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

Canada, 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 shares a 5,525-mile- (8,890-km-) long border with the United States (including Alaska)—the longest border in the world not patrolled by military forces—and the overwhelming majority of its population lives within 185 miles (300 km) of the international boundary. Although Canada shares many similarities with its southern neighbour—and, indeed, its popular culture and that of the United States are in many regards indistinguishable—the differences between the two countries, both temperamental and material, are profound. “The central fact of Canadian history,” observed the 20th-century literary critic Northrop Frye, is “the rejection of the American Revolution.” Contemporary Canadians are inclined to favour orderly central government and a sense of community over individualism; in international affairs, they are more likely to serve the role of peacemaker instead of warrior, and, whether at home or abroad, they are likely to have a pluralistic way of viewing the world. More than that, Canadians live in a society that in most legal and official matters resembles Britain—at least in the English-speaking portion of the country. Quebec, in particular, exhibits French adaptations: more than three-fourths of its population speaks French as their primary language. The French character in Quebec is also reflected in differences in religion, architecture, and schooling. Elsewhere in Canada, French influence is less apparent, confined largely to the dual use of French and English for place names, product labels, and road signs. The French and British influences are supplemented by the cultures of the country’s native Indian peoples (in Canada often collectively called the First Nations) and the Inuit peoples, the former being far greater in number and the latter enjoying semiautonomous status in Canada’s newest territory, Nunavut. (The Inuit prefer that term rather than Eskimo, and it is commonly used in Canada.) In addition, the growing number of immigrants from other European countries, Southeast Asia, and Latin America has made Canada even more broadly multicultural.

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 G8, which includes the world’s seven largest industrial democracies plus Russia.

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.

Land

Canada’s total land area includes thousands of adjacent islands, notably Newfoundland in the east and those of the Arctic Archipelago in the north. Canada is bounded by the Arctic Ocean to the north, Greenland (a self-governing part of the Danish kingdom) to the northeast, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, 12 states of the United States to the south, and the Pacific Ocean and the U.S. state of Alaska to the west; in addition, tiny Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (an archipelagic territory of France) lies off Newfoundland.

In longitude Canada extends from approximately 52° to 141° W, a distance that spans six time zones. In latitude it extends from approximately 42° to 83° N. With its vast Arctic and subarctic territories, Canada is often considered a country only of the far north; however, the peninsula of southern Ontario juts deeply south into the heartland of the United States, and its southernmost point, Middle Island in Lake Erie, is at the same latitude as northern California. Canada occupies a strategic global location, lying on great circle routes (the shortest line joining any two places on the globe) between the United States and Europe and, to a lesser degree, Asia. As a result, many international commercial flights track across Canada.

The combination of physical geography and discontinuous settlement has led to a strong sense of regionalism in Canada, and popular regional terms often overlap. The Atlantic Provinces include all of the Appalachian region except the Quebec portion. If the province of Newfoundland and Labrador is excluded, the three remaining east-coast provinces are called the Maritime Provinces or the Maritimes. Quebec and Ontario are usually referred to separately but sometimes together, as Central Canada. The West usually means all four provinces west of Ontario, but British Columbia may be referred to alone and the other three collectively as the Prairie Provinces or the Prairies. Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut are referred to as the North.

Relief

Canada contains within its borders a vast variety of geographic features. In general, the country’s landform structure can be considered as a vast basin more than 3,220 miles (5,200 km) in diameter. The Cordillera in the west, the Appalachians in the southeast, the mountains of northern Labrador and of Baffin Island in the northeast, and the Innuitian Mountains in the north form its high rim, while Hudson Bay, set close to the centre of the enormous platform of the Canadian Shield, occupies the basin bottom. The western rim of the basin is higher and more massive than its eastern counterpart, and pieces of the rim, notably in the far northwest and in the south, are missing.

