the current Conservative Party of Canada (as well as its numerous predecessors). Parties like the New Democratic Party, the Quebec nationalist Bloc Québécois and the Green Party of Canada have grown in prominence, exerting their own influence to the political process.
Canada has evolved variations: party discipline in Canada is stronger than in the United States and United Kingdom, and more parliamentary votes are considered motions of confidence, which tends to diminish the role of non-Cabinet members of parliament (MPs). Such members, in the government caucus, and junior or lower-profile members of opposition caucuses, are known as backbenchers. Backbenchers can, however, exert their influence by sitting in parliamentary committees, like the Public Accounts Committee or the National Defence Committee.
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Context.
Canada's governmental structure was originally established by the British Parliament through the "British North America Act, 1867" (now the "Constitution Act, 1867"), but the federal model and division of powers were devised by Canadian politicians. Particularly after World War I, citizens of the self-governing Dominions, such as Canada, began to develop a strong sense of identity, and, in the Balfour Declaration of 1926, the British government and the governments of the six Dominions jointly agreed that the Dominions had full autonomy within the British Commonwealth.
In 1931, after further consultations and agreements between the British government and the governments of the Dominions, the British Parliament passed the Statute of Westminster, giving legal recognition to the autonomy of Canada and other Dominions. However, Canadian politicians were unable to obtain consensus on a process for amending the constitution, which was therefore not affected by the Statute of Westminster, meaning amendments to Canada's constitution continued to require the approval of the British parliament until that date. Similarly, the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Britain continued to make the final decision on criminal appeals until 1933 and on civil appeals until 1949. It was not until 1982, with the Patriation of the Constitution, that the role of the British Parliament was ended.
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Political culture.
Canada's egalitarian approach to governance has emphasized social welfare, economic freedom, and multiculturalism, which is based on selective economic migrants, social integration, and suppression of far-right politics, that has wide public and political support. Its broad range of constituent nationalities and policies that promote a "just society" are constitutionally protected. Individual rights, equality and inclusiveness (social equality) have risen to the forefront of political and legal importance for most Canadians, as demonstrated through support for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a relatively free economy, and social liberal attitudes toward women's rights (like pregnancy termination), divorce, homosexuality, same-sex marriage, birth control, euthanasia or cannabis use. There is also a sense of collective responsibility in Canadian political culture, as is demonstrated in general support for universal health care, multiculturalism, evolution, gun control, foreign aid, and other social programs.
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At the federal level, Canada has been dominated by two relatively centrist parties practising "brokerage politics", the centre-left leaning Liberal Party of Canada and the centre-right leaning Conservative Party of Canada (or its predecessors). "The traditional "brokerage" model of Canadian politics leaves little
room for ideology" as the Canadian catch-all party system requires support from a broad spectrum of voters. The historically predominant Liberals position themselves at the centre of the political scale, with the Conservatives sitting on the right and the New Democratic Party occupying the left. Five parties had representatives elected to the federal parliament in the 2021 election: the Liberal Party who currently form the government, the Conservative Party who are the Official Opposition, the New Democratic Party, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party of Canada.
Polls have suggested that Canadians generally do not have a solid understanding of civics. This has been theorized to be a result of less attention being given to the subject in provincial education curricula, beginning in the 1960s. By 2008, a poll showed only 24 per cent of respondents could name the monarch as head of state. Likewise, Senator Lowell Murray wrote five years earlier that "the Crown has become irrelevant to most Canadians' understanding of our system of Government." As John Robson of the "National Post" opined in 2015: "Intellectually, voters and commentators succumb to the mistaken notion that we elect 'governments' of prime ministers and cabinets with untrammelled authority, that indeed ideal 'democracy' consists precisely in this kind of plebiscitary autocracy."
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Governmental organization.
Monarchy.
Canada is a constitutional monarchy, wherein the role of the reigning sovereign is both legal and practical, but not political. The monarch is formally vested with all powers of state, which are in practice exercised only by the various institutions of government acting under the sovereign's authority. The executive is thus formally referred to as the "King-in-Council", the legislature as the "King-in-Parliament", and the courts as the "King-on-the-Bench".
Though the person who is monarch of Canada (currently ) is also the monarch of 14 other countries in the Commonwealth of Nations, he nevertheless reigns separately as King of Canada, an office that is "truly Canadian" and "totally independent from that of the monarch of the United Kingdom or the other Commonwealth realms." On the advice of the Canadian prime minister, the sovereign appoints a federal viceregal representative—the governor general (currently Mary Simon)—who, since 1947, is permitted to exercise almost all of the monarch's royal prerogative; though, there are some duties which must be specifically performed by the monarch themselves (such as assent of certain bills). In case of the governor general's absence or incapacitation, the administrator of Canada performs the Crown's most basic functions.
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Royal assent is required to enact laws. As part of the royal prerogative, the royal sign-manual gives authority to letters patent and orders-in-Council. The royal prerogative also includes summoning, proroguing, and dissolving Parliament in order to call an election and extends to foreign affairs, which include the negotiation and ratification of treaties, alliances, international agreements, and declarations of war; the accreditation of Canadian diplomats and receipt of foreign diplomats; and the issuance of passports.
Despite the wide theoretical extent of the sovereign's powers, in actual practice he or she exercises them only through or with the advice of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. Within the constitutional conventions of the Westminster system, the sovereign's freedom of action or personal choice in any area of governance is quite limited.
Legislative power.
The bicameral Parliament of Canada consists of three parts: the monarch, the Senate, and the House of Commons.
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The House of Commons currently has 338 members elected in single-member districts in a plurality voting system (first past the post), meaning that members must attain only a plurality (the most votes of any candidate) rather than a majority. The electoral districts are also known as ridings.
Mandates cannot exceed five years; an election must occur by the end of this time. This fixed mandate has been exceeded only once, when Prime Minister Robert Borden perceived the need to do so during World War I. A constitutional amendment was passed, extending the life of the Parliament by one year, by the unanimous consent of the House of Commons. The size of the House and apportionment of seats to each province is revised after every census, conducted every five years, and is based on population changes and approximately on representation-by-population.
Elections and government formation.
Canadians vote for the election of their local member of parliament (MP) only. A vote is cast directly for a candidate. The candidate in each riding who receives a plurality of votes (first-past-the-post system) is elected. An MP need not be a member of any political party: such MPs are known as independents. When a number of MPs share political opinions they may form a body known as a political party.
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The "Canada Elections Act" defines a political party as "an organization one of whose fundamental purposes is to participate in public affairs by endorsing one or more of its members as candidates and supporting their election." Forming and registering a federal political party are two different things. There is no legislation regulating the formation of federal political parties. Elections Canada cannot dictate how a federal political party should be formed or how its legal, internal and financial structures should be established.
Most parties elect their leaders in instant-runoff elections to ensure that the winner receives more than 50% of the votes. Normally the party leader stands as a candidate to be an MP during an election. This happens at leadership conventions. Canada's parliamentary system empowers political parties and their party leaders. Where one party gets a majority of the seats in the House of Commons, that party is said to have a "majority government." Through party discipline, the party leader, who is elected in only one riding, exercises a great deal of control over the cabinet and the parliament.
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Historically, the prime minister and senators are selected by the Governor General as a representative of the King, though in modern practice the monarch's duties are ceremonial. Consequently, the prime minister, while technically selected by the Governor General, is for all practical purposes selected by the party with the majority of seats. That is, the party that gets the most seats normally forms the government, with that party's leader becoming prime minister. The prime minister is not directly elected by the general population, although the prime minister is almost always directly elected as an MP within his or her constituency.
Often the most popular party in an election takes a majority of the seats, even if it did not receive a majority of the vote. However, as there are usually three or more political parties represented in parliament, often no party takes a majority of the seats. A minority government occurs when the party that holds the most seats in the House of Commons holds fewer seats than the opposition parties combined. Where no party is given a majority, the defeated Ministry may choose to stay in office until defeated on a vote of confidence in the House, or it may resign. If it resigns, the Governor General will ask the leader of the opposition party most likely to enjoy the confidence of the House to form a government; however, for the government to survive and to pass laws, the leader chosen must have the support of the majority of the House, meaning they need the support of the elected members of at least one other party. This can be done on a case-by-case basis, through a coalition government (which has only occurred once at the federal level, the Unionist government formed during World War I) or through a confidence-and-supply agreement (such as the one the Liberals and the NDP signed in 2022).
