Canada – education
Based on the autonomy of the provinces, Canada does not have a uniform national education system, but provinces and territories independently determine the structure of the education system, which therefore varies considerably from place to place. However, there are many common features from province to province: Compulsory schooling is ten years with school starting at the age of 6-7; however, the combined primary and secondary education course usually extends over 12 years. The majority of schools are public and free at this level. In some provinces, public support is provided for so-called separate schools, ie. schools run on a religious, predominantly Roman Catholic basis. Private payment schools make up only approximately 5% of all schools.
Higher education has expanded greatly in the post-World War II era. In 1991, there were 69 universities and 204 community colleges. The latter offer a wide range of vocational and technical medium-term educations in the artistic and liberal professions.
There is no common Canadian Ministry of Education, but the federal government is responsible for the federal student loan schemes and grants for teaching minority languages and the official second language, English or French. Schools for Canada’s indigenous peoples (Indians and Inuit) also receive financial support through the federal government, as do vocational education, adult education, and university research.
The strong influx of immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa in the 1970’s and of refugees from Latin America, the Middle East, and Asia in the 1980’s meant that 25% of Canada’s population in 1986 was of ethnic and linguistic origin other than English and French. It has created educational problems, especially in the big cities, that children of these groups do not speak one of the official languages.
ETYMOLOGY: The word Canada comes from Iroquois kanata ‘village’.
OFFICIAL NAME: Canada
CAPITAL CITY: Ottawa
POPULATION: 35,150,000 (Source: COUNTRYaah)
AREA: 9,980,000 km²
OFFICIAL LANGUAGE (S): English, French, other immigrant languages, Italian and German, Native American and Eskimo languages
RELIGION: Catholics 42%, Protestants 40%, others 18%
COIN: Canadian dollars
CURRENCY CODE: CAD
ENGLISH NAME: Canada
INDEPENDENCE: 1867
POPULATION COMPOSITION: British origin 28%, French origin 23%, other European origin 15%, Indians and Inuit 2%, of mixed origin and other 32%
GDP PER residents: $ 25,171 (2007)
LIFE EXPECTANCY: men 77 years, women 83 years (2007)
INDEX OF LIVING CONDITIONS, HDI: 0.950
INDEX OF LIVING CONDITIONS, POSITION: 6
INTERNET DOMAIN NAME: .ca
Canada is a federal state in North America and the world’s second largest country (after Russia). Canada is part of the Commonwealth, and the British regent is the country’s formal head of state, but in almost every other respect it is more closely linked to its southern neighbor, the United States.
- AbbreviationFinder.org: Find two-letter abbreviation for each independent country and territory, such as CA which stands for Canada.
Like the United States, Canada is an immigrant society, characterized by European populations in particular. For historical reasons, the French element is marked and concentrated in the province of Québec, where there are strong separatist movements. In contrast, the Native American and Inuit population groups are marginalized in society. In 1995, the territory of Nunavut was established in northern Canada; here, in 1999, the Inuit population gained extensive autonomy with the Home Rule Government of Greenland as a model. Regarding Canada’s natural conditions, see also North America.
Canada – religion
The religious conditions reflect Canada’s past under first French, since British rule with consequent mission among indigenous peoples and immigrants, but are also a consequence of the neighborhood with the United States and the large immigration from especially Europe. Catholicism played a dominant role until England took power in 1763. Although the Church of England became the state religion, there was freedom of religion (though not unrestricted), and Catholicism gained official status as the religion of the French-speaking population. With the formation of modern Canada in 1867, the state became religion-neutral with full religious freedom for all denominations, including a number of American-Reformed-Puritan Protestants.
