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The Anglican Church of Canada (ACC or ACoC) is the Province of the Anglican Communion in Canada.^[2] The official French name is l'Église Anglicane du Canada.^[3] In 2001, the Anglican Church counted 641,845 members on parish rolls.^[1] The 2001 Canadian Census counted 2,035,500 self-identified Anglicans (6.9 percent of the total Canadian population), making the Anglican Church the third largest Canadian church after the Roman Catholic Church and the United Church of Canada.^[4] According to the census, 48 percent of self-identified Anglicans live in Ontario.

Official names[link]

Until 1955, the Anglican Church of Canada was known as the Church of England in the Dominion of Canada or simply the Church of England in Canada. In 1977, the church's General Synod adopted l'Église Episcopale du Canada as its French-language name.^[3] This name was replaced with the current one, l'Église Anglicane du Canada, in 1989; however, the former name is still used in some places along with the new one.

A matter of some confusion for Anglicans elsewhere in the world is that while the Anglican Church of Canada is a province of the Anglican Communion, the Ecclesiastical Province of Canada is merely one of four such ecclesiastical provinces of the Anglican Church of Canada. This confusion is furthered by the fact that Canada has ten civil provinces along with three territories.

In recent years, there have been attempts by splinter groups to incorporate under very similar names. Corporations Canada, the agency of the federal government which has jurisdiction over federally incorporated companies, ruled on 12 September 2005 that a group of dissident Anglicans may not use the name Anglican Communion in Canada, holding that in Canada the term Anglican Communion is associated only with the Anglican Church of Canada, being the Canadian denomination which belongs to that international body.^[5]

History[link]

Anglicanism in British North America[link]

The replica of John Cabot's ship Matthew. The first cleric of the English Church sailed on her to North America in 1497.

When John Cabot landed in North America on 24 June 1497, there may have been some sort of religious service — it was St. John the Baptist's Day and the day was likely not a coincidence — yet there is no extant record. In any case, Cabot sailed under the authority of King Henry VII and the English Church was not yet separated from the See of Rome.^[6] The Anglican Church of Canada's Prayer Book commemorates John Cabot's landing in Newfoundland on 24 June.

The first Church of England service recorded on British North American soil was a celebration of Holy Communion at Frobisher Bay in the last days of August or early September 1578. The Anglican Church of Canada's Prayer Book fixes the day of commemoration as 3 September. The chaplain on Martin Frobisher's voyage to the Arctic was "'Maister Wolfall (probably Robert Wolfall), minister and preacher', who had been charged by Queen Elizabeth 'to serve God twice a day'".^[6]

The first service read from the Book of Common Prayer on American soil occurred in 19 June 1579 in a harbour just north of San Francisco, when the crew of Sir Francis Drake's ship the Golden Hind landed. Drake named the new land Nova Albion or New Albion and claimed it for Queen Elizabeth I. The generally accepted landing site is at Drake's Cove in Drakes Bay although more than a score of other locations have been offered. Drake and his crew stayed in this now lost harbour for over five weeks, repairing the Golden Hind.^[6][7]

The propagation of the Church of England occurred in three ways. One way was by officers of ships and lay military and civil officials reading services from the Book of Common Prayer regularly when no clergy were present. For example, in the charter issued by Charles I for Newfoundland in 1633 was this directive: "On Sundays Divine Service to be said by some of the Masters of ships, such prayers as are in the Book of Common Prayer".^[6] A second way was the direct appointing and employing of clergy by the English government on ships and in settlements. A third way was the employment of clergy by private "adventurous" companies.

The first Church of England parish in British North America was founded in Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607 under the charter of the Virginia Company of London.^[8] The Hudson's Bay Company sent out its first chaplain in 1683, and where there was no chaplain the officers of the company were directed to read prayers from the BCP on Sundays.^[6] The first "documented" resident Church of England cleric on Canadian soil was Erasmus Stourton, who arrived at the "Sea Forest Plantation" at Ferryland, Newfoundland in 1612 under the patronage of Lords Bacon and Baltimore. Stourton was of the Puritan party and remained in Ferryland until returning to England in 1628.^[6]

Reconstruction of Port Royal by Parks Canada

The overseas development of the Church of England in British North America challenged the insular view of the Church at home. The editors of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer found that they had to address the spiritual concerns of the contemporary adventurer. In the 1662 Preface, the editors note:

...that it was thought convenient, that some Prayers and Thanksgivings, fitted to special occasions, should be added in their due places; particularly for those at Sea, together with an office for the Baptism of such as are of Riper Years: which, although not so necessary when the former Book was compiled, ...is now become necessary, and may be always useful for the baptizing of Natives in our Plantations, and others converted to the Faith.

Members of the Church of England established the Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge (SPCK) in 1698, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel (SPG) in 1701, and the Church Missionary Society (CMS) in 1799. These and other organizations directly financed and sent missionaries to establish the English Church in Canada and to convert Canada's First Nations people. Direct aid of this sort lasted up to the 1940s.