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Federal-provincial relations.
As a federation, the existence and powers of the federal government and the ten provinces are guaranteed by the Constitution. The "Constitution Act, 1867" sets out the basic constitutional structure of the federal government and the provinces. The powers of the federal Parliament and the provinces can only be changed by constitutional amendments passed by the federal and provincial governments. The Sovereign is the formal head of state of the federal government and each of the ten provinces, but has no political role. The governments are led by the representatives of the people: elected by all adult Canadians at the federal level, and by the citizens of each province at the provincial level.
Federal-provincial (or intergovernmental, formerly Dominion-provincial) relations is a regular issue in Canadian politics: Quebec wishes to preserve and strengthen its distinctive nature, western provinces desire more control over their abundant natural resources, especially energy reserves; industrialized Central Canada is concerned with its manufacturing base, and the Atlantic provinces strive to escape from being less affluent than the rest of the country.
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In order to ensure that social programs such as health care and education are funded consistently throughout Canada, the "have-not" (poorer) provinces receive a proportionately greater share of federal "transfer (equalization) payments" than the richer, or "have", provinces do; this has been somewhat controversial. The richer provinces often favour freezing transfer payments, or rebalancing the system in their favour, based on the claim that they already pay more in taxes than they receive in federal government services, and the poorer provinces often favour an increase on the basis that the amount of money they receive is not sufficient for their existing needs.
Particularly in the past decade, critics have argued that the federal government's exercise of its unlimited constitutional spending power has contributed to strained federal-provincial relations. This power allows the federal government to influence provincial policies, by offering funding in areas that the federal government cannot itself regulate. The federal spending power is not expressly set out in the "Constitution Act, 1867"; however, in the words of the Court of Appeal for Ontario the power "can be inferred" from s. 91(1A), "the public debt and property".
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A prime example of an exercise of the spending power is the "Canada Health Act", which is a conditional grant of money to the provinces. Regulation of health services is, under the Constitution, a provincial responsibility. However, by making the funding available to the provinces under the "Canada Health Act" contingent upon delivery of services according to federal standards, the federal government has the ability to influence health care delivery.
Quebec and Canadian politics.
Except for three short-lived transitional or minority governments, prime ministers from Quebec led Canada continuously from 1968 to early 2006. People from Quebec led both Liberal and Progressive Conservative governments in this period.
Monarchs, governors general, and prime ministers are now expected to be at least functional, if not fluent, in both English and French. In selecting leaders, political parties give preference to candidates who are fluently bilingual.
By law, three of the nine positions on the Supreme Court of Canada must be held by judges from Quebec. This representation makes sure that at least three judges have sufficient experience with the civil law system to treat cases involving Quebec laws.
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National unity.
Canada has a long and storied history of secessionist movements (see Secessionist movements of Canada). National unity has been a major issue in Canada since the forced union of Upper and Lower Canada in 1840.
The predominant and lingering issue concerning Canadian national unity has been the ongoing conflict between the French-speaking majority in Quebec and the English-speaking majority in the rest of Canada. Quebec's continued demands for recognition of its "distinct society" through special political status has led to attempts for constitutional reform, most notably with the failed attempts to amend the constitution through the Meech Lake Accord and the Charlottetown Accord (the latter of which was rejected through a national referendum).
Since the Quiet Revolution, sovereigntist sentiments in Quebec have been variably stoked by the patriation of the Canadian constitution in 1982 (without Quebec's consent) and by the failed attempts at constitutional reform. Two provincial referendums, in 1980 and 1995, rejected proposals for sovereignty with majorities of 60% and 50.6% respectively. Given the narrow federalist victory in 1995, a reference was made by the Chrétien government to the Supreme Court of Canada in 1998 regarding the legality of unilateral provincial secession. The court decided that a unilateral declaration of secession would be unconstitutional. This resulted in the passage of the "Clarity Act" in 2000.
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The Bloc Québécois, a sovereigntist party which runs candidates exclusively in Quebec, was started by a group of MPs who left the Progressive Conservative (PC) party (along with several disaffected Liberal MPs), and first put forward candidates in the 1993 federal election. With the collapse of the PCs in that election, the Bloc and Liberals were seen as the only two viable parties in Quebec. Thus, prior to the 2006 election, any gain by one party came at the expense of the other, regardless of whether national unity was really at issue. The Bloc, then, benefited (with a significant increase in seat total) from the impressions of corruption that surrounded the Liberal Party in the lead-up to the 2004 election. However, the newly unified Conservative party re-emerged as a viable party in Quebec by winning 10 seats in the 2006 election. In the 2011 election, the New Democratic Party succeeded in winning 59 of Quebec's 75 seats, successfully reducing the number of seats of every other party substantially. The NDP surge nearly destroyed the Bloc, reducing them to 4 seats, far below the minimum requirement of 12 seats for official party status.
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Newfoundland and Labrador is also a problem regarding national unity. As the Dominion of Newfoundland was a self-governing country equal to Canada until 1949, there are large, though unco-ordinated, feelings of Newfoundland nationalism and anti-Canadian sentiment among much of the population. This is due in part to the perception of chronic federal mismanagement of the fisheries, forced resettlement away from isolated settlements in the 1960s, the government of Quebec still drawing inaccurate political maps whereby they take parts of Labrador, and to the perception that mainland Canadians look down upon Newfoundlanders. In 2004, the Newfoundland and Labrador First Party contested provincial elections and in 2008 in federal ridings within the province. In 2004, then-premier Danny Williams ordered all federal flags removed from government buildings as a result of lost offshore revenues to equalization clawbacks. On December 23, 2004, premier Williams made this statement to reporters in St. John's,
Western alienation is another national-unity-related concept that enters into Canadian politics. Residents of the four western provinces, particularly Alberta, have often been unhappy with a lack of influence and a perceived lack of understanding when residents of Central Canada consider "national" issues. While this is seen to play itself out through many avenues (media, commerce, and so on.), in politics, it has given rise to a number of political parties whose base constituency is in western Canada. These include the United Farmers of Alberta, who first won federal seats in 1917, the Progressives (1921), the Social Credit Party (1935), the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (1935), the Reconstruction Party (1935), New Democracy (1940) and most recently the Reform Party (1989).
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The Reform Party's slogan "The West Wants In" was echoed by commentators when, after a successful merger with the PCs, the successor party to both parties, the Conservative Party won the 2006 election. Led by Stephen Harper, who is an MP from Alberta, the electoral victory was said to have made "The West IS In" a reality. However, regardless of specific electoral successes or failures, the concept of western alienation continues to be important in Canadian politics, particularly on a provincial level, where opposing the federal government is a common tactic for provincial politicians. For example, in 2001, a group of prominent Albertans produced the Alberta Agenda, urging Alberta to take steps to make full use of its constitutional powers, much as Quebec has done.
Political conditions.
Canada is considered by most sources to be a very stable democracy. In 2006, "The Economist" ranked Canada the third-most democratic nation in its Democracy Index, ahead of all other nations in the Americas and ahead of every nation more populous than itself. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices, in 2023 Canada was the 19th most electoral democratic country in the world.
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More recently, with the existence of strong third parties and first-past-the-post elections amongst other factors, Canada on a federal and provincial level has experienced huge swings in seat shares, where third parties (e.g. NDP, Reform) end up (usually briefly) replacing the Liberals, the Progressive Conservatives or the Conservatives as the main opposition or even the government and leaving them as a rump. Such examples federally include the 1993 federal election with the collapse of the Progressive Conservatives, and the 2011 election leaving the Liberal Party a (temporary) rump along with Bloc Québécois. Other examples include the changes of fortune for the Alberta NDP during the province's 2015 and 2019 elections, and possibly the 2018 Quebec elections with the rise of Coalition Avenir Québec taking government from the Liberals and Parti Québécois.
On a provincial level, in the legislatures of western provinces the NDP often is the left-leaning main party instead of that province's Liberal Party branch, the latter generally being a rump or smaller than the NDP. The other main party (right of the NDP) is either the Progressive Conservatives or their successor, or the Saskatchewan Party in Saskatchewan.
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Party systems.
