Canada: History, Politics, Population, and Geography

2021-01-14T12:29:12.827Z

Canada is a fascinating country, the population of which is mainly in the south on the border with the USA. In the north, deserted, untouched landscapes await, which are under a deep blanket of snow for much of the year.

Canada is a fascinating country, the population of which is mainly in the south on the border with the USA.

In the north, deserted, untouched landscapes await, which are under a deep blanket of snow for much of the year.

Canada
is based on the area of the second largest

country
in the world after Russia.
To date,

Queen Elizabeth II is the
nominal head of state.
French-speaking Quebec in the east has long sought independence.

Ottawa -

Canada

is the second largest country in the world with an area of almost 10 million square kilometers, but has less than 38 million inhabitants.

The country shares its only national border with the

USA

and is therefore sometimes referred to colloquially as "America's Hat".

To date, the

state is

not completely independent, but part of the British

Commonwealth

The head of state is the British

Queen Elizabeth II

, who is represented by a governor-general.

Canada: The History of the First Nations

With the end of the last ice age, the area of what is now

Canada became

habitable for the first time.

The first nomads probably came to Canada from Asia via the Bering Strait.

The indigenous inhabitants of the country are now grouped under the term

First Nations

and number more than 600 tribes.

This does not include the Inuit, who live in the arctic northeast and on Greenland and belong to the Eskimos.

After thousands of years of isolation, contacts with Europe were made for the first time in the 10th century.

Icelandic Vikings, led by

Leif Eriksson

, reached

a land they called Vinland in 995, which was most likely Newfoundland.

The settlement of L'Anse aux Meadows, which was discovered in 1961 and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, goes back to them.

Canada is being colonized

The Vikings only stayed a few years before they were driven out by the natives.

Quiet for almost 500 years before the Italian adventurer

Giovanni Caboto

(better known as John Cabot)

reached

Canada

1497

and claimed the land for the English crown.

A year later, the Portuguese

João Fernandes Lavrador followed

, who took possession of the Labrador Peninsula named after him for the Portuguese crown.

The French were also drawn across the Atlantic.

From 1534 onwards,

an expedition led by

Jacques Cartier

penetrated the Saint Lawrence River inland and founded the colony of New France.

At the height of its expansion, it stretched from eastern Canada across the Midwest of what is now the United States to New Orleans on the Gulf of Mexico.

The English were relatively late: they did not establish a first trading post on Newfoundland until 1583.

Canada as a bone of contention for the French and British

It wasn't long before the French and British got in each other's

way

Canada

Henry Hudson

took possession of the huge bay named after him in eastern Canada for England, who in turn became godmother of the

Hudson's Bay Company

The organization, founded by England in 1670, controlled the valuable fur trade for centuries and is the oldest continuously existing company in Canada.

However, it no longer deals in furs, but operates department stores.

The French counterpart was the

Compagnie de la Nouvelle France,

which mainly dealt with the indigenous Iroquois beaver pelts.

Conflicts soon arose between the trading partners, which went down in

history

as the Beaver Wars

and in which the Iroquois were supported by the British with weapons.

Several direct clashes between France and England followed, mostly as a prolonged conflict of European wars.

France secured its most important

cities

Quebec and Montreal with imposing fortifications and by the end of the 17th century drove the British out of Newfoundland and Hudson Bay, among others.

In return, the British conquered Quebec in 1759 and shortly afterwards Montreal.

Canada becomes (almost) independent

In 1774 the British promised the French-speaking

population of

the province of Quebec in the

Quebec Act

that they would retain their

language

and practice

their

religion freely.

17 years later

Canada was

legally divided into a French Lower Canada and a British Upper Canada.

Both parts sought connection to the newly independent United States in the south.

There was also a desire for independence in Canada.

In 1837

William Lyon Mackenzie

even

proclaimed

the Republic of Canada, but had to flee to the USA a year later.

On July 1, 1867, the

Dominion of Canada was

amalgamated, which included Upper and Lower Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.

Since then, July 1st has been

Canada Day

In the decades that followed, other sparsely populated areas were added, including British Columbia on the west coast in 1871.

The railroad linked the vast country.

In 1931 Canada became part of the British

Commonwealth of Nations

through the Westminster Statute

with extensive legislative freedom.

It was not until 1982 that Great Britain

granted

the

state

formal independence with the constitutional law.

Canada Today: The Language Controversy

Discontent grew among

the French-speaking

population

of Quebec during the 20th century.

Despite being formally bilingual,

Canada

saw itself

as a second-class citizen.

From 1963 to 1970, the separatist terrorist organization

Front de liberation du Québec carried out

numerous attacks.

In 1980 an independence referendum was rejected with 59.6 percent of the vote.

In a second referendum in 1995, the result was much tighter: only 50.58 percent voted no and 49.42 percent voted yes.

To this day, the Quebec question remains unsolved.

In the late 20th century, Canada became aware of the poor treatment and displacement of the First Nations in the previous centuries of colonization.

In 1999, Nunavut, the first semi-autonomous territory for the Inuit with its own government and prime minister, was established in the north of the country.

Canada: Politics and Economy

Canada

is a representative parliamentary democracy.

(https://www.canada.ca/en.html) As part of the

Commonwealth of Nations

, the

state is

still loosely tied to the British crown.

Queen Elizabeth II

bears the title "Queen of Canada" and is represented by a governor general.

Former astronaut

Julie Payette is

currently assuming

this largely formal role.

The seat of the monarchy is Rideau Hall in the capital Ottawa.

The

policy

is in the hands which is led by Prime Minister of the Cabinet.

Justin Trudeau

of the Liberal Party has been the 23rd Prime Minister of Canada

since November 4, 2015

His father,

Pierre Trudeau

, had ruled Canada from 1968 to 1984 with a short interruption.

Canada is one of the richest countries in the world.

The state benefits from a wealth of natural resources.

These include the third largest oil reserves in the world, extensive natural gas reserves, coal, copper, iron ore, gold and much more.

Forestry, livestock and agriculture are also of great importance.

Canada: population and language

Canada

is one of the most popular immigration countries in the world.

The

population

is correspondingly diverse and is concentrated almost exclusively in the south of the country along the border with the USA.

The following ethnic distribution was determined in a survey:

rank

Ethnicity

percent

Canadian

32.3

English

18.3

Scottish

13.9

4th

French

13.6

Irish

13.4

The First Nations still have a share of 4.43 percent of the population (approx. 1,525,565 people).

For some years now, immigrants from China and the Indian subcontinent have been pouring into the major Canadian

cities

such as Vancouver and Toronto.

Canada is officially bilingual, but according to its own statements, 67.5 percent of the population speak only English and 13.3 percent only speak French.

In Quebec, the “Charter of the French Language” defines it as the only official language of the province.

Inuktitut, the

Inuit

language

, is a third official language in the

Nunavit Territory