The main lines of Canadian landforms continue well into the United States, intimately linking the geography of both countries. To create such a large country, Canadians had to forge transportation and communication links in an east-west direction, against the physiographic grain of the continent. The Canadian North remains one of the least settled and least economically exploited parts of the world.

Canada can be divided into six physiographic regions: the Canadian Shield, the interior plains, the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence lowlands, the Appalachian region, the Western Cordillera, and the Arctic Archipelago.

People

Principal ethnic groups

Canada contains a mixture of diverse national and cultural groups. At the time of Canada’s first census, in 1871, about half the population was British and nearly one-third was French. Since that time the proportion of Canadians of British and French ancestry has dropped to about one-fourth each, as fewer people have immigrated from the United Kingdom and France and considerably more have arrived from other countries in Europe, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Because immigrant groups have tended to settle in particular locales, they generally have retained their cultural identity. For example, Ukrainians largely migrated to the Prairie Provinces, where the land and climate were similar to their homeland, and many Dutch settled on the flat, fertile farmland of southwestern Ontario, where they practiced fruit and vegetable growing as they had done in the Netherlands. Many Chinese, Portuguese, Greeks, and Italians have settled in specific sections of large cities, particularly Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.

The mix of ethnic groups differs greatly from province to province. The proportion of people claiming ancestry from the British Isles ranges from about two-thirds in Newfoundland and Labrador to less than 5 percent in Quebec; the proportion of people of French descent ranges from a majority in Quebec to less than 2 percent in Alberta, British Columbia, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories, and Saskatchewan. More than one-third of Canadians identify themselves as being of mixed, or “multiple,” origins.

U.S. immigration

Historically, Canada received many immigrants from the United States, particularly during and after the American Revolution (1775–83), when colonists who remained loyal to the British crown (known as Tories in the United States and United Empire Loyalists in Canada) moved to what are now the Maritime Provinces and southern Quebec and Ontario. By 1790 about one-sixth of British North America’s total population was from territory that had become the United States. The American immigrants had been exposed to the ideas of representative government that had evolved along the Atlantic seaboard, and their ideas of governmental institutions were blended in Canada with those of people who came directly from Britain. There was some migration from the United States to Canada during the mid-19th century that increased in the late 19th and 20th centuries, but immigration to the United States from Canada was significantly higher.

Native peoples

An estimated 200,000 Indians (First Nations) and Inuit were living in what is now Canada when Europeans began to settle there in the 16th century. For the next 200 years the native population declined, largely as a result of European territorial encroachment and the diseases that the settlers brought. However, the native population increased dramatically after 1950, with high birth rates and access to improved medical care. Some one million people in Canada now identify themselves as Indian, Métis (of mixed European and Indian ancestry), or Inuit; of this number, more than three-fifths are Indian, nearly one-third Métis, and most of the remainder Inuit. Together they comprise less than 5 percent of Canada’s total population, though aboriginal peoples constitute half of the population of the Northwest Territories and a considerably greater proportion of Nunavut. The largest of the Indian groups is the Cree, which includes some 120,000 people.

In Canada the word Indian has a legal definition given in the Indian Act of 1876. People legally defined as Indians are known as status Indians. Indians who have chosen to give up their status rights or who have lost them through intermarriage with those of European ancestry are called nonstatus Indians. (Beginning in 1985, Canadian law has allowed those who lost their status through intermarriage to reclaim it, and marriage no longer triggers an automatic loss of status.) Through treaties with the Canadian government, more than 600 status Indian bands occupy more than 2,250 reserves. The resources of these reserves are quite limited, and the majority of status Indians have a standard of living below the Canadian average. The treaties and agreements about reserves apply to only a portion of the Indian people. Large tracts of land were never taken from the Indians by treaty, and various groups are still negotiating land claims and self-government with the federal and provincial governments. These negotiations made significant progress, and in 1996 the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples concluded that Canada needed to protect the distinctive values and lifestyles of its aboriginal peoples.