According to recent scholars, there have been four party systems in [Canada] at the federal level since Confederation, each with its own distinctive pattern of social support, patronage relationships, leadership styles, and electoral strategies. Political scientists disagree on the names and precise boundaries of the eras, however. Steve Patten identifies four party systems in Canada's political history
Clarkson (2005) shows how the Liberal Party has dominated all the party systems, using different approaches. It began with a "clientelistic approach" under Laurier, which evolved into a "brokerage" system of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s under Mackenzie King. The 1950s saw the emergence of a "pan-Canadian system", which lasted until the 1990s. The 1993 election — categorized by Clarkson as an electoral "earthquake" which "fragmented" the party system, saw the emergence of regional politics within a four party-system, whereby various groups championed regional issues and concerns. Clarkson concludes that the inherent bias built into the first-past-the-post system, has chiefly benefited the Liberals.
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Party funding.
The rules governing the funding of parties are designed to ensure reliance on personal contributions. Personal donations to federal parties and campaigns benefit from tax credits, although the amount of tax relief depends on the amount given. Also only people paying income taxes receive any benefit from this.
The rules are based on the belief that union or business funding should not be allowed to have as much impact on federal election funding as these are not contributions from citizens and are not evenly spread out between parties. The new rules stated that a party had to receive 2% of the vote nationwide in order to receive the general federal funding for parties. Each vote garnered a certain dollar amount for a party (approximately $1.75) in future funding. For the initial disbursement, approximations were made based on previous elections. The NDP received more votes than expected (its national share of the vote went up) while the new Conservative Party of Canada received fewer votes than had been estimated and was asked to refund the difference. Quebec was the first province to implement a similar system of funding many years before the changes to funding of federal parties.
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Federal funds are disbursed quarterly to parties, beginning at the start of 2005. For the moment, this disbursement delay leaves the NDP and the Green Party in a better position to fight an election, since they rely more on individual contributors than federal funds. The Green Party now receives federal funds, since it for the first time received a sufficient share of the vote in the 2004 election.
In 2007, news emerged of a funding loophole that "could cumulatively exceed the legal limit by more than $60,000", through anonymous recurrent donations of $200 to every riding of a party from corporations or unions. At the time, for each individual, the legal annual donation limit was $1,100 for each party, $1,100 combined total for each party's associations, and in an election year, an additional $1,100 combined total for each party's candidates. All three limits increase on 1 April every year based on the inflation rate.
Two of the biggest federal political parties in Canada experienced a drop in donations in 2020, in light of the COVID-19 pandemic impact on the global economy.
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Leaders' debates.
Leaders' debates in Canada consist of two debates, one English and one French, both produced by a consortium of Canada's five major television broadcasters (CBC/SRC, CTV, Global and TVA) and usually consist of the leaders of all parties with representation in the House of Commons.
These debates air on the networks of the producing consortium as well as the public affairs and parliamentary channel CPAC and the American public affairs network C-SPAN.
Government departments and structure.
The Canadian government operates the public service using departments, smaller agencies (for example, commissions, tribunals, and boards), and crown corporations. There are two types of departments: central agencies such as Finance, Privy Council Office, and Treasury Board Secretariat have an organizing and oversight role for the entire public service; line departments are departments that perform tasks in a specific area or field, such as the departments of Agriculture, Environment, or Defence.
Scholar Peter Aucoin, writing about the Canadian Westminster system, raised concerns in the early 2000s about the centralization of power; an increased number, role and influence of partisan-political staff; personal-politicization of appointments to the senior public service; and the assumption that the public service is promiscuously partisan for the government of the day. |
Economy of Canada
The economy of Canada is a highly developed mixed economy, the world's ninth-largest , and a nominal GDP of approximately . Canada is one of the world's largest trading nations, with a highly globalized economy. In 2021, Canadian trade in goods and services reached $2.016 trillion. Canada's exports totalled over $637 billion, while its imported goods were worth over $631 billion, of which approximately $391 billion originated from the United States. In 2018, Canada had a trade deficit in goods of $22 billion and a trade deficit in services of $25 billion. The Toronto Stock Exchange is the tenth-largest stock exchange in the world by market capitalization, listing over 1,500 companies with a combined market capitalization of over .
Canada has a strong cooperative banking sector, with the world's highest per-capita membership in credit unions. It ranks low in the Corruption Perceptions Index (12th in 2023) and "is widely regarded as among the least corrupt countries of the world". It ranks high in the Global Competitiveness Report (14th in 2019) and Global Innovation Indexes (15th in 2022). Canada's economy ranks above most Western nations on The Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom and experiences a relatively low level of income disparity. The country's average household disposable income per capita is "well above" the OECD average. Canada ranks among the lowest of the most developed countries for housing affordability and foreign direct investment. Among OECD members, Canada has a highly efficient and strong social security system; social expenditure stood at roughly 23.1% of GDP.
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Since the early 20th century, the growth of Canada's manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy to an urbanized, industrial one. Like many other developed countries, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three-quarters of the country's workforce. Among developed countries, Canada has an unusually important primary sector, of which the forestry and petroleum industries are the most prominent components. Many towns in northern Canada, where agriculture is difficult, are sustained by nearby mines or sources of timber. Canada spends around 1.70% of GDP on advanced research and development across various sectors of the economy.
Canada's economic integration with the United States has increased significantly since World War II. The Automotive Products Trade Agreement of 1965 opened Canada's borders to trade in the automobile manufacturing industry. In the 1970s, concerns over energy self-sufficiency and foreign ownership in the manufacturing sectors prompted the federal government to enact the National Energy Program (NEP) and the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA). The government abolished the NEP in the 1980s and changed the name of FIRA to Investment Canada to encourage foreign investment. The Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two countries, while the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expanded the free-trade zone to include Mexico in 1994 (later replaced by the Canada–United States–Mexico Agreement). As of 2023, Canada is a signatory to 15 free trade agreements with 51 countries.
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Canada is one of the few developed nations that are net exporters of energy. Atlantic Canada possesses vast offshore deposits of natural gas, and Alberta hosts the fourth-largest oil reserves in the world. The vast Athabasca oil sands and other oil reserves give Canada 13 percent of global oil reserves, constituting the world's third or fourth-largest. Canada is additionally one of the world's largest suppliers of agricultural products; the Canadian Prairies are one of the most important global producers of wheat, canola, and other grains. The country is a leading exporter of zinc, uranium, gold, nickel, platinoids, aluminum, steel, iron ore, coking coal, lead, copper, molybdenum, cobalt, and cadmium. Canada has a sizeable manufacturing sector centred in southern Ontario and Quebec, with automobiles and aeronautics representing particularly important industries. The fishing industry is also a key contributor to the economy.
Overview.
With the exception of a few island nations in the Caribbean, Canada is the only North American country to use the parliamentary system of government. As a result, Canada has developed its own social and political institutions, distinct from most other countries in the world. Though the Canadian economy is closely integrated with the American economy, it has developed unique economic institutions.
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The Canadian economic system generally combines elements of private enterprise and public enterprise. Many aspects of public enterprise, most notably the development of an extensive welfare spending system to redress social and economic inequities, were adopted after the end of World War II in 1945.
Approximately 89% of Canada's land is Crown land. Canada has one of the highest levels of economic freedom in the world. Today Canada closely resembles the U.S. in its market-oriented economic system and pattern of production. As of 2019, Canada has 56 companies in the Forbes Global 2000 list, ranking ninth just behind South Korea and ahead of Saudi Arabia.
International trade makes up a large part of the Canadian economy, particularly of its natural resources. In 2009, agriculture, energy, forestry and mining exports accounted for about 58% of Canada's total exports. Machinery, equipment, automotive products and other manufactures accounted for a further 38% of exports in 2009. In 2009, exports accounted for about 30% of Canada's GDP. The United States is by far its largest trading partner, accounting for about 73% of exports and 63% of imports as of 2009. Canada's combined exports and imports ranked 8th among all nations in 2006.
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About 4% of Canadians are directly employed in primary resource fields, and they account for 6.2% of GDP. They are still paramount in many parts of the country. Many, if not most, towns in northern Canada, where agriculture is difficult, exist because of a nearby mine or source of timber. Canada is a world leader in the production of many natural resources such as gold, nickel, uranium, diamonds, lead, and in recent years, crude petroleum, which, with the world's second-largest oil reserves, is taking an increasingly prominent position in natural resources extraction. Several of Canada's largest companies are based in natural resource industries, such as Encana, Cameco, Goldcorp, and Barrick Gold. The vast majority of these products are exported, mainly to the United States. There are also many secondary and service industries that are directly linked to primary ones. For instance one of Canada's largest manufacturing industries is the pulp and paper sector, which is directly linked to the logging business.