St. Paul's Church, Halifax. The oldest Anglican Church in Canada still standing, built in 1750

The first Anglican church in Newfoundland and in Canada was the small garrison chapel at St John's Fort built sometime before 1698.^[6] The first continuously resident cleric of the chapel was the Reverend John Jackson - a Royal Navy chaplain who had settled in St. John's and was supported (but not financially) by the SPCK in 1698. In 1701, the SPG took over the patronage of St John's. Jackson continued to receive little actual support^[6] and was replaced by the Reverend Jacob Rice in 1709. Rice wrote a letter to the Bishop of London detailing his efforts to repair the church which had been "most unchristianly defaced" and asking for help in acquiring communion vessels, a pulpit cloth, surplices and glass for the windows.^[6] The garrison chapel was replaced in 1720 and in 1759.^[6] The Cathedral of St John the Baptist in St John's, Newfoundland, is the oldest Anglican parish in Canada, founded in 1699 in response to a petition drafted by the Anglican townsfolk of St John's and sent to the Bishop of London, the Right Reverend Henry Compton.

As Newfoundland did not join the Confederation until 1949, continuous Anglican services in Canada used to be dated from 1710 when a New England army from Boston with assistance of the Royal Navy captured for the fourth time Port Royal in Nova Scotia and renamed it Annapolis Royal.^[6] When Annapolis was captured, one of the chaplains, the Reverend John Harrison, held a service of thanksgiving with the Reverend Samuel Hesker, the chaplain of the Marines, preaching the sermon. When the war ended in 1713 with the Treaty of Utrecht, Harrison continued to act as Chaplain to the Garrison at Annapolis Royal.^[6]

The oldest Anglican church in Canada still standing is St Paul's Church in Halifax, Nova Scotia, whose foundation stone - the church is a wood structure - was laid by the Nova Scotia governor on 13 June 1750.^[6] St. Paul's opened for services on 2 September 1750 with an SPG cleric, the Reverend William Tutty, preaching.^[6] St Paul's became the first Anglican cathedral in all of North America when Charles Inglis was appointed bishop in 1787. It has been a parish church since 1864 when another church was made the cathedral of the Nova Scotian diocese.

American revolution[link]

The American Revolution split the Church of England in North America. One of many consequences of the revolution was establishment of a North American episcopacy. The first Anglican bishop in North America was Samuel Seabury who was consecrated by the Scottish Episcopal Church on 14 November 1784 because the Church of England had no legal mechanism to appoint a bishop outside of England.^[9] The Anglican Church of Canada's Book of Alternative Services commemorates Seabury on 14 November.

Anglicans were numerous among the United Empire Loyalists who fled to Canada after the American Revolution and the Anglican Church was a dominant feature of the compact governments that presided over the colonies in British North America.^[10]

One of the former Americans was Charles Inglis who was rector of Trinity Church in New York when George Washington was in the congregation. He became the first bishop of the diocese of Nova Scotia on 12 August 1787 and the first Church of England bishop of a diocese outside of the United Kingdom and in the British Empire.^[6] The Anglican Church of Canada's Prayer Book commemorates Inglis on 12 August.

The historical connections between The Episcopal Church in the U.S. and the Anglican Church of Canada are very close. Seabury and Inglis knew each other. In fact, on March 8 and then on the 21st of 1783, a group of eighteen clergy - most prominent was the Reverend Charles Inglis - met in New York to discuss the future of Nova Scotia, including plans for the appointment of a bishop in Nova Scotia and the college that would in time become the University of King's College, Halifax.

University of King's College. Founded by Bishop Inglis in 1789 as an Anglican college. It is the oldest English-speaking university in the Commonwealth of Nations outside Britain.

They nominated T.B. Chandler to be the Bishop of Nova Scotia (who would later decline), and a little while later Seabury was nominated to be Bishop of Connecticut. After Seabury's consecration in Aberdeen, Scotland, he even returned via Halifax and visited his brother at Annapolis.^[6]

The connections between the now administratively separated churches continued in many ways. In the summer of 1857, Bishop Scott of Oregon visited Victoria and confirmed twenty candidates as the first British Columbian bishop would not be appointed for another two years.^[11] From the 1890s to 1902, the Reverend Henry Irving - Father Pat - was licensed in both the Diocese of Kootenay and the Diocese of Spokane - the two dioceses meet at the border between B.C. and the state of Washington.^[12] As Father Pat told his friends, he was:

John Strachan

After the conquest of Quebec and the American Revolution, many leading Anglicans argued for the Church of England to become the established church in the Canadian colonies. The Constitutional Act of 1791 was promulgated, and interpreted to mean that the Church was the established Church in the Canadas. The Church of England was established by law in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. In Lower Canada, the presence of a Roman Catholic majority made establishment in that province politically unwise.^[10] Bishop John Strachan of Toronto was a particular champion of the prerogatives of the Church of England.

The secular history of Canada depicts Bishop Strachan as an ally of the landed gentry of the so-called Family Compact of Upper Canada, opposed to the political aspirations of farmers and bourgeoisie for responsible government. Nonetheless, Strachan played considerable part in promoting education, as founder of Kings College (now the University of Toronto) and Trinity College. The Clergy reserves, land which had been reserved for use by the non-Roman Roman Catholic clergy, became a major issue in the mid-19th century. Anglicans argued that the land was meant for their exclusive use, while other denominations demanded that it be divided among them.

In Upper Canada, leading dissenters such as Methodist minister Egerton Ryerson — in due course a minister of education in the government of Ontario — agitated against establishment. Following the Upper Canada Rebellion, the creation of the united Province of Canada, and the implementation of responsible government in the 1840s, the unpopularity of the Anglican-dominated Family Compact made establishment a moot point. The Church was disestablished in Nova Scotia in 1850 and Upper Canada in 1854. By the time of Confederation in 1867, the Church of England was disestablished throughout British North America.