Today, Canada, like most urbanized and industrialized countries, is religiously pluralistically and progressively secularized. Although the great social change since 1945 has had a considerable effect on the religious communities, the official statistics from 1991 show a high degree of religious stability and continuity. Check youremailverifier for Canada social condition facts.
| Percentage of faith (1991) | |
| Religion | Percentage |
| Catholics | 45.7 percent |
| Roman Catholic | 45.2 percent |
| Ukrainian-Catholic | 0.5 percent |
| Protestants | 36.2 percent |
| United Church Methodists, Congregationalists, etc. | 11.5 percent |
| Anglicans | 8.1 percent |
| Presbyterians | 2.4 percent |
| Lutherans | 2.4 percent |
| Baptists | 2.5 percent |
| the Pentecostal movement | 1.7 percent |
| other Protestants | 7.6 percent |
| Orthodox Christians | 1.5 percent |
| Jews | 1.2 percent |
| other religions: Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and some smaller Oriental groups (Sikhs, Jainas, Baha’is, Shintoists, etc.) | 2.8 percent |
| traditional original religions and new religions | 0.2 percent |
| “without religion” | 12.4 percent |
Canada – Constitution and political system
Canada is a federal state. At all, the British monarch is represented by a governor-general. The Constitution is from 1982, and emphasizes the principle of leveling out economic and social disparities between the Länder as well as strengthening the Länder’s ownership of natural resources. The Supreme Court of Canada may, at the request of the Government, rule on constitutional and legal matters.
The Federal Parliament consists of the House of Commons, which has 295 members, elected for five years by direct election in single-member constituencies, and by the Senate, whose maximum of 112 members, divided into regions, is appointed by the government. Both chambers must approve all bills. Only the House of Commons can put forward bills on public spending and taxes.
The Governor-General appoints the leader of the largest party in the House of Commons as Prime Minister; this composes the government taking into account the different regions of Canada and their main cultural, religious and social interests. The form of government is parliamentary.
The provinces also have governments as well as unicameral assemblies that can legislate on local affairs, such as education and natural resources. The British monarch is represented in the provinces by a lieutenant governor. The territories are governed by the Federal Government.
Canada – Economy
Canada belongs to the group of the world’s eight largest economically industrialized democracies, the so-called G8 countries. The economy is closely integrated with that of the United States, and dependence has been rising since the two countries signed a free trade agreement in 1989. Thus, in 2004, 86% of Canada’s exports went to the United States, while 73% of all imports were US. With effect from 1994, the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) was extended to include Mexico.
Thus, while Canada is actively working to promote international trade, there are obstacles to the free movement of goods, services, capital and labor between its provinces. The restrictions include non-uniform regulations for commercial transport and trade in agricultural products as well as requirements for establishment and residence permits for the performance of certain professions. These conditions, together with other rigidities in the labor market, were a contributing factor to the fact that even during periods of boom for a number of years, unemployment could not be significantly reduced. This has attracted extra attention, as the employment rate has been declining, because part of the country’s increasing number of immigrants are without sufficient qualifications to enter the labor market.
Expenditure on the Canadian social and health care system has seized an increasing share of national income. As it has not been possible to finance the increase in full using. Tax collections, has the consequence has been a soaring public debt, which in 1993 amounted to about 2/3 of GDP; especially the provinces of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan were previously heavily indebted. However, the increased extraction of natural resources in these provinces has helped to change this picture.
The development has led to fiscal tightening, tax reforms and measures to reduce the public sector; for example, the number of government agencies and ministries has been reduced, as has about half of almost 100 public enterprises, the so-called Crown Enterprises, since being privatized in the mid-1980’s.
The currency, the Canadian dollar, more or less follows the movements of the US dollar and weakened significantly in the mid-1980’s, when the dollar lost about half of its international value. This led to a deterioration in the Canadian terms of trade, but at the same time an improvement in competitiveness. A new improvement has taken place since the early 1990’s due to low inflation and rising productivity. Despite a large trade surplus, not least vis-à-vis the United States, Canada had a large current account deficit in the 1990’s. This was partly due to a considerable deficit on the travel balance, and partly to interest payments on the large external debt, which in 1993 was approximately 220 billion dollars.
