Portal:Canada

Friday, March 14, 2025

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Flag and Arms of Canada

Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's second-largest country by total area, with the world's longest coastline. Its border with the United States is the world's longest international land border. The country is characterized by a wide range of both meteorologic and geological regions. With a population of just over 41 million people, it has widely varying population densities, with the majority residing in urban areas and large areas of the country being sparsely populated. Canada's capital is Ottawa and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

A developed country, Canada has a high nominal per capita income globally and its advanced economy ranks among the largest in the world by nominal GDP, relying chiefly upon its abundant natural resources and well-developed international trade networks. Recognized as a middle power, Canada's strong support for multilateralism and internationalism has been closely related to its foreign relations policies of peacekeeping and aid for developing countries. Canada promotes its domestically shared values through participation in multiple international organizations and forums. (Full article...)

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The Canadian Indian residential school system was a network of boarding schools for Indigenous peoples. The network was funded by the Canadian government's Department of Indian Affairs and administered by various Christian churches. The school system was created to isolate Indigenous children from the influence of their own culture and religion in order to assimilate them into the dominant Euro-Canadian culture. (Full article...)

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Current events

March 12, 2025 – 2025 United States trade war with Canada and Mexico, Canada–United States relations: Canadian finance minister Dominic LeBlanc announces retaliatory tariffs on CAD$29.8 billion (US$20.7 billion) of goods from the United States after U.S. president Donald Trump announced additional tariffs on Canadian metals. (DW)
March 11, 2025 – 2025 United States trade war with Canada and Mexico: U.S. President Donald Trump announces that he will raise tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminium imports from 25% to 50%. (BBC News); Ontario Premier Doug Ford suspends planned surcharges on electricity in the US. Trump backs off afterwards, though his original plan to impose 25% tariffs will go as planned. (AP); Trump's trade counselor Peter Navarro says that 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum won't take effect on Wednesday. (Reuters)
March 10, 2025 – 2025 United States trade war with Canada and Mexico: Ontario Premier Doug Ford announces that the province will charge 25% more for electricity supplied to the United States, which includes the states of Michigan, Minnesota, and New York. (AP); British Columbia Premier David Eby announces that the province will ban all U.S.-imported alcohol within government-operated liquor stores. (CBC News)

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Panoramic view of Vancouver

Credit: Mfield (Matthew Field)

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Totem poles (Haida: gyáaʼaang) are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually made from large trees, mostly western red cedar, by First Nations and Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast including northern Northwest Coast Haida, Tlingit, and Tsimshian communities in Southeast Alaska and British Columbia, Kwakwaka'wakw and Nuu-chah-nulth communities in southern British Columbia, and the Coast Salish communities in Washington and British Columbia. (Full article...)

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The legal system of Canada is pluralist: its foundations lie in the English common law system (inherited from its period as a colony of the British Empire), the French civil law system (inherited from its French Empire past), and Indigenous law systems developed by the various Indigenous Nations. (Full article...)

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Lake Minnewanka in Banff National Park, Alberta.
Credit: Gorgo

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Frieda Fraser (30 August 1899 – 29 July 1994) was a Canadian physician, scientist and academic who worked in infectious disease, including research on scarlet fever and tuberculosis. After finishing her medical studies at the University of Toronto in 1925, she completed a two-year internship in the United States, studying and working in Manhattan and Philadelphia. Afterward, she conducted research in the Connaught Laboratories in Toronto concentrating on infectious disease, making important contributions in the pre-penicillin age to isolation of the strains of streptococci likely to lead to disease. From 1928, she lectured in the Department of Hygiene at the University of Toronto on preventive medicine, working her way up from a teaching assistant to a full professor by 1955. In college, around 1917 Fraser met her life partner, Edith Williams, and though their families tried to keep them apart, their relationship spanned until Edith's death in 1979. The correspondence between the two has been preserved and is an important legacy for the lesbian history of Canada. (Full article...)

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... that the United States won the 2023 CONCACAF Nations League final and extended a home unbeaten streak against Canada that dates back to 1957?
... that Irene Parlby was one of The Famous Five, a group of women in Canada who fought for the right of women to be considered "persons"?
... that according to Modern Times, a San Francisco–based bookstore collective, if there was only one book that you read in 1975 it had to be Canadian author and activist Helen Potrebenko's Taxi!?
... that the mainland portion of Lake of the Woods Provincial Park in northwestern Ontario, Canada, was deregulated as part of a First Nations land claim settlement?
... that Jonathan Beaulieu-Richard retired from the Canadian Football League to become a pharmacist?
... that Michelle O'Bonsawin is the first Indigenous person appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada?
... that Moses Judah Hays leased a block of buildings to the Canadian Parliament after its seat was burned down in 1849?

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The Grey Cup is the championship of the Canadian Football League (CFL) and the trophy awarded to the victorious team. The trophy is named after Albert Grey, the Governor General of Canada from 1904 until 1911. He donated the trophy to the Canadian Rugby Union in 1909 to recognize the top amateur rugby football team in Canada. By this time Canadian football had become markedly different from the rugby football from which it developed. Although it was originally intended to be awarded only to amateur teams (like the Stanley Cup), over time, the Grey Cup became the property of the Canadian Football League as it evolved into a professional football league. Amateur teams ceased competing for the Cup by 1954; since 1965, the top amateur teams, playing in U Sports, have competed for the Vanier Cup. (Full article...)