The reliance on natural resources has several effects on the Canadian economy and Canadian society. While manufacturing and service industries are easy to standardize, natural resources vary greatly by region. This ensures that differing economic structures developed in each region of Canada, contributing to Canada's strong regionalism. At the same time the vast majority of these resources are exported, integrating Canada closely into the international economy. Howlett and Ramesh argue that the inherent instability of such industries also contributes to greater government intervention in the economy, to reduce the social impact of market changes.
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Natural resource industries also raise important questions of sustainability. Despite many decades as a leading producer, there is little risk of depletion. Large discoveries continue to be made, such as the massive nickel find at Voisey's Bay. Moreover, the far north remains largely undeveloped as producers await higher prices or new technologies as many operations in this region are not yet cost effective. In recent decades Canadians have become less willing to accept the environmental destruction associated with exploiting natural resources. High wages and Aboriginal land claims have also curbed expansion. Instead, many Canadian companies have focused their exploration, exploitation and expansion activities overseas where prices are lower and governments more amenable. Canadian companies are increasingly playing important roles in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa.
The depletion of renewable resources has raised concerns in recent years. After decades of escalating overutilization the cod fishery all but collapsed in the 1990s, and the Pacific salmon industry also suffered greatly. The logging industry, after many years of activism, has in recent years moved to a more sustainable model, or to other countries.
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Measuring productivity.
Productivity measures are key indicators of economic performance and a key source of economic growth and competitiveness. OECD's "Compendium of Productivity Indicators", published annually, presents a broad overview of productivity levels and growth in member nations, highlighting key measurement issues. It analyses the role of "productivity as the main driver of economic growth and convergence" and the "contributions of labour, capital and MFP in driving economic growth". According to the definition above "MFP is often interpreted as the contribution to economic growth made by factors such as technical and organisational innovation". Measures of productivity include the gross domestic product (GDP) and total factor productivity.
Multifactor productivity.
Another productivity measure, used by OECD, is the long-term trend in multifactor productivity (MFP) also known as total factor productivity (TFP). This indicator assesses an economy's "underlying productive capacity ('potential output'), itself an important measure of the growth possibilities of economies and of inflationary pressures". MFP measures the residual growth that cannot be explained by the rate of change in the services of labour, capital and intermediate outputs, and is often interpreted as the contribution to economic growth made by factors such as technical and organisational innovation.
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According to OECD's annual economic survey of Canada in June 2012, Canada has experienced weak growth of multi-factor productivity (MFP) and has been declining further since 2002. One of the ways MFP growth is raised is by boosting innovation and Canada's innovation indicators such as business R&D and patenting rates were poor. Raising MFP growth is "needed to sustain rising living standards, especially as the population ages".
Since 2010, productivity growth has picked up, almost entirely driven by above average multifactor productivity growth. However, productivity on the whole still lags behind the upper half of OECD countries such as the United States. Canada's productivity is now around the median OECD productivity, close to that of Australia. More can be done to increase productivity, such as increasing the productivity of capital through improving the capital stock to output ratio and capital quality. This could be achieved through the liberalization of internal trade barriers, as suggested in the OECD's latest Canadian economic survey.
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Bank of Canada.
The mandate of the central bank—the Bank of Canada is to conduct monetary policy that "preserves the value of money by keeping inflation low and stable".
Monetary Policy Report.
The Bank of Canada issues its bank rate announcement through its Monetary Policy Report which is released eight times a year. The Bank of Canada, a federal crown corporation, has the responsibility of Canada's monetary system. Under the inflation-targeting monetary policy that has been the cornerstone of Canada's monetary and fiscal policy since the early 1990s, the Bank of Canada sets an inflation target The inflation target was set at 2 per cent, which is the midpoint of an inflation range of 1 to 3 per cent. They established a set of inflation-reduction targets to keep inflation "low, stable and predictable" and to foster "confidence in the value of money", contribute to Canada's sustained growth, employment gains and improved standard of living.
In a January 9, 2019 statement on the release of the Monetary Policy Report, Bank of Canada Governor Stephen S. Poloz summarized major events since the October report, such as "negative economic consequences" of the US-led trade war with China. In response to the ongoing trade war "bond yields have fallen, yield curves have flattened even more and stock markets have repriced significantly" in "global financial markets". In Canada, low oil prices will impact Canada's "macroeconomic outlook". Canada's housing sector is not stabilizing as quickly as anticipated.
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Inflation targeting.
During the period that John Crow was Governor of the Bank of Canada—1987 to 1994—there was a worldwide recession and the bank rate rose to around 14% and unemployment topped 11%. Although since that time inflation-targeting has been adopted by "most advanced-world central banks", in 1991 it was innovative and Canada was an early adopter when the then-Finance Minister Michael Wilson approved the Bank of Canada's first inflation-targeting in the 1991 federal budget. The inflation target was set at 2 per cent. Inflation is measured by the total consumer price index (CPI). In 2011 the Government of Canada and the Bank of Canada extended Canada's inflation-control target to December 31, 2016. The Bank of Canada uses three unconventional instruments to achieve the inflation target: "a conditional statement on the future path of the policy rate", quantitative easing, and credit easing.
As a result, interest rates and inflation eventually came down along with the value of the Canadian dollar. From 1991 to 2011 the inflation-targeting regime kept "price gains fairly reliable".
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Following the Great Recession, the narrow focus of inflation-targeting as a means of providing stable growth in the Canadian economy was questioned. By 2011, the then-Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney argued that the central bank's mandate would allow for a more flexible inflation-targeting in specific situations where he would consider taking longer "than the typical six to eight quarters to return inflation to 2 per cent".
On July 15, 2015, the Bank of Canada announced that it was lowering its target for the overnight rate by another one-quarter percentage point, to 0.5 per cent "to try to stimulate an economy that appears to have failed to rebound meaningfully from the oil shock woes that dragged it into decline in the first quarter". According to the Bank of Canada announcement, in the first quarter of 2015, the total Consumer price index (CPI) inflation was about 1 per cent. This reflects "year-over-year price declines for consumer energy products". Core inflation in the first quarter of 2015 was about 2 per cent with an underlying trend in inflation at about 1.5 to 1.7 per cent.
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In response to the Bank of Canada's July 15, 2015 rate adjustment, Prime Minister Stephen Harper explained that the economy was "being dragged down by forces beyond Canadian borders such as global oil prices, the European debt crisis, and China's economic slowdown" which has made the global economy "fragile".
The Chinese stock market had lost about US$3 trillion of wealth by July 2015 when panicked investors sold stocks, which created declines in the commodities markets, which in turn negatively impacted resource-producing countries like Canada.
The Bank's main priority has been to keep inflation at a moderate level. As part of that strategy, interest rates were kept at a low level for almost seven years. Since September 2010, the key interest rate (overnight rate) was 0.5%. In mid 2017, inflation remained below the Bank's 2% target, (at 1.6%) mostly because of reductions in the cost of energy, food and automobiles; as well, the economy was in a continuing spurt with a predicted GDP growth of 2.8 percent by year end. Early on July 12, 2017, the bank issued a statement that the benchmark rate would be increased to 0.75%.
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Following the COVID-19 pandemic, critics have pointed out that the Bank of Canada's inflation-targeting has had unintended consequences, such as fuelling an increase in home prices and contributing to wealth inequalities by supporting higher equity values.
Key industries.
In 2020, the Canadian economy had the following relative weighting by the industry as a percentage value of GDP:
Real estate, rental, and leasing.
Canada's real estate market is the backbone of the economy, comprising over 13% of the GDP by sector in 2020. In 2021, housing investment accounted for 21% of national wealth. It is difficult to discern the actual contribution of other sectors (Construction, Investment and Financial Services, Manufacturing, Forestry, etc) to Real Estate, Rental and Leasing, as these industries are intrinsically linked in a complex economy. The Bank of Canada has increased its mortgage bond holdings to target 50% of the fixed-rate primary issuances.
Service sector.
The service sector in Canada is vast and multifaceted, employing about three quarters of Canadians and accounting for 70% of GDP. The largest employer is the retail sector, employing almost 12% of Canadians. The retail industry is concentrated mainly in a small number of chain stores clustered together in shopping malls. In recent years, there has been an increase in the number of big-box stores, such as Walmart (of the United States), Real Canadian Superstore, and Best Buy (of the United States). This has led to fewer workers in this sector and the migration of retail jobs to the suburbs.