The Liberal government, which took over in 1993, therefore had as its main goal to reduce Canada’s debt and create a balance of payments surplus. With Finance Minister Paul Martin at the helm, this succeeded in quite a few years. Public intervention, growth in the primary industries (especially energy from oil, gas and hydroelectricity) and unemployment of just 6-6.5% have thus since 2001 ensured Canada the healthiest economy among the G8 countries.
Danish exports to Canada are rising sharply and in 2004 were DKK 5 billion. DKK, while imports were 1.4 billion. The most important Danish export goods were medicines (chemicals), equipment related to wind energy, animal agricultural goods and machinery for industry. Denmark’s imports from Canada consist mainly of fish and crustaceans, electronic equipment, machinery for industry and transport, medicines and minerals.
Canada – social conditions
Parts of Canadian social legislation are outsourced to individual provinces. Expenditure on social benefits and services is financed by taxes and by deductibles.
The retirement age is 65 years. Since 1927, the elderly have been guaranteed a retirement pension that is publicly funded and granted to everyone, regardless of previous occupational affiliation. In addition, a contribution-financed pension system has existed since 1966, covering old-age, early retirement, widow’s and children’s pensions. The scheme is linked to business activity and is partly financed by contribution payments from the employer and employee.
approximately 95% of workers are covered by unemployment insurance, which also covers the payment of unemployment and maternity benefits. The insurance is financed by contribution payments from the employer and employee.
In two-thirds of all families with children, both parents are in the labor force. The rising employment rate for women has led to a major shortage of childcare schemes. Families with children under the age of 18 receive family benefits, which consist of a fixed amount and a supplement that depends on income and number of children. People over the age of 18 who do not have means of subsistence can receive assistance, which is the lowest social safety net. Aid is financed by the state and the individual province. It is estimated that in 1992 about 16% of the population lived below the low-income threshold, ie. 4.5 million people, which is an increase of 2% compared to 1989. Record low unemployment as well as a firm first place on the UN list of best countries to live in has been a source of increased self-confidence and national feeling around the turn of the century.
Canada – health conditions
Canadian women have a life expectancy of 81 years, men 74 years. Life expectancy for both sexes has increased nearly 10 years since 1960. On average, a Canadian woman gives birth to 1.8 children. The mortality rate in the first year of life is 6.4 per 1000 live births (1991).
The increased life expectancy is due to a decrease in child mortality, heart disease and accidents. However, mortality due to traffic accidents is still high, and heart disease is still the most common cause of death. Mortality due to cancer accounts for more than 20 percent of all deaths and is rising.
The native Native American and Inuit populations have poorer health conditions than the rest of the population, but there have been significant improvements in recent decades.
In 1974, the first initiative came for an overall Canadian health policy. It was followed up with comprehensive legislation that laid the foundation for a publicly supported healthcare system. It now ensures all residents access to both general practitioners and hospital stays. Canada uses approximately 10 percent of its total domestic consumption in the health care system, of which the public share is approximately 75 percent. approximately 25 percent of the expenditure is spent on the primary health care sector, where almost 50 percent of doctors are also employed. The hospital system has approximately seven beds per 1000 residents, slightly more than Denmark.
Responsibility for health care is shared between the federal government, the provinces and the municipalities. The federal government provides large subsidies to the local health service.
Canada – legal system
The legal system in the provinces is still marked by the English common law system. English law has been widely followed or imitated since 1763, just as the Canadian courts have shown great respect for the case law developed in England. However, this is not the case in Québec, where French private law and the Civil Code remained the model after the takeover of the English colonial power. Outside Québec, English influence has diminished since the right to appeal Canadian judgments to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in England was abolished in 1949. The highest court in the country for both criminal and civil cases is the Supreme Court of Canada, whose main task is to act as an appellate body for the provincial courts. The Federal Court of Canada, established in 1971, deals with cases brought against the Federal Government, as well as certain other cases, patent and copyright cases and maritime cases. From here, too, there is appeal to the Supreme Court.