Autonomy and interdependence[link]

Until the 1830s, the Anglican church in Canada was synonymous with the Church of England: bishops were appointed and priests supplied by the church in England and funding for the church came from the British Parliament. The first Canadian synods were established in the 1850s, giving the Canadian church a degree of self-government. As a result of the Privy Council decision of Long v. Gray in 1861, all Anglican churches in colonies of the British Empire became self-governing. Even so, the first General Synod for all of Canada was not held until 1893. That first synod made the Solemn Declaration 1893, which describes how the Church of England in Canada is related to "the Church of England throughout the world" and "the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church".^[13][14] Robert Machray was chosen as the Canadian church's first Primate.

Expansion[link]

As the new Canadian nation expanded after confederation in 1867, so too did the Anglican Church.^[15] After the establishment of the first ecclesiastical province — that of Canada in 1860 — others followed. The first was the Ecclesiastical Province of Rupert's Land, created in 1875 to encompass Anglican dioceses outside what were then the boundaries of Canada: present-day Northern Ontario and Northern Quebec, the western provinces, and the Territories. In the forty years between self-government in 1861 and 1900, sixteen of the presently existing dioceses were created, as numbers blossomed with accelerating immigration from England, Scotland, and Ireland. The far-flung nature of settlement in the North-West together with a shortage of resources to pay stipendiary clergy early led to a significant reliance on women lay workers, deemed "deaconesses," for missionary outreach,^[16] a phenomenon which made the eventual ordination of women to the priesthood in 1976 relatively uncontroversial.

During this time, the Anglican Church assumed de facto administrative responsibility in the far-flung wilderness of Canada and British North America. The church contracted with colonial officials and later the federal Crown to administer residential schools for the indigenous peoples of the First Nations — a decision which would come back to haunt it much later. Such schools removed children from their home communities in an attempt to, among other things, assimilate them into the dominant European culture and language: the merits and demerits of that system in a broad sense, such as they were, have latterly been entirely overwhelmed by the issue of the wholly reprehensible abuse of some of its child wards by sexually disordered mission personnel. At the same time, Anglican missionaries were involved in advocating for First Nations rights and land claims on behalf of those people to whom they were ministering (for example, the Nisga'a of northern British Columbia). One of the earliest First Nations students to be educated at Red River in the 1830s was Henry Budd.^[6] He was ordained in 1850 and was the first First Nations priest and became the missionary at Fort Cumberland on the Saskatchewan River and then to the post of The Pas.^[6] The Anglican Church of Canada's Prayer Book commemorates Henry Budd on 2 April.

Despite this growth in both the size and role of the church, progress was intermittently undermined by internal conflict over churchmanship. This was manifested in the creation of competing theological schools (Trinity versus Wycliffe Colleges in the University of Toronto, for example), a refusal by bishops of one ecclesiastical party to ordain those of the other, and — in the most extreme cases — schism. This latter phenomenon was famously and acrimoniously borne out in the high profile defection of Edward Cridge, the Dean of the Diocese of [British] Columbia in Victoria, B.C., together with much of his cathedral congregation, to the Reformed Episcopal Church in 1874, although the movement was ultimately confined to that one congregation in a then-remote town together with a second parish in New Westminster, the then-capital of the originally separate mainland colony of British Columbia.

A Church of England conference held in Winnipeg in August 1890 established the union of all synods.^[17]

Twentieth century[link]

Anglican archbishops and bishops of Canada, c.1940

Expansion evolved into a general complacency as the 20th century progressed. During the early part of this period, the ACC reinforced its traditional role as the establishment church, although influences from the autochthonous Protestant social gospel movement, and the Christian socialism of elements in the Church of England increasingly were felt. This influence would eventually result in the creation of what would come to be known as the Primate's World Relief and Development Fund, in 1958.

By the middle of the century, pressure to reform the structures of the church were being felt. The name of the church was changed in 1955 from "The Church of England in Canada" to the "Anglican Church of Canada" and a major revision of the Book of Common Prayer was undertaken in 1962, the first in over forty years. In 1962, the United Church of Canada and the Anglican Church of Canada jointly published Growth in Understanding, a study guide on union and, on June 1, 1965, the Principles of Union between the United Church and the Anglican Church.^[17] Despite these changes, the church was still perceived as complacent and disengaged, a view emphasized by the title of Pierre Berton's best-selling commissioned analysis of the denomination, The Comfortable Pew, published in 1965.

Change became more rapid towards the close of the 1960s, as mainline churches including the Anglicans began to see the first wave of evaporation from the pews. On August 23, 1967, the Anglican Church of Canada agreed to permit the remarriage of divorced persons in their churches.^[18] Ecumenical relationships were intensified, with a view to full communion. While negotiations with the largest Canadian Protestant denomination, the United Church of Canada, faltered in the early 1970s, the Anglican Church achieved full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada as the century drew to a close.

New liturgical resources were introduced, which would culminate in the publication of the Book of Alternative Services in 1985. Agitation for the ordination of women led to the vote on June 18, 1975 by the Anglican Church of Canada in favour of ordination as priests,^[17] and, eventually, bishops. Social and cultural change led to the church's decision to marry divorced couples, to endorse certain forms of contraception, and to move towards greater inclusion of homosexual people in the life of the church.