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The second-largest portion of the service sector is the business service, and it employs only a slightly smaller percentage of the population. This includes the financial services, real estate, and communications industries. This portion of the economy has been rapidly growing in recent years. It is largely concentrated in the major urban centres, especially Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver (see Banking in Canada).
The education and health sectors are two of Canada's largest, but both are primarily under the influence of the government. The health care industry has been quickly growing and is the third-largest in Canada.
Canada has an important high tech industry, and a burgeoning film, television, and entertainment industry creating content for local and international consumption (see Media in Canada). Tourism is of ever increasing importance, with the vast majority of international visitors coming from the United States. Casino gaming is currently the fastest-growing component of the Canadian tourism industry, contributing $5 billion in profits for Canadian governments and employing 41,000 Canadians as of 2001.
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Manufacturing.
The general pattern of development for wealthy nations was a transition from a raw material production-based economy to a manufacturing-based economy and then to a service-based economy. At its World War II peak in 1944, Canada's manufacturing sector accounted for 29% of GDP, declining to 10.37% in 2017. Canada has not suffered as greatly as most other rich, industrialized nations from the pains of the relative decline in the importance of manufacturing since the 1960s. A 2009 study by Statistics Canada also found that, while manufacturing declined as a relative percentage of GDP from 24.3% in the 1960s to 15.6% in 2005, manufacturing volumes between 1961 and 2005 kept pace with the overall growth in the volume index of GDP. Manufacturing in Canada declined significantly during the Great Recession. As of 2017, manufacturing accounts for 10% of Canada's GDP, a relative decline of more than 5% of GDP since 2005.
Central Canada is home to branch plants to all the major American and Japanese automobile makers and many parts factories owned by Canadian firms such as Magna International and Linamar Corporation.
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Steel.
Canada was the world's nineteenth-largest steel exporter in 2018. In year-to-date 2019 (through March), further referred to as YTD 2019, Canada exported 1.39 million metric tons of steel, a 22 percent decrease from 1.79 million metric tons in YTD 2018. Based on available data, Canada's exports represented about 1.5 percent of all steel exported globally in 2017. By volume, Canada's 2018 steel exports represented just over one-tenth the volume of the world's largest exporter, China. In value terms, steel represented 1.4 percent of the total goods Canada exported in 2018. The growth in exports in the decade since 2009 has been 29%. The largest producers in 2018 were ArcelorMittal, Essar Steel Algoma, and the first of those alone accounted for roughly half of Canadian steel production through its two subsidiaries. The top two markets for Canada's exports were its NAFTA partners, and by themselves accounted for 92 percent of exports by volume. Canada sent 83 percent of its steel exports to the United States in YTD 2019. The gap between domestic demand and domestic production increased to −2.4 million metric tons, up from −0.2 million metric tons in YTD 2018. In YTD 2019, exports as a share of production decreased to 41.6 percent from 53 percent in YTD 2018.
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In 2017, heavy industry accounted for 10.2% of Canada's greenhouse gas emissions.
Mining.
Canada is one of the largest producers of metals (as of 2019):
In 2019, the country was also the 4th largest world producer of sulfur; the 13th largest world producer of gypsum; the 14th worldwide producer of antimony; the world's 10th largest producer of graphite; in addition to being the 6th largest world producer of salt. It was the 2nd largest producer in the world of uranium in 2018.
Energy.
Canada has access to cheap sources of energy because of its geography. This has enabled the creation of several important industries, such as the large aluminum industries in British Columbia and Quebec. Canada is also one of the world's highest per capita consumers of energy.
Electricity.
The electricity sector in Canada has played a significant role in the economic and political life of the country since the late 19th century. The sector is organized along provincial and territorial lines. In a majority of provinces, large government-owned integrated public utilities play a leading role in the generation, transmission and distribution of electricity. Ontario and Alberta have created electricity markets in the last decade in order to increase investment and competition in this sector of the economy. In 2017, the electricity sector accounted for 10% of total national greenhouse gas emissions. Canada has substantial electricity trade with the neighbouring United States amounting to 72 TWh exports and 10 TWh imports in 2017.
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Hydroelectricity accounted for 59% of all electric generation in Canada in 2016, making Canada the world's second-largest producer of hydroelectricity after China. Since 1960, large hydroelectric projects, especially in Quebec, British Columbia, Manitoba and Newfoundland and Labrador, have significantly increased the country's generation capacity.
The second-largest single source of power (15% of the total) is nuclear power, with several plants in Ontario generating more than half of that province's electricity and one generator in New Brunswick. This makes Canada the world's sixth-largest electricity producer generated by nuclear power, producing 95 TWh in 2017.
Fossil fuels provide 19% of Canadian electric power, about half as coal (9% of the total), and the remainder a mix of natural gas and oil. Only five provinces use coal for electricity generation. Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Nova Scotia rely on coal for nearly half of their generation, while other provinces and territories use little or none. Alberta and Saskatchewan also use a substantial amount of natural gas. Remote communities, including all of Nunavut and much of the Northwest Territories, produce most of their electricity from diesel generators at high economic and environmental costs. The federal government has set up initiatives to reduce dependence on diesel-fired electricity.
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Non-hydro renewables are a fast-growing portion of the total, at 7% in 2016.
Oil and gas.
Canada possesses extensive oil and gas resources centered in Alberta, and the Northern Territories but is also present in neighboring British Columbia and Saskatchewan. The vast Athabasca oil sands give Canada the world's third-largest reserves of oil after Saudi Arabia and Venezuela, according to USGS. The oil and gas industry represents 27% of Canada's total greenhouse gas emissions, an increase of 84% since 1990, mostly due to the development of the oil sands.
Historically, an important issue in Canadian politics is the interplay between the oil and energy industry in Western Canada and the industrial heartland of Southern Ontario. Foreign investment in Western oil projects has fueled Canada's rising dollar. This has raised the price of Ontario's manufacturing exports and made them less competitive, a problem similar to the decline of the manufacturing sector in the Netherlands.
The National Energy Policy of the early 1980s attempted to make Canada oil-sufficient and to ensure equal supply and price of oil in all parts of Canada, especially for the eastern manufacturing base. This policy proved deeply divisive as it forced Alberta to sell low-priced oil to eastern Canada. The policy was eliminated 5 years after it was first announced amid a collapse of oil prices in 1985. The new Prime Minister Brian Mulroney had campaigned against the policy in the 1984 Canadian federal election. One of the most controversial sections of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement of 1988 was a promise that Canada would never charge the United States more for energy than fellow Canadians.
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Agriculture.
Canada is one of the world's largest suppliers of agricultural products, particularly wheat and other grains. Canada is a major exporter of agricultural products, to the United States and Asia. As with all other developed nations, the proportion of the population and GDP devoted to agriculture fell dramatically over the 20th century. The agriculture and agri-food manufacturing sector created $49.0 billion to Canada's GDP in 2015, accounting for 2.6% of total GDP. This sector also accounts for 8.4% of Canada's Greenhouse gas emissions.
The Canadian agriculture industry receives significant government subsidies and support as with other developed nations. However, Canada has strongly supported reducing market influencing subsidies through the World Trade Organization. In 2000, Canada spent approximately CDN$4.6 billion on support for the industry. $2.32 billion was classified under the WTO designation of "green box" license, meaning it did not directly influence the market, such as money for research or disaster relief. All but $848.2 million were subsidies worth less than 5% of the value of the crops they were provided for.
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Free-trade agreements.
Ongoing free-trade agreements negotiations.
Canada is negotiating bilateral FTAs with the following countries respectively trade blocs:
Canada has been involved in negotiations to create the following regional trade blocks:
Political issues.
Canada–United States trade relations.
Canada and the United States share a common trading relationship. Canada's job market continues to perform well along with the US, reaching a 30-year low in the unemployment rate in December 2006, following 14 consecutive years of employment growth.
The United States is by far Canada's largest trading partner, with more than $1.7 billion CAD in trade per day in 2005. In 2009, 73% of Canada's exports went to the United States, and 63% of Canada's imports were from the United States. Trade with Canada makes up 23% of the United States' exports and 17% of its imports. By comparison, in 2005 this was more than U.S. trade with all countries in the European Union combined, and well over twice U.S. trade with all the countries of Latin America combined. Just the two-way trade that crosses the Ambassador Bridge between Michigan and Ontario equals all U.S. exports to Japan. Canada's importance to the United States is not just a border-state phenomenon: Canada is the leading export market for 35 of 50 U.S. states, and is the United States' largest foreign supplier of energy.