Legislative competence is laid down in the Constitution Act, part of the Canada Act of 1982. The Federal Parliament legislates for the whole of Canada on taxes to the federal state, international affairs, defense, criminal law, bankruptcy, public regulation of business, postal and telecommunications, fisheries, etc. Each of the provincial parliaments legislates for the province on most other matters, including private law. In order to achieve unity, model laws have been drawn up that each state can adopt.
Canada – Mass Media
The Canadian media is particularly influenced by three factors: the two languages, the proximity to the United States and the extent of the country. This means that there are only two nationwide dailies, the reputable The Globe and Mail, founded in 1844 in Toronto, and The National Post, originally founded as the financial newspaper The Financial Post in 1907. In return, there is a lush provincial press and many small newspapers, which are published once or twice a week. The Toronto Star is the largest of the more than one hundred dailies, the vast majority of which are published in English. Other major ones are The Globe and Mail and the French-language Le Journal de Montréal (founded 1964). In 2005, 30 free newspapers were published in Canada.
The Canadian radio and television system is a mix of public and private; The entire media and telecommunications sector is governed by an independent state body, the CRTC (Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission), which, among other things, issues broadcasting licenses and regulates the cable TV area. The national state radio and television company CBC (The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, founded in 1936, reorganized in 1968) broadcasts radio and television programs in English and French as well as a special service to the country’s northernmost regions, where the population in 1992 also received its own television company. In addition to American television, CBC competes nationally with the privately owned CTV (Canadian Television Network, founded 1961) and other advertising-funded stations. Some provinces have their own television stations, in addition to a large number of local, privately owned stations.
Canada – Visual Arts and Architecture
The earliest art of the “New France” was expressed in the 17th and 18th centuries in religious and ethnographic images, influenced by European art. This Eurocentrism partially disappeared in the 19th century, when Canadian-born artists depicted the country.
The painters portrayed clergy, bourgeois and Native American chiefs, but also ordinary people. Antoine Plamondon (1804-95) and Théophile Hamel (1817-70) worked in Québec, Paul Kane (1810-71) portrayed the prairie and the Indians, while Cornelius Krieghoff (approximately 1815-72) painted French-Canadian genre paintings.
In the latter part of the 19th century and in the beginning of the 20th century, an explosion of various forms of expression was seen, inspired by the European art forms, represented by e.g. naturalist Horatio Walker (1858-1938), impressionist Maurice Cullen (1866-1934) and fauvist James Wilson Morrice (1865-1924). Of the sculptors, L.-P. Hébert (1850-1917) expressed the taste of the time for the epic, while Aurèle de Foye Suzor-Côté (1869-1937) is more intimate.
The architecture was French-inspired, but when Canada came under Britain after 1760, it was from here that the impulses came, so one finds forms of expression that range from Normandy folk style to Victorian neo-Gothic.
Worth mentioning are church architecture and wood carvings, created in the time after approximately 1770 by artist families such as Levasseur and Baillargé. In the 19th century, a Georgian style of both British and American descent appeared in Anglo-Canada. Later, Romanesque churches were built, Gothic-style state buildings and hotels such as French castles, such as the Château Frontenac in Quebec (built 1892-1924).
In the 20th century, attempts were made to create one’s own artistic identity. The impulses from Europe were manifold, but the attitude towards the substance was characterized by a certain uncertainty, which had its background in the difficulty of imagining a real nation.
In the years around 1915, there was a breakthrough in Canadian art. Painters Franklin Carmichael (1890-1945), LS Harris (1885-1970), AY Jackson (1882-1974), Franz Johnston (1888-1949), Arthur Lismer (1885-1969), JEH MacDonald (1873-1932) and FH Varley (1881-1969) formed The Group of the Seven, which was mainly influenced by art nouveau and Scandinavian expressionism.
The group inspired Charles Comfort (1900-94), William Ogilvie (1901-89) and Jack Nichols (1921-2009) to form the Canadian Group of Painters in 1930. Outside the group stood significant artists such as Emily Carr (1871-1945), Tom Thomson (1877-1917) and David Milne (1882-1953).