Structure[link]

Introduction[link]

Anglican Christians around the world are held together by common forms of worship, such as the Book of Common Prayer and its modern alternatives, which embody its doctrine. Other formularies, such as the Ordinal, the Thirty-Nine Articles and the First and Second Book of Homilies provide a shared theological tradition. Other instruments of unity in the Anglican Communion are, locally, its bishops and, internationally, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and, in more recent times, the Lambeth Conferences, the Anglican Communion Primates' Meeting, and the biannual Anglican Consultative Council. These last four instruments of unity have moral but not legislative authority over individual provinces.

In Canada, Anglican bishops have divested some of their authority to three bodies - the General Synod, the Provincial Synod (there are four in Canada) and the diocesan synods (there are 29).

The national church in Canada is structured on the typical Anglican model of a presiding archbishop (the Primate) and Synod.

Recently^[when?] the church has considered rationalizing its increasingly top-heavy episcopal structure as its membership wanes, which could mean a substantial reduction in the number of dioceses, bishops and cathedrals.^[19]

Houses of Bishops[link]

Diocesan bishops promise "to hold and maintain the Doctrine, Sacraments and discipline of Christ, as the Lord hath commanded in his holy Word, and as the Anglican Church of Canada hath received and set forth the same."^{[citation needed]} They work collegially as a House of Bishops. There is a national House of Bishops, which meets regularly throughout the year, as well as provincial houses of bishops. These are chaired, respectively, by the Primate and the individual metropolitans.

Primate[link]

The Primate of the ACC — originally the "Primate of All Canada" in echo of the titles of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York in England and to distinguish the national church from the Ecclesiastical Province of Canada (the former territory of Lower Canada, the Maritimes, and Newfoundland) — is elected by General Synod from among all the bishops of the Anglican Church of Canada.^[20] Primates hold the ex officio rank of archbishop; in 1931 the General Synod approved a recommendation that a fixed primatial See (as of the Archbishop of Canterbury) be established^[3] and in 1955 it was recommended that "a small See [be created] in the vicinity of Ottawa to which the Dioceses of The Arctic, Moosonee, Keewatin and Yukon would be attached, forming a fifth Province." However, General Synod rejected the proposal in 1959 and in 1969 "the Canon on the Primacy was amended to require the Primate to maintain an office at the national headquarters of the Church, with a pastoral relationship to the whole Church, but no fixed Primatial See"^[3] as with Presiding Bishops of the Episcopal Church of the USA and unlike Primates of England, Australia and elsewhere. In consequence, Primates of the Anglican Church of Canada are not diocesan bishops and generally do not carry out ordinary episcopal functions; they originally held office for life but in recent years they have retired by the age of 70.

In recent decades Primates of the ACC have intermittently held a considerable place in public life. In particular, Archbishop Ted Scott, who was a President of the World Council of Churches, was a member of a Commonwealth Eminent Persons committee in respect of the devolution of power from the white-only government of South Africa to a fully democratic government. Scott's successor, Michael Peers, continued the close association with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa and was thrust into a high profile in Canadian national life when he insisted that the ACC should shoulder its responsibilities for the legacy of the Indian Residential Schools, and when he protested at what he described as the downplaying of Christian witness in the official commemoration of events of national importance.^[21]

There have been twelve primates in the history of the church. The current Primate is the Most Reverend Fred Hiltz, formerly the bishop of the Diocese of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, elected on the fifth ballot at the June 2007 General Synod.

General Synod[link]

The chief synodical governing body of the church is the General Synod of the Anglican Church of Canada. The Declaration of Principles in the General Synod Handbook contains: the Solemn Declaration 1893; the Basis of Constitution; and the Fundamental Principles previously adopted by the Synod in 1893 and these constitute the foundation of the Synod structure.^[22] The General Synod meets triennially and consists of lay people, clergy, and bishops from each of the 29 dioceses. In-between General Synods, the day-to-day affairs of the ACC are administered by a group elected by General Synod, called the Council of General Synod (COGS), which consults with and directs national staff working at the church's headquarters in Toronto.

Each diocese holds annual diocesan synods from which lay and clergy delegates are elected as representatives to General Synod, the national deliberative body, which meets triennially. These delegates join the Primate and the bishops of the church to form three Orders - lay, clergy, and bishops. The most recent general synod was in 2007 and met in Winnipeg.

General Synod has authority to define "the doctrines of the Church in harmony with the Solemn Declaration 1893", and over matters of discipline, and canon law of the national church, in addition to more prosaic matters of administration and policy. At each diocesan synod, the three houses elect representatives to sit on the Council of General Synod, which — with the Primate — acts as the governing authority of the national church in-between synods.

Provinces, dioceses and parishes[link]

The ACC is divided into four ecclesiastical provinces - British Columbia and the Yukon, Canada (encompassing the Atlantic provinces and Quebec), Ontario, and Rupert's Land (encompassing the prairie provinces, Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and portions of Ontario). Within the provinces are 29 dioceses and one grouping of churches in British Columbia that functions equivalently to a diocese.

Each province has its own archbishop, known as the Metropolitan, and each diocese has a bishop, although there are no metropolitical dioceses (or archdioceses) as such; a metropolitan is styled "Archbishop of [his or her own diocese], and Metropolitan of [the ecclesiastical province]."

As with other churches in the Anglican tradition, each diocese is divided up into geographical regions called parishes, where certain authority resides in the rector or priest-in-charge (as laid out in the induction service, the ordinal, and the cleric's licence) and in the parish council (or vestry) as defined in diocesan canons. The legal relationship between a parish and its diocese and between a parish and its synod varies around the country and even within dioceses depending in part on when each was established.