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Bilateral trade increased by 52% between 1989, when the U.S.–Canada Free Trade Agreement (FTA) went into effect, and 1994, when the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) superseded it. Trade has since increased by 40%. NAFTA continues the FTA's moves toward reducing trade barriers and establishing agreed-upon trade rules. It also resolves some long-standing bilateral irritants and liberalizes rules in several areas, including agriculture, services, energy, financial services, investment, and government procurement. NAFTA forms the largest trading area in the world, embracing the 405 million people of the three North American countries.
The largest component of U.S.–Canada trade is in the commodity sector.
The U.S. is Canada's largest agricultural export market, taking well over half of all Canadian food exports. Nearly two-thirds of Canada's forest products, including pulp and paper, are exported to the United States; 72% of Canada's total newsprint production also is exported to the U.S.
At $73.6 billion in 2004, U.S.-Canada trade in energy is the largest U.S. energy trading relationship, with the overwhelming majority ($66.7 billion) being exports from Canada. The primary components of U.S. energy trade with Canada are petroleum, natural gas, and electricity. Canada is the United States' largest oil supplier and the fifth-largest energy producing country in the world. Canada provides about 16% of U.S. oil imports and 14% of total U.S. consumption of natural gas. The United States and Canada's national electricity grids are linked, and both countries share hydropower facilities on the western borders.
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While most of U.S.-Canada trade flows smoothly, there are occasionally bilateral trade disputes, particularly in the agricultural and cultural fields. Usually these issues are resolved through bilateral consultative forums or referral to World Trade Organization (WTO) or NAFTA dispute resolution. In May 1999, the U.S. and Canadian governments negotiated an agreement on magazines that provides increased access for the U.S. publishing industry to the Canadian market. The United States and Canada also have resolved several major issues involving fisheries. By common agreement, the two countries submitted a Gulf of Maine boundary dispute to the International Court of Justice in 1981; both accepted the court's October 12, 1984 ruling which demarcated the territorial sea boundary. A current issue between the United States and Canada is the ongoing softwood lumber dispute, as the U.S. alleges that Canada unfairly subsidizes its forestry industry.
In 1990, the United States and Canada signed a bilateral Fisheries Enforcement Agreement, which has served to deter illegal fishing activity and reduce the risk of injury during fisheries enforcement incidents. The U.S. and Canada signed a Pacific Salmon Agreement in June 1999 that settled differences over implementation of the 1985 Pacific Salmon Treaty for the next decade.
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Canada and the United States signed an aviation agreement during Bill Clinton's visit to Canada in February 1995, and air traffic between the two countries has increased dramatically as a result. The two countries also share in operation of the St. Lawrence Seaway, connecting the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean.
The U.S. remains Canada's largest foreign investor and the most popular destination for Canadian foreign investments. In 2018, the stock of U.S. direct investment in Canada totaled $406 billion, while the stock of Canadian investment in the U.S. totaled $595 billion, or 46% of the overall CDIA stock for 2018. This made Canada the second largest investing country in the U.S. for 2018 US investments are primarily directed at Canada's mining and smelting industries, petroleum, chemicals, the manufacture of machinery and transportation equipment, and finance, while Canadian investment in the United States is concentrated in manufacturing, wholesale trade, real estate, petroleum, finance, insurance and other services.
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Debt.
Canadian government debt.
Canadian government debt, also called Canada's public debt, is the liabilities of the government sector. For 2019 (the fiscal year ending 31 March 2020), total financial liabilities or gross debt was $2.434 trillion for the consolidated Canadian general government (federal, provincial, territorial, and local governments combined). This corresponds to 105.3% as a ratio of GDP (GDP was $2.311 trillion). Of the $2.434 trillion, $1.146 trillion or 47% was federal (central) government liabilities (49.6% as a ratio of GDP). Provincial government liabilities comprise most of the remaining liabilities.
Household debt.
Household debt, the amount of money that all adults in the household owe financial institutions, includes consumer debt and mortgage loans. In March 2015, the International Monetary Fund reported that Canada's high household debt was one of two vulnerable domestic areas in Canada's economy; the second is its overheated housing market.
According to Statistics Canada, total household credit as of July 2019 was CAD$2.2 trillion. According to Philip Cross of the Fraser Institute, in May 2015, while the Canadian household debt-to-income ratio is similar to that in the US, however lending standards in Canada are tighter than those in the United States to protect against high-risk borrowers taking out unsustainable debt.
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Mergers and acquisitions.
Since 1985, 63,755 deals in- and outbound Canada have been announced, with an overall value of US$3.7 billion. Almost 50% of the targets of Canadian companies (outbound deals) have a parent company in the US. Inbound deals are 82% percent from the US.
Here is a list of the biggest deals in Canadian history:
Raw data.
The following table shows the main economic indicators in 1980–2021 (with IMF staff estimates for 2022–2027). Inflation below 5% is in green.
Export trade.
Export trade from Canada measured in US dollars. In 2021, Canada exported US$503.4 billion.
That dollar amount reflects a 19.5% gain since 2017 and a 29.1% increase from 2020 to 2021.
Import trade.
Import trade in 2017 measured in US dollars. |
Telecommunications in Canada
Present-day telecommunications in Canada include telephone, radio, television, and internet usage. In the past, telecommunications included telegraphy available through Canadian Pacific and Canadian National.
History.
The history of telegraphy in Canada dates back to the Province of Canada. While the first telegraph company was the Toronto, Hamilton and Niagara Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, founded in 1846, it was the Montreal Telegraph Company, controlled by Hugh Allan and founded a year later, that dominated in Canada during the technology's early years.
Following the 1852 Telegraph Act, Canada's first permanent transatlantic telegraph link was a submarine cable built in 1866 between Ireland and Newfoundland. Telegrams were sent through networks built by Canadian Pacific and Canadian National.
In 1868 Montreal Telegraph began facing competition from the newly established Dominion Telegraph Company. 1880 saw the Great North Western Telegraph Company established to connect Ontario and Manitoba but within a year it was taken over by Western Union, leading briefly to that company's control of almost all telegraphy in Canada. In 1882, Canadian Pacific transmitted its first commercial telegram over telegraph lines they had erected alongside its tracks, breaking Western Union's monopoly. Great North Western Telegraph, facing bankruptcy, was taken over in 1915 by Canadian Northern.
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By the end of World War II, Canadians communicated by telephone more than any other country. In 1967 the CP and CN networks were merged to form CNCP Telecommunications.
As of 1951, approximately 7000 messages were sent daily from the United States to Canada. An agreement with Western Union required that U.S. company to route messages in a specified ratio of 3:1, with three telegraphic messages transmitted to Canadian National for every message transmitted to Canadian Pacific. The agreement was complicated by the fact that some Canadian destinations were served by only one of the two networks.
Fixed-line telephony.
Telephones - fixed lines: total subscriptions: 13.926 million (2020)
Telephones - mobile cellular: 36,093,021 (2020)
Telephone system: (2019)
Call signs.
ITU prefixes: Letter combinations available for use in Canada as the first two letters of a television or radio station's call sign are CF, CG, CH, CI, CJ, CK, CY, CZ, VA, VB, VC, VD, VE, VF, VG, VO, VX, VY, XJ, XK, XL, XM, XN and XO. Only CF, CH, CI, CJ and CK are currently in common use, although four radio stations in St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador retained call letters beginning with VO when Newfoundland joined Canadian Confederation in 1949. Stations owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation use CB through a special agreement with the government of Chile. Some codes beginning with VE and VF are also in use to identify radio repeater transmitters.
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Radio.
As of 2016, there were over 1,100 radio stations and audio services broadcasting in Canada. Of these, 711 are private commercial radio stations. These commercial stations account for over three quarters of radio stations in Canada. The remainder of the radio stations are a mix of public broadcasters, such as CBC Radio, as well as campus, community, and Aboriginal stations.
Television.
As of 2018, 762 TV services were broadcasting in Canada. This includes both conventional television stations and discretionary services.
Cable and satellite television services are available throughout Canada. The largest cable providers are Bell Canada, Rogers Cable, Vidéotron, Telus and Cogeco, while the two licensed satellite providers are Bell Satellite TV and Shaw Direct.