Modernism kept pace with Paul-Émile Borduas (1905-60) and the group of artists who in 1948 formed “Refus global”, a revolutionary movement also known as Les Automatistes. With painters like Jean Paul Riopelle, it played a crucial role in the development of art in Canada and also gained international significance.
From the 1950’s, Canadian art has been oriented toward developments in New York. Jack Bush (1909-77) developed an abstract painting closely related to American color field painting, which was also a landmark for the painting group Nouveaux plasticiens in Montreal.
The art center of the interwar years was Toronto. In the last decades of the 20th century, other cities, such as Montreal, have also played a significant role in a very active and experimental art life, where smaller groups such as NE Thing & Co. and General Idea (grdl. 1968) have worked with concept art, film, video and performance.
Jeff Wall is a prominent representative of the so-called staged photography of the 1980’s and 1990’s. The painter Alex Colville from Nova Scotia has developed a realistic, detailed form of expression in tightly composed and symbol-laden images from everyday life.
After a short wave of art deco, international architecture has dominated Canadian cities since 1940. IM Pei designed Place Ville-Marie in Montreal (1960), and Mies van der Rohe and others designed the Dominion Center in Toronto (1964-69), while Finn Viljo Revell created Toronto City Hall (1958-65), and Arthur Erickson performed Fraser. University of Burnaby (1963-65).
After 1970, Canadian architecture has unfolded with a great variety of variations, characterized by regional traditions and forms of expression.
Canada Theater
Before the European colonization of Canada, ritual dramas were performed by the Native American people; the first European play written and performed in Canada was Marc Lescarbot’s pompous Le Théâtre de Neptune en la Nouvelle-France, which was set up in Port Royal in 1606 to celebrate an expedition down the coast. During colonial times, French and English soldiers performed pieces from their domestic repertoire, just as the Jesuits performed instructive drama, among other things. to convert the Indians.
As the population grew, professional American theater companies began performing in the cities. The first company to establish itself in a long period was the American Company of Comedians, which performed in Halifax in 1774. This mix of amateur theater and outreach theater from the United States, France and England was typical of Canada’s theatrical life well into the 1900’s.. Before World War II, there were sporadic attempts to establish a decidedly professional Canadian theater, but it was mainly radio that developed Canadian playwrights.
After World War II, the need for a Canadian national theater grew. Ironically, this led to the establishment of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival (Ontario) in 1953, but also to the creation of regional theaters such as the Théâtre de Nouveau Monde (1952) in Montreal and the Manitoba Theater Center (1958) in Winnipeg. The bilingual National Theater School was established in 1960 in Montreal.
In the 1960’s, numerous regional theaters emerged and from the early 1970’s also alternative theaters, most often producing nationalist Canadian drama. Since the 1980’s, a new development in the Canadian theater in Quebec has expressed in Robert Lepage’s experimental performances of Théâtre Repère; in the English-speaking theater, for example, the Primus Theater in Winnipeg (which works on principles developed by Eugenio Barba at the Odin Theater) has distinguished itself with productions that focus more on the theatrical stage expression than on the interpretation of a text. At the same time, Canada’s multicultural reality has come on stage through drama written by writers such as the Cree Indian Tomson Highway (b. 1951) and the black female writer Djanet Sears (b. 1959).
Canada – Dance
Canadian dance is characterized by the population and geographical spread of the population. In stage dance, English and French influences were significant for the founding of the country’s three major ballet companies, the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1949, the National Ballet of Canada in Toronto in 1951, of which Erik Bruhn was artistic director in 1983-86, and the Grand Ballet’s Canadians in Montreal in 1957. Since then, the exchange with American-trained dancers and choreographers has also been considerable. Internationally known is the ballet star Karen Kain (b. 1951), who since 2005 has been the artistic director of the National Ballet of Canada. With Nikolaj Hübbe setup of La Sylphide in 2005, she brought back Bournonville repertoire.