Both dioceses and provinces hold synods, usually annually, consisting of the active diocesan clergy and lay delegates elected by parish churches. Diocesan synods elect lay and clergy delegates to provincial synod. On the diocesan level, there are effectively two houses instead of three — clergy and laity — with the diocesan bishop required to give assent to motions passed by synod.

Ecumenical relations[link]

The ACC is a member of the World Council of Churches and Archbishop Ted Scott was a president of that body; the ACC has been an active participant in the Canadian Council of Churches from its establishment immediately after the Second World War. Through the 1960s the ACC was involved in talks with the United Church of Canada and the Disciples of Christ with a view to institutional union, in the course of which a comprehensive Plan of Union was formulated and a joint Anglican-United Church hymnal produced in 1971. Ultimately such talks foundered when the Houses of Laity and Clergy voted in favour of union but the House of Bishops vetoed it, largely due to concerns over the maintenance of the Apostolic Succession of the episcopacy.

More recently, in 2001, the ACC established full communion with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada (ELCIC). Contrary to the practice in Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox and Oriental Orthodox communions, all baptized Christians are welcome to receive Holy Communion in Canadian Anglican churches, in accordance with the resolution in favour of open communion at the 1968 Lambeth Conference.

Through the Anglican Communion, the ACC is also in full communion with the churches of the Old Catholic Utrecht Union (represented by St. John's Cathedral, Toronto), the Mar Thoma Church, and the Philippine Independent Church. Unlike the Anglican Churches of the British Isles, it is not a signatory to the Porvoo Agreement which established full communion between those bodies and a number of European Lutheran churches.

Liturgy and service books[link]

See also Book of Common Prayer

In 1918 and 1962 the ACC produced successive authoritative Canadian Prayer Books, substantially based on the 1662 English Book of Common Prayer (BCP); both were conservative revisions consisting largely of minor editorial emendations of archaic diction. In 1985 the Book of Alternative Services (BAS) was issued, officially not designated to supersede but to be used alongside the 1962 Prayer Book. It is a more thoroughgoing modernizing of Canadian Anglican liturgies, containing considerable borrowings from Lutheran, Church of England, American Episcopal and liberal Roman Catholic service books; it was received with general enthusiasm and in practice has largely supplanted the Book of Common Prayer, although the BCP remains the official Liturgy of the Church in Canada. A French translation, Le Recueil des Prières de la Communauté Chrétienne, was published in 1967. The preference for the BAS among many parishes and clergy has been countered by the founding of the Prayer Book Society of Canada, which seeks "to promote the understanding and use of the BCP as a spiritual system of nurture for life in Christ". The tension between adherents of the BCP and advocates of the BAS has contributed to a sense of disaffection within the Church. There have been increasing calls for revision of the Book of Alternative Services. Those who use the BAS have cited various shortcomings as it ages and newer liturgies are produced elsewhere in the Communion. At the 2007 General Synod, a resolution was passed which will begin the process of revising the modern language liturgies.

Hymnody is an important aspect of worship in Anglicanism, and the ACC is no different. There is no one hymnal required to be used, although the ACC has produced four successive authorized versions since 1908. The most recent, Common Praise, was published in 1998. Anglican plainsong is represented in the new hymnal, as well as in the older Canadian Psalter, published in 1963. Notable Canadian Anglican hymnists include Derek Holman, Gordon Light, Herbert O'Driscoll, and Healey Willan. For a time, beginning in the early 1970s, many Anglican congregations experimented with The Hymn Book produced jointly with the United Church of Canada under the direction of Canadian composer F. R. C. Clarke, but both churches have since abandoned the common hymnal.

Like most churches of the Anglican Communion, the ACC was beset by intense conflict over the ritualism controversies of the latter 19th century, leading in some extreme cases to schism. Throughout much of the 20th century, parishes - and, to a certain extent, dioceses or regions - were more or less divided between high church (Anglo-Catholic), low church (evangelical), and broad church (middle-of-the-road). Many of these designations have become muted with time, as the passions which fired the debate have cooled and most parishes have found a happy medium or accommodation.

Social issues and theological division[link]

As is the case in churches directly influenced by Anglican ethos and theology, the ACC tends to reflect the dominant social and cultural strains of the nation in which it finds itself. For most of its history, the ACC embodied the conservative, colonial outlook of its mostly British-descended parishioners and of English Canada as a whole. In the post-World War II period, as the character of Canada changed, so too did the attitudes of people in the pews, and by extension, the church.

Ordination of women and remarriage of divorced persons[link]

In recent years the ACC has been a leading progressive force within the Anglican Communion. In the 1970s the then primate, Ted Scott, argued at the Lambeth Conference in favour of women's ordination. The ACC ordained its first female priest in 1976 and its first female bishop in 1993. Many parishes, particularly in the west and even more particularly on aboriginal reserves, were already served by women deacons and allowing them to be ordained priests regularized their situation and permitted a regular sacramental ministry to be available in the parishes they served. Nonetheless, this change — in concert with such moves as allowing the remarriage of divorced persons — caused strains among more conservative parishes, both Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical. In the early 1970s some members of the ACC left to join breakaway Anglican groups such as the small Anglican Catholic Church of Canada.