Internet.
Bell, Rogers, Telus, and Shaw are among the bigger ISPs in Canada. Depending on your location, Bell and Rogers would be the big internet service providers in Eastern provinces, while Shaw and Telus are the main players competing in western provinces.
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Mobile networks.
The three major mobile network operators are Rogers Wireless (13.7 million subscribers), Bell Mobility (10.29 million) and Telus Mobility (9.5 million), which have a combined 86% of market share.
Administration and Government.
Federally, telecommunications are overseen by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission ()–CRTC as outlined under the provisions of both the Telecommunications Act and Radiocommunication Acts. CRTC further works with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (formerly Industry Canada) on various technical aspects including: allocating frequencies and call signs, managing the broadcast spectrum, and regulating other technical issues such as interference with electronics equipment. As Canada comprises a part of the North American Numbering Plan for area codes, the Canadian Numbering Administration Consortium within Canada is responsible for allocating and managing area codes in Canada.
Further reading.
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Transportation in Canada
Canada, the world's second-largest country in total area, is dedicated to having an efficient, high-capacity multimodal transportation spanning often vast distances between natural resource extraction sites, agricultural and urban areas. Canada's transportation system includes more than of roads, 10 major international airports, 300 smaller airports, of functioning railway track, and more than 300 commercial ports and harbours that provide access to the Pacific, Atlantic and Arctic oceans as well as the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence Seaway. In 2005, the transportation sector made up 4.2% of Canada's GDP, compared to 3.7% for Canada's mining and oil and gas extraction industries.
Transport Canada oversees and regulates most aspects of transportation within federal jurisdiction, including interprovincial transport. This primarily includes rail, air and maritime transportation. Transport Canada is under the direction of the federal government's Minister of Transport. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada is responsible for maintaining transportation safety in Canada by investigating accidents and making safety recommendations.
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History.
The standard history covers the French regime, fur traders, the canals, and early roads, and gives extensive attention to the railways.
European contact.
Prior to the arrival of European settlers, Aboriginal peoples in Canada walked. They also used canoes, kayaks, umiaks and Bull Boats, in addition to the snowshoe, toboggan and sled in winter. They had no wheeled vehicles, and no animals larger than dogs.
Europeans adopted canoes as they pushed deeper into the continent's interior, and were thus able to travel via the waterways that fed from the St. Lawrence River and Hudson Bay.
In the 19th century and early 20th century transportation relied on harnessing oxen to "Red River ox carts" or horse to wagon. Maritime transportation was via manual labour such as canoe or wind on sail. Water or land travel speeds was approximately .
Settlement was along river routes. Agricultural commodities were perishable, and trade centres were within . Rural areas centred around villages, and they were approximately apart. The advent of steam railways and steamships connected resources and markets of vast distances in the late 19th century. Railways also connected city centres, in such a way that the traveller went by sleeper, railway hotel, to the cities. Crossing the country by train took four or five days, as it still does by car. People generally lived within of the downtown core thus the train could be used for inter-city travel and the tram for commuting.
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The advent of controlled-access highways in Canada established ribbon development, truck stops, and industrial corridors along throughways.
Evolution.
The Federal Department of Transport (established November 2, 1936) supervised railways, canals, harbours, marine and shipping, civil aviation, radio and meteorology. The Transportation Act of 1938 and the amended Railway Act, placed control and regulation of carriers in the hands of the Board of Transport commissioners for Canada. The Royal Commission on Transportation was formed December 29, 1948, to examine transportation services to all areas of Canada to eliminate economic or geographic disadvantages. The commission also reviewed the Railway Act to provide uniform yet competitive freight-rates.
Roads.
There is a total of of roads in Canada, of which are paved, including of expressways (the third-longest collection in the world, behind the Interstate Highway System of the United States and China's National Trunk Highway System). As of 2008, were unpaved. There are no regulations at a federal level that regulate Canada's road infrastructure, highway system, or traffic safety laws; it is left to the individual provinces and territories to regulate these elements. Regulations on a provincial level include Ontario's Highway Traffic Act, Alberta's Traffic Safety Act, and British Columbia's Motor Vehicle Act, for example. The only regulation at a federal level that relates to motor vehicles is the Motor Vehicle Safety Act, which deals with the manufacturing and importing of motor vehicles and motor vehicle equipment within the country.
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In 2009, there were 20,706,616 road vehicles registered in Canada, of which 96% were vehicles under , 2.4% were vehicles between and 1.6% were or greater. These vehicles travelled a total of 333.29 billion kilometres, of which 303.6 billion was for vehicles under 4.5 tonnes, 8.3 billion was for vehicles between 4.5 and 15 tonnes and 21.4 billion was for vehicles over 15 tonnes. For the 4.5- to 15-tonne trucks, 88.9% of vehicle-kilometres were intra-province trips, 4.9% were inter-province, 2.8% were between Canada and the US and 3.4% made outside of Canada. For the trucks over 15 tonnes, 59.1% of vehicle-kilometres were intra-province trips, 20% inter-province trips, 13.8% Canada-US trips and 7.1% trips made outside of Canada.
Canada's vehicles consumed a total of of gasoline and of diesel. Trucking generated 35% of the total GDP from transport, compared to 25% for rail, water and air combined (the remainder being generated by the industry's transit, pipeline, scenic and support activities). Hence roads are the dominant means of passenger and freight transport in Canada.
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Roads and highways were managed by provincial and municipal authorities until construction of the Northwest Highway System (the Alaska Highway) and the Trans-Canada Highway project initiation. The Alaska Highway of 1942 was constructed during World War II for military purposes connecting Fort St. John, British Columbia with Fairbanks, Alaska. The transcontinental highway, a joint national and provincial expenditure, was begun in 1949 under the initiation of the Trans Canada Highway Act on December 10, 1949. The highway was completed in 1962 at a total expenditure of $1.4 billion.
Internationally, Canada has road links with both the lower 48 US states and Alaska. The Ministry of Transportation maintains the road network in Ontario and also employs Ministry of Transport Enforcement Officers for the purpose of administering the Canada Transportation Act and related regulations. The Department of Transportation in New Brunswick performs a similar task in that province as well.
The safety of Canada's roads is moderately good by international standards, and is improving both in terms of accidents per head of population and per billion vehicle kilometers.
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Air transport.
Air transportation made up 9% of the transport sector's GDP generation in 2005. Canada's largest air carrier and its flag carrier is Air Canada, which had 34 million customers in 2006 and, as of April 2010, operates 363 aircraft (including Air Canada Jazz). CHC Helicopter, the largest commercial helicopter operator in the world, is second with 142 aircraft and WestJet, a low-cost carrier formed in 1996, is third with 100 aircraft. Canada's airline industry saw significant change following the signing of the US-Canada open skies agreement in 1995, when the marketplace became less regulated and more competitive.
According to a 2016 report, Canada's air transportation was the most expensive for consumers globally; however, this was prior to the emergence of ultra-low-cost carriers such as Flair Airlines.
The Canadian Transportation Agency employs transportation enforcement officers to maintain aircraft safety standards, and conduct periodic aircraft inspections, of all air carriers. The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority is charged with the responsibility for the security of air traffic within Canada. In 1994 the National Airports Policy was enacted
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Principal airports.
Of over 1,800 registered Canadian aerodromes, certified airports, heliports, and floatplane bases, 26 are specially designated under Canada's National Airports System (NAS): these include all airports that handle 200,000 or more passengers each year, as well as the principal airport serving each federal, provincial, and territorial capital. However, since the introduction of the policy only one, Iqaluit Airport, has been added and no airports have been removed despite dropping below 200,000 passengers. The Government of Canada, with the exception of the three territorial capitals, retains ownership of these airports and leases them to local authorities. The next tier consists of 64 regional/local airports formerly owned by the federal government, most of which have now been transferred to other owners (most often to municipalities).
Below is a table of Canada's ten biggest airports by passenger traffic in 2019.
Railways.
In 2007, Canada had a total of of freight and passenger railway, of which is electrified. While intercity passenger transportation by rail is now very limited, freight transport by rail remains common. Total revenues of rail services in 2006 was $10.4 billion, of which only 2.8% was from passenger services. In a year are usually earned about $11 billion, of which 3.2% is from passengers and the rest from freight. The Canadian National Railway and Canadian Pacific Kansas City are Canada's two major freight railway companies, each having operations throughout North America. In 2007, 357 billion tonne-kilometres of freight were transported by rail, and 4.33 million passengers travelled 1.44 billion passenger-kilometres (an almost negligible amount compared to the 491 billion passenger-kilometres made in light road vehicles). 34,281 people were employed by the rail industry in the same year.