The Inuit who inhabit the far north do not have any reserves and are not protected by any treaties. Many of them—a number estimated to be more than 40,000—still live in scattered camps and settlements of 25 to 500 people, although larger towns such as Iqaluit in Nunavut are growing rapidly. Since the latter part of the 20th century, mining, oil exploration and pipeline construction, and mammoth hydroelectric developments have greatly affected their traditional way of living off the land. The worldwide decline in demand for furs greatly diminished their income, and the Inuit came to depend increasingly on government social and welfare programs. Education and training programs were instituted to enable them to compete for employment. Perhaps the most decisive step, however, was the creation in 1999 of the territory of Nunavut— carved out of the eastern section of the Northwest Territories—with a largely Inuit population and an advanced form of self-government.

Languages

Canada’s constitution established both English and French as official languages. However, English is dominant throughout most of the country; only one province, New Brunswick, is officially bilingual, and French is the official provincial language only in Quebec, where French is the first language of four-fifths of the population. About three-fifths of Canadians speak English as their first language, while less than one-fourth identify French as their primary tongue. The mother tongue of nearly one-fifth of Canadians is a language other than English or French; most speak another European language (notably Italian and German), but the largest immigrant group speaks Chinese, reflecting the growth in Chinese immigration since the 1980s. Inuktitut, the language of the Inuit, has a number of variations. Cree is the most common of the native languages.

Religion

About seven-eighths of Canada’s population claim affiliation in some degree with an organized religious faith. Most are either Roman Catholic or Protestant; the major Protestant churches are the United Church of Canada, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Lutheran church. Roman Catholics constitute the largest single religious group, accounting for more than two-fifths of the population. Protestants, the second largest group, make up nearly two-fifths of the population. In Quebec more than four-fifths of the population is at least nominally Roman Catholic, and New Brunswick also has a Roman Catholic majority. Canada’s religious composition reflects the most recent immigration trends; in the last two decades of the 20th century, the numbers of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists rose sharply. The numbers of Jews and adherents of the Eastern Orthodox faith also has risen. About one-eighth of Canadians classify themselves as nonreligious.

Demographic trends

Traditionally Canada has sought to increase its population through immigration in order to expand the workforce and domestic markets. As a result, immigrants now make up about one-sixth of Canada’s total population. Immigration peaked in 1913, when more than 400,000 arrived. Immigration was discouraged during the Great Depression of the 1930s, but after World War II tens of thousands of displaced persons from Europe were admitted, and in the 1970s and ’80s large numbers of refugees from Europe, Asia, and Latin America were welcomed to Canada. Canada’s immigration policy is nondiscriminatory regarding ethnicity; however, individuals with special talents or with capital to invest are given preference. Since the latter part of the 20th century, Asian immigration (notably Chinese) has increased dramatically, accounting for about half of all immigrants during the 1990s.

During the first two decades of the 20th century, the notable feature of internal migration was the movement from eastern Canada to the Prairie Provinces. Although British Columbia has continued to gain from migration since the 1930s, much of this has been at the expense of the Prairie Provinces. Alberta gained population from throughout Canada during the oil boom of the 1970s. This trend leveled off in the 1980s and early ’90s, but it increased again at the beginning of the 21st century. Saskatchewan has had more emigration than immigration since the 1940s. Ontario consistently has received far more people since the 1940s than the other provinces, but most of this growth has been from immigration rather than interprovincial migrations. The population of the Atlantic Provinces has grown more slowly than it has in regions farther west. The cities of Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary have attracted both migrants and immigrants.

During the 20th century, natural increase, rather than immigration, was the major factor in Canada’s population growth. Until the 1960s the crude birth rate (live births per 1,000 population) remained in the high 20s, while the crude death rate (deaths per 1,000 population) declined from more than 10.6 in 1921 to 7.7 in 1961. Thereafter the rate of natural increase slowed, however, because of a sharp drop in the birth rate accompanied by a slight decrease in the death rate. The rate of natural increase is much lower than the world average and is about the same as those of the United States and Australia. Canada has an aging population. Whereas fewer than one in 10 Canadians were age 65 or older in the 1970s, by the start of the 21st century the figure stood at nearly one in six. Life expectancy in Canada, which averages about 80 years, is among the world’s highest.