Life issues[link]

The ACC has taken a moderate pro-life stance on abortion. The official policy is that "abortion is always the taking of a human life and, in our view, should never be done except for serious therapeutic reasons."^[23] In 1989, the ACC stated that "In the light of the Government’s announcement of a new Abortion Bill, the Anglican Church reaffirms its position that both the rights and needs of women, and the rights and needs of the unborn, require protection."^[23] The ACC also opposes firmly euthanasia and assisted suicide.^[24] They also condemn the death penalty.^[25]

Inclusion of gays and lesbians[link]

More recently, in 2002, the Diocese of New Westminster (located in the south-west corner of British Columbia) voted to permit the blessing of same-sex unions by parishes requesting authorization to do so.^[26]

Indian residential schools[link]

During the 19th century the federal Crown delegated the operation of Indian residential schools to the ACC and Roman Catholic religious orders (with some minimal involvement by the Methodist and Presbyterian Churches of Canada as well). In the 1980s numerous tort claims were brought by former students of such schools against both the Crown and church organizations in respect of abuse by sexually disordered church personnel in such institutions and to a lesser extent in respect of a perception that such schools had been insensitive to issues of preservation of aboriginal culture and identity.

The claims were ultimately comprehensively settled but the damage to the morale of the ACC has yet to be entirely resolved: the Diocese of Cariboo was obliged to declare bankruptcy and was liquidated — its current manifestation is as "the Anglican parishes of the central interior", with episcopal oversight by an assistant bishop to the metropolitan Archbishop of the Province of British Columbia and the Yukon. (Its now-unofficial cathedral of St Paul in Kamloops continues to be deemed a cathedral, its rector being styled "very reverend," as a dean.^[27] ). The Diocese of Qu'Appelle and the General Synod of the ACC were in considerable danger of the same fate until settlement of the claims was reached on a national basis. Archbishop Michael Peers took a major role on behalf of the ACC with respect to reaching a settlement with the federal Crown, which was the defendant of the first instance and which counter-claimed against the ACC and Roman Catholic religious orders. He offered the ACC's apology to aboriginal people and delayed his retirement until 2004 when his successor could come to the primacy with the issue also retired.

In January 2007 the ACC announced the appointment of the Right Reverend Mark MacDonald, an aboriginal American with principal episcopal responsibilities in Alaska, as the National Indigenous Bishop with pastoral oversight over all indigenous members of the Anglican Church of Canada.^[28]

Cathedrals and notable parishes[link]

Cathedrals[link]

The oldest Anglican cathedral in Canada and North America is St. Paul's Church in Halifax which was made Canada's first cathedral when Charles Inglis became the first bishop in 1787.^[6] St Paul's remained a cathedral for 78 years until 1864 when St Luke's was named.^[6]

The Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Quebec City is the oldest Anglican cathedral in Canada that continues in that capacity, having been "built from 1800 to 1804; it was constructed according to drawings done by Captain William Hall and Major William Robe, officers of the military engineering corps of the British Army, stationed in Quebec City."^[29] Most Anglican cathedrals in Canada are modest parish churches and it is only the cathedrals of Toronto, Halifax, St. John's, and Victoria which have significant dimensions or imposing designs, though even they are modest by European or even Australian standards. Diocesan services are often held in Roman Catholic or United churches because of the limited seating in most Anglican cathedrals. Christ Church Cathedral, Ottawa, while not having any official national status either secularly or ecclesially like that of Canterbury Cathedral in England and Washington National Cathedral in the USA, is the usual venue for state occasions requiring an ecclesiastical setting, such as state funerals for non-Roman Catholics. Christ's Church Cathedral, Hamilton is the oldest cathedral of Upper Canada, its present building having originally been constructed in 1842, though its curious, evolutionary construction history has left none of the original fabric extant.^[30] Christ Church Cathedral, Montreal is notable for having a shopping mall (Promenades Cathédrale) and Metro station (McGill) underneath it.^[31]

Notable parishes[link]

The Church of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto was the home parish of the organist and composer Healey Willan, who composed much of his liturgical music for its choirs. It is the inspiration for the parish of St Aiden in Robertson Davies's novel The Cunning Man. St. Thomas', Toronto, was at one time the parish church of the English accompanist Gerald Moore, who was an assistant organist there.^[32] The hymn tune "Bellwoods" by James Hopkirk, sung to the hymn "O day of God draw nigh," by the Canadian theologian Robert B.Y. Scott, was named for St. Matthias Bellwoods, in Toronto, where Hopkirk was organist.^[33] St Anne's, Toronto, is a notable tourist attraction, being "a scale model of Saint Sophia in Istanbul that was decorated in the 1920s by members of the Group of Seven and associates."^[34] St John's, Elora, is a concert venue of the Elora Music Festival; its choir, also known as the Elora Festival Singers, is the professional core of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and its CDs are available around the world. St Bartholomew's, Ottawa, located near to Rideau Hall and also known as the Guards Chapel has been the place of worship for Governors General of the Canadas and then Canada since 1866, before the wider confederation of the British North American colonies.

Her Majesty's Royal Chapel of the Mohawks in Brantford, Ontario, and Christ Church, Her Majesty's Chapel Royal of the Mohawks, near Deseronto, Ontario are the only two Chapels Royal in Canada, the latter being elevated to that status by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004.

See also[link]

• List of dioceses of the Anglican Church of Canada
• Calendar of saints (Anglican Church of Canada)
• Anglican Journal, the editorially independent newspaper of the ACC

Notes and references[link]

Further reading[link]

Chronological order of publication (oldest first)

• Peake, Frank A. (1959). The Anglican Church in British Columbia. Vancouver: Mitchell Press. 

