About Canada

Canada is the second largest country in the world in area (after Russia ),occupying roughly the northern two-fifths of the continent of North America. 

Despite Canada’s great size, it is one of the world’s most sparsely populated countries. This fact, coupled with the grandeur of the landscape, has been central to the sense of Canadian national identity, as expressed by the Dublin-born writer Anna Brownell Jameson, who explored central Ontario in 1837 and remarked exultantly on “the seemingly interminable line of trees before you; the boundless wilderness around you; the mysterious depths amid the multitudinous foliage, where foot of man hath never penetrated…the solitude in which we proceeded mile after mile, no human being, no human dwelling within sight.” Although Canadians are comparatively few in number, however, they have crafted what many observers consider to be a model multicultural society, welcoming immigrant populations from every other continent. In addition, Canada harbours and exports a wealth of natural resources and intellectual capital equaled by few other countries.

Canada is officially bilingual in English and French, reflecting the country’s history as ground once contested by two of Europe’s great powers. The word Canada is derived from the Huron-Iroquois kanata, meaning a village or settlement. In the 16th century, French explorer Jacques Cartier used the name Canada to refer to the area around the settlement that is now Quebec city. Later, Canada was used as a synonym for New France, which, from 1534 to 1763, included all the French possessions along the St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes. After the British conquest of New France, the name Quebec was sometimes used instead of Canada. The name Canada was fully restored after 1791, when Britain divided old Quebec into the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada (renamed in 1841 Canada West and Canada East, respectively, and collectively called Canada). In 1867 the British North America Act created a confederation from three colonies (Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Canada) called the Dominion of Canada. The act also divided the old colony of Canada into the separate provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Dominion status allowed Canada a large measure of self-rule, but matters pertaining to international diplomacy and military alliances were reserved to the British crown. Canada became entirely self-governing within the British Empire in 1931, though full legislative independence was not achieved until 1982, when Canada obtained the right to amend its own constitution.

Canada has been an influential member of the Commonwealth and has played a leading role in the organization of French-speaking countries known as La Francophonie. It was a founding member of the United Nations and has been active in a number of major UN agencies and other worldwide operations. In 1989 Canada joined the Organization of American States and signed a free trade agreement with the United States, a pact that was superseded in 1992 by the North American Free Trade Agreement (which also includes Mexico). A founding member (1961) of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Canada is also a member of the Group of Seven (G7), which includes the world’s seven largest industrial democracies and, as the Group of Eight (G8), had included Russia until it was indefinitely suspended from membership in 2014.

The national capital is Ottawa, Canada’s fourth largest city. It lies some 250 miles (400 km) northeast of Toronto and 125 miles (200 km) west of Montreal, respectively Canada’s first and second cities in terms of population and economic, cultural, and educational importance. The third largest city is Vancouver, a centre for trade with the Pacific Rim countries and the principal western gateway to Canada’s developing interior. Other major metropolitan areas include Calgary and Edmonton, Alberta; Quebec city, Quebec; and Winnipeg, Manitoba.

Belief

Canada is a country that does not have a state religion and where the number of people who belong to a church is constantly decreasing. Actually, despite a very large religious diversity, religion has less and less influence.

Christianity is easily the majority religion in Canada. Almost 70% of the populations are Christian. Catholicism is its most common form in Canada. The colonists brought Christianity with them. Obviously, the territory's natives had animist beliefs until the arrival of the Europeans. The god they venerated was nature. As soon as they arrived, the colonists made efforts to convert the Canadians to Christianity. Up to the end of the 1950s crimes against humanity were committed on the native communities in the name of religion.

Astonishingly, the second most important "belief" after Christianity is that of the non-believers who represent more than a quarter of the population. As well as having a high level of non-believers, Canada has an ever growing level of people who no longer practice, or who are even apostates. This decline in religion is allied to the secularization of the State, which advocates that religious practice be a private matter and not part of public life. This last affirmation is controversial because Canada's Constitution refers to God.  

This drastic change in opinion with regard to religion began during Quebec's Quiet Revolution in 1960. Up until then the inhabitant of the province of Quebec had been very religious. At that time, education was almost completely controlled by the Church.

Strangely, even though the level of interest in the Catholic religion is at its lowest ever level, most Quebecois still say they believe in God, even if they are not practicing Catholics.   

Nevertheless, despite the general lack of interest by Canadians, religious pluralism and the freedom of belief are Canadian values, even if you do feel some tension with regard to Islam. This is linked to cultural differences and to current events which have not been favourable to it for the last decade.

Economy of Canada
Canada is among the world's wealthiest nations. The country is a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Group of Seven (G7). The backbone of Canada's economy is the service industry, which employs about three-quarters of the country's workforce. Other important economic sectors are the wood and oil industry as well as the manufacturing industry with its automobile and aircraft industry.

The early settlement and growth of Canada depended on exploiting and exporting the country’s vast natural resources. During the 20th century, manufacturing industries and services became increasingly important. By the end of the 20th century, agriculture and mining accounted for less than 5 percent of Canada’s labour force, while manufacturing stood at one-fifth and services, including transportation, trade, finance, and other activities, employed nearly three-fourths of the workforce. For many years Canada supported its manufacturing industries through protective tariffs on imported manufactured goods. As a result, many U.S. firms established branch plants in order to supply the Canadian market. Another cornerstone of Canada’s economic policy was the government’s provision of grants and subsidies to stimulate economic development in areas of slow growth. In the 1980s Canada began moving away from these two basic policies. Compliance with international rules on trade and the establishment of a free trade area with the United States (1989)—which with the implementation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1994 came to include Mexico—reduced protection for Canadian manufacturing plants. Funding for regional economic development programs was also reduced. Some multinational companies have relocated their factories to countries where costs are cheaper, causing job losses and political dissatisfaction within Canada.

Canada’s economy is dominated by the private sector, though some enterprises (e.g., postal services, some electric utilities, and some transportation services) have remained publicly owned. During the 1990s some nationalized industries were privatized. Canadian agriculture is firmly private, but it has come to depend on government subsidies in order to compete with the highly subsidized agricultural sectors of the European Union (EU) and the United States. Several marketing boards for specific farm commodities practice supply management and establish floor prices.

Trade has always been central to Canada’s economy. Canada’s economic development historically depended on the export of large volumes of raw materials, especially fish, fur, grain, and timber. However, raw materials have declined as a percentage of Canada’s exports, while processed, fabricated, and manufactured goods have increased. By 1990 roughly four-fifths of Canada’s exports were processed to some degree. Since about the mid-1970s the leading Canadian exports have been automobiles (which account for about one-fourth of the total value of exports), automobile parts, and other types of machinery and equipment, particularly such high-technology products as computerized communication systems. Fabricated metals and other materials and forestry products, including wood pulp and newsprint, are other important exports.

Manufactured goods have always been Canada’s primary imported goods. Automobiles and automobile parts are the leading imports, followed by industrial machinery. Other significant imports are chemical products, textiles, petroleum, and such foods as vegetables in the winter season and tropical and subtropical fruits and nuts.

The United States is Canada’s chief trading partner, constituting more than two-thirds of all Canadian trade; exports account for a larger share of trade than imports. The dependence on U.S. trade is not just a technical matter of market shares in imports and exports. Because exports are so important, business trends in the United States feedback directly and quickly into the Canadian business sector. Changes in consumer tastes in the United States may have disproportionate effects on Canadian producers.