Economy

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.

Agriculture, forestry, and fishing

Agriculture

Less than one-twelfth of Canada’s land area is suitable for crop production. About four-fifths of this cropland is in the Prairie Provinces, where long sunny days in summer and adequate precipitation combine to provide excellent grain yields. However, the widest range of crops and the highest yields occur in southwestern British Columbia and southern Ontario.

Although agriculture employs less than 4 percent of the Canadian labour force, it is vital to the national economy, producing large volumes of food for both the domestic and export markets and providing raw materials for food processing, wholesale, and retail industries. There has been a significant trend away from the family farm (more than one-fourth of Canadians lived on farms in the 1940s) toward larger farm units, mechanized farm operations, specialization in fewer products, and the use of improved varieties, breeds, and farming methods.

There are distinctive types of farming in different areas of the country. The Prairies are known for grain (particularly wheat), oilseeds (especially canola), and cattle grazing. Central and eastern Canada have a wider variety of crops and livestock, and farmers tend to specialize in either a particular cash crop or a livestock type. Southwestern Ontario produces large amounts of grain corn (maize), soybeans, and white beans. Both southern Ontario and southwestern British Columbia produce a wide variety of fruits and vegetables. Dairying is important around all the major cities. Because of the challenging climate and soil conditions, many Canadian farmers have embraced genetically modified organisms, though their disfavour in Europe jeopardizes exportability.

Forestry

Almost half of Canada’s land area is covered with forest, the accessible portions of which provide abundant resources for lumber, pulp, and paper. The most valuable forest region for timber production is the west coast, where the climate is conducive to the growth of giant trees with excellent lumber. Forest products form a larger part of Canada’s export trade than do the combined exports of farm, fish, and mineral products. Canada is the world leader in the export of pulp and paper and also exports large amounts of softwood lumber, mostly to the United States. British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec are the leading provinces in the production of forest products.

Canada’s forest industry has to struggle constantly against the threats of fire, insects, and disease. Some control of insects has been achieved through the aerial spraying of insecticides, but this practice also eradicates insect-eating birds and predator insects. Because forests have significant value in maintaining an ecological balance in the environment and also provide important recreational opportunities, the forest industry is increasingly held to account for environmentally damaging practices. For example, public pressure during the 1990s led to increased governmental supervision of logging methods and the forest industries’ implementation (on a voluntary basis) of sustainable resource-management methods (e.g., eliminating clear-cutting).

Fishing

Canada has rich fishing grounds off both the Atlantic and the Pacific coasts. The parts of the continental shelf with the shallowest water are known as fishing banks; there plankton, on which fish feed, thrive because the sunlight penetrates to the seafloor. The most important of these fishing banks is the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Bradelle Bank, Sable Bank, Georges Bank (shared with the United States), and a number of other fishing banks are found off the coasts of the Maritime Provinces. On the Pacific coast the continental shelf is very narrow, but numerous mountain streams are suitable for salmon spawning. In the rivers of the far north and in the Arctic Ocean there are abundant fish on which large numbers of the native peoples depend for food. Overfishing and pollution depleted the fish resources in southern Canada significantly after the mid-20th century. Indeed, in 1992 the Canadian government imposed a moratorium on cod fishing—with disastrous effects for employment along the east coast. More international regulating agreements controlling catches have improved the situation somewhat. To offset the losses caused by smaller catches, fish prices rose sharply.

Canada catches only a tiny fraction of the fish taken from the world’s oceans, but it ranks among the leaders in volume of fish exports because of Canada’s relatively small population and low per capita fish consumption. Historically, in the Atlantic Provinces the fishing industry contributed significantly to the value of all goods produced in the region. Until the 1990s, small coastal communities throughout the region were wholly or partly dependent on the fishing industry. The most important species caught in eastern waters arehaddock, redfish, flatfish, turbot, pollock, flounder, sole, halibut, herring, mackerel, tuna, and lobster; cod remains an important sport fish. Salmon and herring are the leading catches off the Pacific coast.