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Nationwide passenger services are provided by the federal crown corporation Via Rail. VIA Rail has faced criticism for frequent delays, and low speeds compared to peer countries and historical train travel times, such as the records set by the TurboTrain during the 1970s.
Three Canadian cities have commuter rail services: in the Montreal area by Exo, in the Toronto area by GO Transit, and in the Vancouver area by West Coast Express. Smaller railways such as Ontario Northland, Rocky Mountaineer, and Algoma Central also run passenger trains to remote rural areas.
In Canada railways are served by standard gauge, , rails. See also track gauge in Canada.
Canada has railway links with the lower 48 US States, but no connection with Alaska, although a line has been proposed. There are no other international rail connections.
Waterways.
In 2005, of cargo was loaded and unloaded at Canadian ports. The Port of Vancouver is the busiest port in Canada, moving or 15% of Canada's total in domestic and international shipping in 2003.
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Transport Canada oversees most of the regulatory functions related to marine registration, safety of large vessel, and port pilotage duties. Many of Canada's port facilities are in the process of being divested from federal responsibility to other agencies or municipalities.
Inland waterways comprise , including the St. Lawrence Seaway. Transport Canada enforces acts and regulations governing water transportation and safety.
Canals.
The main route canals of Canada are those of the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. The others are subsidiary canals.
Ports and harbours.
The National Harbours Board administered Halifax, Saint John, Chicoutimi, Trois-Rivières, Churchill, and Vancouver until 1983. At one time, over 300 harbours across Canada were supervised by the Department of Transport. A program of divestiture was implemented around the turn of the millennium, and as of 2014, 493 of the 549 sites identified for divestiture in 1995 have been sold or otherwise transferred, as indicated by a DoT list. The government maintains an active divestiture programme, and after divestiture Transport Canada oversees only 17 Canada Port Authorities for the 17 largest shipping ports.
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Merchant marine.
Canada's merchant marine comprised a "total" of 173 ships ( or over) or at the end of 2007.
Pipelines.
Pipelines are part of the energy extraction and transportation network of Canada and are used to transport natural gas, natural gas liquids, crude oil, synthetic crude and other petroleum based products. Canada has of pipeline for transportation of crude and refined oil, and for liquefied petroleum gas.
Public transit.
Most Canadian cities have public transport, if only a bus system. Three Canadian cities have rapid transit systems, four have light rail systems, and three have commuter rail systems (see below). In 2016, 12.4% of Canadians used public transportation to get to work. This compares to 79.5% that got to work using a car (67.4% driving alone, 12.1% as part of a carpool), 5.5% that walked and 1.4% that rode a bike.
Government organizations across Canada owned 17,852 buses of various types in 2016. Organizations in Ontario (38.8%) and Quebec (21.9%) accounted for just over three-fifths of the country's total bus fleet. Urban municipalities owned more than 85% of all buses.
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in 2016, diesel buses were the leading bus type in Canada (65.9%), followed by bio-diesel (18.1%) and hybrid (9.4%) buses. Electric, natural gas and other buses collectively accounted for the remaining 6.6%.
Rapid transit systems.
There are three rapid transit systems operating in Canada: the Montreal Metro, the Toronto subway, and the Vancouver SkyTrain.
There is also an airport circulator, the Link Train, at Toronto Pearson International Airport. It operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is wheelchair-accessible. It is free of cost.
Light rail systems.
There are light rail systems in four cities – the Calgary CTrain, the Edmonton LRT, the Ottawa O-Train, and Waterloo Region's Ion – while Toronto has an extensive streetcar system.
The 2016 Canada's Core Public Infrastructure Survey from Statistics Canada found that all of Canada's 247 streetcars were owned by the City of Toronto. The vast majority (87.9%) of these streetcars were purchased from 1970 to 1999, while 12.1% were purchased in 2016. Reflecting the age of the streetcars, 88.0% were reported to be in very poor condition, while 12.0% were reported to be in good condition.
Commuter train systems.
Commuter trains serve the cities and surrounding areas of Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver: |
Canada–United States relations
Canada and the United States have a long and complex relationship that has had a significant impact on Canada's history, economy, and culture. The two countries have long considered themselves among the "closest allies". They share the longest border () between any two nations in the world, and also have significant military interoperability. Both Americans and Canadians have historically ranked each other as one of their respective "favorite nations".
Since the end of World War II, the economies and supply chains of both countries have grown to be fully integrated. In 2024 every day, around 400,000 people and $2.7 billion in goods and services cross the Canada–U. S. border. The close economic partnership has been facilitated by shared values and strong bilateral trade agreements. The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its successor, the United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA), have played a pivotal role in fostering economic cooperation and integration between the two nations. Cross-border projects, such as communications, highways, bridges, and pipelines have led to shared energy networks and transportation systems. The countries have established joint inspection agencies, share data and have harmonized regulations on everything from food to manufactured goods. Despite these facts, disputes have included repeated trade disagreements, environmental concerns, Canadian concern for the future of oil exports, the issue of illegal immigration, the threat of terrorism and illicit drug trade.
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Military collaboration was close during World War II and continued throughout the Cold War, bilaterally through NORAD and multilaterally through NATO. However, Canada has long been reluctant to participate in U.S. military operations that are not sanctioned by the United Nations, such as the Vietnam War or the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Canadian peacekeeping is a distinguishing feature that Canadians feel sets their military foreign policy apart from the United States.
Canadian anti-Americanism has manifested itself in a variety of ways, ranging from political, to cultural. Not being an "American" is a popular theme of Canadian identity. Starting with the American Revolution, when Loyalists were resettled in Canada, a vocal element in Canada has warned against American dominance or annexation. The War of 1812 saw invasions across the border in both directions, but the war ended with unchanged borders. The British ceased aiding Native American attacks on the United States, and the United States never again attempted to invade Canada. As Britain decided to disengage, fears of an American takeover played a role in the Canadian Confederation (1867). A trade war involving the United States, Canada, and Mexico began on February 1, 2025, when U.S. president Donald Trump signed orders imposing near-universal tariffs on goods from the two countries entering the United States. The two countries' relations saw rapid deterioration during Trump's second term due to his tariffs and annexation threats towards Canada, with recent polls suggesting increased distrust of the United States by Canadians.
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History.
Colonial wars.
Before the British conquest of French Canada in 1760, there had been a series of wars between the British and the French that were fought out in the colonies as well as in Europe and the high seas. In general, the British heavily relied on American colonial militia units, while the French heavily relied on their First Nation allies. The Iroquois Nation were important British allies. Much of the fighting involved ambushes and small-scale warfare in the villages along the border between New England and Quebec. The New England colonies had a much larger population than Quebec, so major invasions came from south to north. The tension along the border was exacerbated by religion, as the French Catholics and English Protestants had a deep mutual distrust. There was a naval dimension as well, involving privateers attacking enemy merchant ships.
England seized Quebec from 1629 to 1632, and Acadia in 1613 and again from 1654 to 1670; These territories were returned to France by the peace treaties. The major wars were (to use American names), King William's War (1689–1697); Queen Anne's War (1702–1713); King George's War (1744–1748), and from 1755 to 1763 the French and Indian War (known in Europe as the Seven Years’ War).
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New England soldiers and sailors were critical to the successful British campaign to capture the French fortress of Louisbourg in 1745, and (after it had been returned by treaty) to capture it again in 1758.
American Revolutionary War.
At the outset of the American Revolutionary War, the American revolutionaries hoped the French Canadians in Quebec and the Colonists in Nova Scotia would join their rebellion. They were pre-approved for joining the United States in the Articles of Confederation. When northeastern Quebec was invaded, thousands joined the American cause and formed regiments that fought during the war; however, most remained neutral and some joined the British effort. Britain advised the French Canadians that the British Empire already enshrined their rights in the Quebec Act, which the American colonies had viewed as one of the Intolerable Acts. The American invasion was a fiasco and Britain tightened its grip on its northern possessions; in 1777, a major British invasion into New York led to the surrender of the entire British army at Saratoga and led France to enter the war as an ally of the U.S. The French Canadians largely ignored France's appeals for solidarity.
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