• Carrington, Philip (1963). The Anglican Church in Canada. Toronto: Collins. 

• Grove, Lyndon (1979). Pacific Pilgrims. Vancouver: Centennial Committee of the Anglican Diocese of New Westminster. 

• Chapman, Mark (2006). Anglicanism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-280693-9. 

External links[link]

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Anglican Church of Canada

• Anglican Church of Canada official site
• The Primate's World Relief and Development Fund official site
• Historical documents on Anglicanism in Canada
• Anglicans in Canada — historical resources

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Canada
Coat of arms of Canada Flag Coat of arms
Motto: A Mari Usque Ad Mare  (Latin) "From Sea to Sea"
Anthem: "O Canada" Royal anthem: "God Save the Queen"[1][2]
Capital		Ottawa 45°24′N 75°40′W / 45.4°N 75.667°W / 45.4; -75.667
Largest city		Toronto
Official language(s)		English and French
Recognised regional languages		Chipewyan, Cree, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, Slavey (North and South) and Tłįchǫ[3]
Demonym		Canadian
Government		Federal parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy[4]
-	Monarch	Elizabeth II
-	Governor General	David Johnston
-	Prime Minister	Stephen Harper
-	Chief Justice	Beverley McLachlin
Legislature		Parliament
-	Upper house	Senate
-	Lower house	House of Commons
Establishment		from the United Kingdom
-	Constitution Act, 1867	July 1, 1867
-	Statute of Westminster	December 11, 1931
-	Canada Act	April 17, 1982
Area
-	Total	9,984,670 km2 (2nd) 3,854,085 sq mi
-	Water (%)	8.92 (891,163 km2/344,080 mi2)
Population
-	2012 estimate	34,839,000[5] (35th)
-	2011 census	33,476,688[6]
-	Density	3.41/km2 (228th) 8.3/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$1.396 trillion[7] (14th)
-	Per capita	$40,541[7] (12th)
GDP (nominal)		2011 estimate
-	Total	$1.736 trillion (10th)
-	Per capita	$50,436[7] (9th)
Gini (2005)		32.1[8] (medium)
HDI (2011)		0.908[9] (very high) (6th)
Currency		Canadian dollar ($) (CAD)
Time zone		(UTC−3.5 to −8)
-	Summer (DST)	(UTC−2.5 to −7)
Date formats		dd-mm-yyyy, mm-dd-yyyy, and yyyy-mm-dd (CE)
Drives on the		Right
ISO 3166 code		CA
Internet TLD		.ca
Calling code		+1

Canada ( /ˈkænədə/) is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean. Spanning over 9,900,000 km² (3,800,000 sq mi), Canada is the world's second-largest country by total area, and its common border with the United States is the longest land border in the world.

The land that is now Canada has been inhabited for millennia by various Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French colonial expeditions explored, and later settled, along the region's Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy; the Canada Act 1982 severed the vestiges of legal dependence on Britain.

Canada is a federal state that is governed as a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy, with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. The country is officially bilingual at the federal level. Canada's diversified economy is one of the world's largest, and is reliant upon its abundant natural resources and upon trade – particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship. It is a member of the G7, G8, G20, NATO, OECD, WTO, Commonwealth of Nations, Francophonie, OAS, APEC, and United Nations.

Etymology[link]

The name Canada comes from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement".^[10] In 1535, indigenous inhabitants of the present-day Quebec City region used the word to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona.^[11] Cartier later used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village, but also the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at Stadacona); by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this region as Canada.^[11]

In the 17th and early 18th centuries, "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River and the northern shores of the Great Lakes. The area was later split into two British colonies, Upper Canada and Lower Canada. They were reunified as the Province of Canada in 1841.^[12]

Upon Confederation in 1867, Canada was adopted as the legal name for the new country, and the word Dominion was conferred as the country's title.^[13] However, as Canada asserted its political autonomy from the United Kingdom, the federal government increasingly used simply Canada on state documents and treaties, a change that was reflected in the renaming of the national holiday from Dominion Day to Canada Day in 1982.^[14]

History[link]

Aboriginal peoples[link]

Archaeological studies and analyses of DNA haplogroups have indicated a human presence in the northern Yukon region from 24,500 BC, and in southern Ontario from 7500 BC.^[15][16][17] The Paleo-Indian archaeological sites at Old Crow Flats and Bluefish Caves are two of the oldest sites of human habitation in Canada.^[18][19][20] The characteristics of Canadian Aboriginal societies included permanent settlements, agriculture, complex societal hierarchies, and trading networks.^[21][22] Some of these cultures had collapsed by the time European explorers arrived in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, and have only been discovered through archaeological investigations.^[23]

The aboriginal population is estimated to have been between 200,000^[24] and two million in the late 15th century,^[25] with a figure of 500,000 accepted by Canada's Royal Commission on Aboriginal Health.^[26] As a consequence of the European colonization, Canada's aboriginal peoples suffered from repeated outbreaks of newly introduced infectious diseases such as influenza, measles, and smallpox (to which they had no natural immunity), resulting in a forty- to eighty-percent population decrease in the centuries after the European arrival.^[24] Aboriginal peoples in present-day Canada include the First Nations,^[27] Inuit,^[28] and Métis.^[29] The Métis are a mixed-blood people who originated in the mid-17th century when First Nations and Inuit people married European settlers.^[30] In general, the Inuit had more limited interaction with European settlers during the colonization period.^[31]

European colonization[link]

Benjamin West's The Death of General Wolfe (1771) dramatizes James Wolfe's death during the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Quebec in 1759.