Around the year 1900, the barefoot dancer Maud Allen (1873-1956) was Canada’s answer to Isadora Duncan, but modern dance only really took off in the 1960’s. The renewal came from the Province of Quebec, Toronto and Vancouver, where a flourishing dance life emerged with educations and companies within many dance genres. In the 1990’s, the new dance was introduced by companies such as O Vertigo, Danny Grossman Dance Company and one of Canada’s oldest modern companies, the Toronto Dance Theater from 1968.
Canadian dance is often ethnically inspired and is frequently presented as an art form at national festivals, where folk dance is practiced in parallel. However, the country’s native Native American dances are only rarely seen.
Canada – music
Historical documents show that music has been an important part of colonial life. From 1635, French and Native American children received music instruction, and hymns were sung, composed in Native American languages by missionaries. An organ, mentioned in Québec in 1661, is probably the first in North America. However, with a few exceptions such as Joseph Quésnel, whose buffoon opera Colas et Colinette was performed in Montreal in 1790 (probably the first opera performed in North America), Canadian composers did not begin to assert themselves until after 1867.
Calixa Lavallée (1842-91), Guillaume Couture (1851-1915) and their pupil Alexis Contant (1858-1918) constituted a significant “Montréal school” with strong ties to the French musical tradition. In turn, their contemporaries, Wesley O. Forsyth (1863-1937) and Charles Harriss (1862-1929), highlighted English ideals.
The English tradition was strengthened considerably and for a long time by Healey Willan (1880-1968), who in 1913 came from England to Toronto, where he was active as a church musician, composer and teacher at the Toronto Royal Conservatory and University. Claude Champagne (1891-1965), influenced by studies in Paris in the 1920’s, continued the French tradition, but united it with elements of Canadian folk music in an attempt to create a national style. However, Sir Ernest MacMillan (1893-1973) was the dominant figure in all aspects of music life in Canada in the first half of the 1900’s. After World War II, the use of folk music as a basis for national music slipped into the background, and Canadian composers became more open to international influence. While some, like Godfrey Ridout (1918-84), stuck to tonality,
A sharp increase in the country’s population since 1945 has led to a significant growth in the number of music institutions. In addition to old, established orchestras and choirs at the international level in Montreal and Toronto, there are good ensembles in other major cities. The leading opera company is the Canadian Opera Company in Toronto. Higher education in music is available at conservatories and universities across the country.
Canada – Folk Music
In the original Indian cultures there was a flourishing folk music; neither it nor the Inuit have been mixed with the European immigrants, from whom it is very different. All groups of immigrants brought folk music, especially orally handed down folk songs; the songs gained a special significance in the new society and therefore often remained more vibrant than in the home country. Of the French-Canadian tradition (folk song, dance and other instrumental music) are thus collected over 20,000 songs, of which several thousand were forgotten in France. Musically, they predominantly have an “old” feel. A special genre is the voyageurs’ chansons d’aviron, work songs whose rhythm is similar to the paddling of the canoe. The British-Canadian traditioncontains especially English and Irish ballads, but also Scottish and Irish-Gaelic songs, often used as a common song. In addition, German, Italian, Ukrainian, Baltic, Scandinavian and Asian immigrant groups stuck to their vocal or instrumental folk music tradition; this has helped to preserve the original language, religion and culture of the groups.
Canada – film
In silent film-era Canada, the most important works were semi-documentary depictions of man’s struggle with the relentless nature, often with Indians and Inuit in the lead roles such as Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North (1922). Thereafter, the regionally based Canadian film industry completely succumbed to competition with Hollywood, and state film production became completely dominant in Canada. In 1939, the National Film Board of Canada (NFB) was established, which under the direction of John Grierson has produced a large number of excellent short and documentary films. Among other things. experimental filmmakers like Norman McLaren and Michael Snow were allowed to unfold here.
Many Canadian instructors chose to work abroad, including Norman Jewison (b. 1926) and Ted Kotcheff (b. 1931). In return, directors such as Claude Jutra (1930-87), Denys Arcand (b. 1941) as well as David Cronenberg and Atom Egoyan have created an original film production with international impact.