Provincial government

Provincial political institutions and constitutional usages mirror those operating at the federal level. In each province the sovereign is represented by a lieutenant governor appointed by the governor-general in council, usually for a term of five years. The provincial lieutenant governor exercises powers similar to those of the federal governor-general.

Each province holds elections for a single-chamber legislative assembly, from which a premier and cabinet are selected; legislators serve for five-year terms. The provinces have powers embracing mainly matters of local or private concern such as property and civil rights, education, civil law, provincial company charters, municipal government, hospitals, licenses, management and sale of public lands, and direct taxation within the province for provincial purposes. The vast and sparsely populated regions of northern Canada lying outside the 10 provinces—Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut—are administered by the federal government, but they elect members to the House of Commons and enjoy local self-government.

A major part of Canada’s constitutional development has occurred gradually through judicial interpretation and constitutional convention and through executive and administrative coordination at the federal and provincial levels of government. Through such devices, the national and provincial legislatures have been able to retain their separate jurisdictions over different aspects of the same matters. Regular meetings of provincial premiers and the federal prime minister are held to discuss federal-provincial jurisdictional issues, generally ensuring an accommodation that gives fair assurances to the aspirations of the provinces without disrupting the integrated national structure of Canada.

Local government

Because municipal government falls under the jurisdiction of the provinces, there are 10 distinct systems of municipal government in Canada, as well as many variations within each system. The variations are attributable to differences in historical development and in area and population density. Thus, the legislature of each province has divided its territory into geographic areas known generally as municipalities and, more particularly, as counties, cities, towns, villages, townships, rural municipalities, or municipal districts.

The county system as understood in Britain or the United States exists only in southern Ontario and southern Quebec. County councils are composed of representatives from rural townships, towns, and villages and provide a second level of services for the whole county. This two-tiered municipal government was first extended to urban areas when Metropolitan Toronto was established in 1953. A number of other highly urbanized areas in Ontario have since adopted a metropolitan or regional form of government to deal with common area wide problems. More recently, cities such as Toronto have been further amalgamated with their surrounding districts; at the same time, the number of representative councillors has been reduced.

The more than 4,500 incorporated municipalities and local government districts in Canada have various powers and responsibilities suited to their classification. A municipality is governed by an elected council. The responsibilities of the municipalities are generally those most closely associated with the citizens’ everyday life, well-being, and protection. In addition to local municipal government, there are numerous local boards and commissions, some elected and others appointed, to administer education, utilities, libraries, and other local services.

The sparsely populated areas of the provinces are usually administered as territories by the provincial governments. Aboriginal self-government became an increasingly important issue during the last two decades of the 20th century.

Justice

Canadian courts of law are independent bodies. Each province has its police, division, county, and superior courts, with the right of appeal being available throughout provincial courts and to the federal Supreme Court of Canada. At the federal level, the Federal Court has civil and criminal jurisdictions with appeal and trial divisions. All judges, except police magistrates and judges of the courts of probate in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, are appointed by the governor-general in council, and their salaries, allowances, and pensions are fixed and paid by the federal Parliament. Judges serve in office until age 75, at which time they are required to retire. Criminal law legislation and procedure in criminal matters is under the jurisdiction of the Parliament of Canada. The provinces administer justice within their boundaries, including organizing civil and criminal codes and establishing civil procedure. Since 1982, when the Charter of Rights and Freedoms was incorporated into the constitution, the interpretative role of the Supreme Court has increased significantly.

