Government

Canada is a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy. The federal, provincial, and territorial legislatures¹² are all directly elected by citizens. Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom is recognized as the queen of Canada. She is the official head of state. The queen is represented in Canada by the governor-general¹³ and ten lieutenant governors. Canada’s constitution guarantees equality under the law to all of its citizens. Powers of the federal and provincial governments are spelled out separately under the constitution, but over the past 50 years they have increasingly cooperated in programs that provide a wide range of social services – often called the “welfare state” – to the public.

Population

Canada’s indigenous14 peoples (original inhabitants) are often called First Nations or Indians. The name Canada comes from a word meaning “village” or “community” in one of the indigenous Iroquoian¹⁴ languages. Indigenous peoples had developed complex societies and intricate political relations before the first Europeans, the Vikings, arrived in the 11^th century. The Vikings soon left, but more Europeans came in the 16^th century and were made welcome because they brought manufactured goods and traded them for furs and other native products. However, the Europeans settled down and gradually displaced the indigenous peoples over the next 250 years.

European settlers came in a series of waves. First were the French, followed by the English, and these two groups are considered the founding nations. France lost its part of the territory to Britain in a war in 1760, but most of the French-speaking colonists remained. Their effort to preserve their language and culture has been a continuing theme of Canadian history and has led in recent years to a movement to become independent of the rest of Canada.

Modern Canada was formed in an event that Canadians call Confederation, in 1867, when three colonies of Britain merged to create a partially independent state of four provinces. Since then, six more provinces and three territories have been added. Canada achieved full independence in 1931 but continues to belong to the Commonwealth of Nations, a voluntary association of countries with ties to the United Kingdom.

Long distances and a challenging physical environment make transportation and communication across the country very difficult. This reality has made it a challenge for Canadians to maintain a sense of nationhood¹⁵.

Demographic trends

Canada is a nation of people who came from somewhere else. All but the indigenous people arrived within the past 400 years, most within the past few generations. For that reason most Canadians still feel some attachment to their old homelands. The majority of the population is of European descent¹⁶, but the proportion of Asians is increasing. About half of all immigrants in the decade from 1981 to 1991 came from Asia, and Chinese is the fastest-growing mother tongue in Canada. As ethnic groups intermarry, however, ethnic identities are becoming more blurred; 29 percent of Canadians report more than one ethnic origin. Indigenous peoples make up about 3 percent and blacks about 2 percent of the population.

Immigration is important to maintaining Canada’s population. The current childbearing generation has smaller families than earlier generations: The fertility rate (average number of children born per woman) is 1.6, less than the population replacement rate of 2.1. At the same time, older people are living longer, so that the average age of the population is higher. In 2005 Canada’s rate of natural increase was 0.31 percent, resulting from a birth rate of 10.8 per 1,000 persons and a death rate of 7.7 per 1,000. There is a downward trend in the birth index – in 1981 it was 15.3 – and the likely end result will be zero growth or population loss. For this reason the Canadian government decided in the 1980s to compensate for the low birth rate by allowing more immigration.