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The guide acknowledges wartime injustices: internment of people classified as enemy aliens during the First World War, and the forced relocation and dispossession of Japanese Canadians during the Second World War.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Ethan Sahagun · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & contextCanadian voting rights expanded unevenly. Women’s federal franchise changed in 1918, racial exclusions affecting Asian Canadians were removed from the federal franchise in 1948, and First Nations people gained the federal vote without having to give up status in 1960.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Ethan Sahagun · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Confederation in 1867 joined Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. John A. Macdonald became the first prime minister; George-Étienne Cartier was a key Quebec architect. Other provinces and territories entered or were created at later dates.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: DXR / Daniel Vorndran · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & contextThe rebellions of 1837–1838 were followed by Lord Durham’s report and the Act of Union of 1840. Reformers then secured responsible government, requiring ministers to retain the support of elected representatives.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: DXR / Daniel Vorndran · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & contextDiscover Canada links postwar prosperity with expanding social programs. Its timeline includes unemployment insurance in 1940 and the Canada and Quebec pension plans in 1965, alongside publicly funded health care and education.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Ethan Sahagun · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Courts resolve cases and legal disputes; police enforce laws and protect public safety. Canadians can question police service or conduct and use the applicable complaint process.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Wladyslaw / Taxiarchos228 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & contextThe rule of law subjects individuals and governments to law. Due process requires respect for legal procedures and rights. In criminal proceedings, an accused person is presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Wladyslaw / Taxiarchos228 · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & contextDiscover Canada asks learners to know their own representatives and government leaders. These answers depend on where they live and can change; official directories are more reliable than a fixed list copied into a study record.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: DXR / Daniel Vorndran · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & contextA majority government’s party holds more than half the seats in the House of Commons; a minority government’s party does not. In either case, the government must maintain the confidence of the House.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: DXR / Daniel Vorndran · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & contextA Canadian federal ballot is secret. Voters mark their choice privately, and no employer, relative or other person is entitled to demand that they disclose how they voted.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: DXR / Daniel Vorndran · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & contextIn a federal election, voters choose a candidate in their electoral district, also called a riding or constituency. The candidate with the most votes wins that seat; an absolute majority of the riding’s votes is not required.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: DXR / Daniel Vorndran · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & contextFederal responsibilities include national defence, foreign affairs, criminal law and citizenship. Provinces govern areas such as education and property and civil rights. Municipal services operate within provincial frameworks; territorial powers have a different legal foundation from provincial powers.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: DXR / Daniel Vorndran · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & contextCanada is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy. The Sovereign is head of state; the prime minister is head of government. The Governor General carries out constitutional duties as the Sovereign’s representative in Canada.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: DXR / Daniel Vorndran · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & contextCanada’s three branches of government are the executive, legislative and judicial branches. Parliament’s three components—the Crown, Senate and House of Commons—are a different constitutional distinction.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: DXR / Daniel Vorndran · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Discover Canada highlights obeying the law, caring for oneself and one’s family, jury service when legally required, voting, helping the community, and protecting Canada’s heritage and environment.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William B. Grice · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & contextThe Charter protects conscience and religion; thought, belief, opinion and expression; peaceful assembly; and association. It also protects equality and mobility rights, with different provisions applying to everyone, citizens or permanent residents.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Ethan Sahagun · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & contextDiscover Canada connects Canadian freedoms with Magna Carta of 1215 and the common-law tradition. The Canadian Bill of Rights dates from 1960; the Charter became part of the Constitution in 1982.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Ethan Sahagun · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
The Canada Agriculture and Food Museum is on the historic Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa, five kilometres from Parliament Hill. It is a working dairy farm, home to farm animal breeds important to Canadian agriculture past and present.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: P199 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Exporail, the Canadian Railway Museum in Saint-Constant, Quebec, was founded in 1961 by the Canadian Railroad Historical Association and opened to the public in 1965 with 25 trams, 20 steam locomotives and 5 passenger cars. In 2007 the House of Commons recognized it as the National Railway Museum.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Fraccle · Photo licence: CC BY 3.0 · Credit & context
Redeemer University grew out of the Ontario Christian College Association, founded in 1976 with a Reformed constitution. In 1980 the Ontario Legislature passed the Redeemer College Act, recognizing Redeemer Reformed Christian College and its charter.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: JFVoll · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
James Cockburn came to Montréal from England in 1832, was educated in Toronto and set up a law practice in Cobourg. Elected for Northumberland West in 1861, he attended the Quebec Conference of 1864 as a cabinet minister and is one of the Fathers of Confederation. When the first Parliament of Canada met in November 1867, he was elected Speaker of the House of Commons, serving until 1874.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
For more than 40 years Marie Lacoste-Gérin-Lajoie worked to improve the lives of women in Quebec. In 1907 she co-founded the Fédération nationale Saint-Jean-Baptiste, an important French-Canadian feminist association, which she led from 1913 to 1933 while writing for its review La Bonne Parole. She campaigned for women’s suffrage, access to higher education and, through the 1931 Civil Code reform, the rights of married women.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Joseph Howe, born in Halifax and largely self-taught, became publisher of the Novascotian and by 1836 was his province’s leading journalist and orator. Elected that year, he led the struggle that won responsible government in 1848. An eloquent opponent of Confederation in the 1860s, he joined the federal cabinet in 1869 after negotiating “better terms” for Nova Scotia, and shortly before his death in 1873 became its lieutenant governor.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John Skirving Ewart, a noted constitutional lawyer born in Toronto, practised in Winnipeg from 1882 to 1904, founding the Manitoba Law Journal and serving on Louis Riel’s appeal defence team. He was counsel for Manitoba’s Roman Catholic minority in the schools dispute of the 1890s, then argued cases before the Supreme Court and Privy Council from Ottawa. He was an early, ardent advocate of Canadian autonomy at home and abroad.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context