Political process

Suffrage and elections

The 308 members of the House of Commons, from which the prime minister is selected, are elected for a maximum term of five years by universal suffrage in single-member districts (known in Canada as ridings). The prime minister may dissolve the House of Commons and call new elections at any time within the five-year period. The Senate consists of 105 members who are appointed on a provincial basis by the governor-general on the advice of the prime minister and who may hold office until they reach 75 years of age.

All Canadian citizens at least 18 years of age are eligible to vote. Traditionally, voter participation in Canada was fairly high, with some two-thirds of eligible voters regularly casting ballots; however, as in many established democracies, turnout declined significantly in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Women received the right to vote in federal elections in 1918, but men have generally predominated in federal elections and appointments. During the 1990s, however, Kim Campbell became Canada’s first woman prime minister; women now generally constitute about one-fifth of all members of the House of Commons. The first woman governor-general was Jeanne Sauvé, who served from 1984 to 1990. In 1999 Adrienne Clarkson became Canada’s first governor-general of Asian ancestry.

Political parties

During much of the 20th century, Canada had two major political parties: the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals. Although both parties were ideologically diverse, the Progressive Conservatives tended to be slightly to the right, while the Liberals were generally regarded as centre-left. These two parties formed all of Canada’s national governments. From the 1930s to the ’80s both the Progressive Conservatives and the Liberals became somewhat more liberal regarding social and health welfare policies and government intervention in the economy. Under the leadership of Brian Mulroney, who became prime minister in 1984, the Progressive Conservative government underwent a distinctly conservative shift, which included selling crown corporations, deregulating many industries, and granting tax advantages to corporations and the wealthy. However, after Mulroney’s retirement in 1993, his party suffered a cataclysmic decline in the House of Commons, their number of seats being reduced from 169 to 2 in October 1993. At the same time, the Liberals increased their representation from 83 to 178. In particular, the Liberals dominated federal elections in Ontario, which elects one-third of all members of the House of Commons; in 2000, for example, the Liberals won 100 of Ontario’s 103 seats, though they won only half of the overall popular vote and failed to control the provincial government.

Throughout much of the 20th century, the main third party was the New Democratic Party (NDP), its support largely concentrated in western Canada. The NDP occupies a left-of-centre position, advocating an extension of the welfare state. It often won 30 to 40 seats in the House of Commons, but it, too, saw its representation cut dramatically in the 1990s. In particular, the decline of the NDP and Progressive Conservatives was the result of the regionalization of Canada’s elections. The Bloc Québécois, which supports Quebec’s independence and maintains links with the provincial Parti Québécois, won 54 seats in the House of Commons in 1993 and became the official opposition. In 1997, however, the conservative and western-based Reform Party of Canada, which opposed concessions to Quebec, won 60 seats to become the official opposition. In 2000 the Reform Party was replaced by the conservative Canadian Alliance—formed by elements of the old Reform Party and disgruntled Progressive Conservatives—which subsequently became the official opposition. The Canadian Alliance merged in 2003 with the remaining Progressive Conservatives to create the Conservative Party of Canada, which continued in opposition.

Security

Police

The police forces of Canada are organized into three groups: the federal force, called the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP); provincial police; and municipal police. The RCMP, or Mounties—one of Canada’s best-known organizations—was established in 1873 for service in the Northwest Territories of that time. It is still the primary police force in Yukon, the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, but it also has complete jurisdiction of the enforcement of federal statutes throughout Canada, which includes the control of narcotics. The maintenance of peace, order, and public safety and the prevention and investigation of criminal offenses and of violation of provincial laws are provincial responsibilities. Ontario and Quebec have their own provincial police forces, but all other provinces engage the RCMP to perform these functions. Provincial legislation makes it mandatory for cities and towns and for villages and townships with sufficient population density and real property to furnish adequate policing for the maintenance of law and order in their communities. Most large municipalities maintain their own forces, but others engage the provincial police or the RCMP, under contract, to attend to police matters. In 1984 the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) was created to replace the security service previously provided by the RCMP. The CSIS’s purpose is to conduct security investigations within Canada related to subversion, terrorism, and foreign espionage.

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