The first known attempt at European colonization began when Norsemen settled briefly at L'Anse aux Meadows in Newfoundland around 1000 AD.^[32] No further European exploration occurred until 1497, when Italian seafarer John Cabot explored Canada's Atlantic coast for England.^[33] Basque and Portuguese mariners established seasonal whaling and fishing outposts along the Atlantic coast in the early 16th century.^[34] In 1534, French explorer Jacques Cartier explored the St. Lawrence River, where on July 24 he planted a 10-metre (33 ft) cross bearing the words "Long Live the King of France", and took possession of the territory in the name of King Francis I of France.^[35]

In 1583, Sir Humphrey Gilbert claimed St. John's, Newfoundland, as the first North American English colony by the royal prerogative of Queen Elizabeth I.^[36] French explorer Samuel de Champlain arrived in 1603, and established the first permanent European settlements at Port Royal in 1605 and Quebec City in 1608. Among the French colonists of New France, Canadiens extensively settled the St. Lawrence River valley and Acadians settled the present-day Maritimes, while fur traders and Catholic missionaries explored the Great Lakes, Hudson Bay, and the Mississippi watershed to Louisiana. The Beaver Wars broke out in the mid-17th century over control of the North American fur trade.^[37]

The English established additional colonies in Cupids and Ferryland, Newfoundland, beginning in 1610. The Thirteen Colonies were founded to the south soon after.^[34] A series of four French and Indian Wars erupted between 1689 and 1763.^[38] Mainland Nova Scotia came under British rule with the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht; the Treaty of Paris (1763) ceded Canada and most of New France to Britain after the Seven Years' War.^[39]

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 created the Province of Quebec out of New France, and annexed Cape Breton Island to Nova Scotia.^[14] St. John's Island (now Prince Edward Island) became a separate colony in 1769.^[40] To avert conflict in Quebec, the British passed the Quebec Act of 1774, expanding Quebec's territory to the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley. It re-established the French language, Catholic faith, and French civil law there. This angered many residents of the Thirteen Colonies, fuelling anti-British sentiment in the years prior to the 1775 outbreak of the American Revolution.^[14]

The 1783 Treaty of Paris recognized American independence and ceded territories south of the Great Lakes to the United States. New Brunswick was split from Nova Scotia as part of a reorganization of Loyalist settlements in the Maritimes. To accommodate English-speaking Loyalists in Quebec, the Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the province into French-speaking Lower Canada (later Quebec) and English-speaking Upper Canada (later Ontario), granting each its own elected legislative assembly.^[41]

Robert Harris's Fathers of Confederation (1884), an amalgamation of the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences of 1864.^[42]

The Canadas were the main front in the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain. Following the war, large-scale immigration to Canada from Britain and Ireland began in 1815.^[25] Between 1825 and 1846, 626,628 European immigrants reportedly landed at Canadian ports.^[43] Between one-quarter and one-third of all Europeans who immigrated to Canada before 1891 died of infectious diseases.^[24]

The desire for responsible government resulted in the abortive Rebellions of 1837. The Durham Report subsequently recommended responsible government and the assimilation of French Canadians into English culture.^[14] The Act of Union 1840 merged The Canadas into a united Province of Canada. Responsible government was established for all British North American provinces by 1849.^[44] The signing of the Oregon Treaty by Britain and the United States in 1846 ended the Oregon boundary dispute, extending the border westward along the 49th parallel. This paved the way for British colonies on Vancouver Island (1849) and in British Columbia (1858).^[45]

Confederation and expansion[link]

An animated map showing the growth and change of Canada's provinces and territories since Confederation in 1867.

Following several constitutional conferences, the 1867 Constitution Act officially proclaimed Canadian Confederation on July 1, 1867, initially with four provinces – Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick.^[46][47][48] Canada assumed control of Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory to form the Northwest Territories, where the Métis' grievances ignited the Red River Rebellion and the creation of the province of Manitoba in July 1870.^[49] British Columbia and Vancouver Island (which had been united in 1866) joined the Confederation in 1871, while Prince Edward Island joined in 1873.^[50] Prime Minister John A. Macdonald and his Conservative government established a National Policy of tariffs to protect the nascent Canadian manufacturing industries.^[48]

To open the West, the government sponsored the construction of three transcontinental railways (including the Canadian Pacific Railway), opened the prairies to settlement with the Dominion Lands Act, and established the North-West Mounted Police to assert its authority over this territory.^[51][52] In 1898, during the Klondike Gold Rush in the Northwest Territories, the Canadian government created the Yukon Territory. Under the Liberal Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, continental European immigrants settled the prairies, and Alberta and Saskatchewan became provinces in 1905.^[50]

Early 20th century[link]

Canadian soldiers and Mark II tank at the Battle of Vimy Ridge in 1917.

Because Britain still maintained control of Canada's foreign affairs under the Confederation Act, its declaration of war in 1914 automatically brought Canada into World War I. Volunteers sent to the Western Front later became part of the Canadian Corps. The Corps played a substantial role in the Battle of Vimy Ridge and other major engagements of the war.^[53] Out of approximately 625,000 Canadians who served in World War I, around 60,000 were killed and another 173,000 were wounded.^[54] The Conscription Crisis of 1917 erupted when conservative Prime Minister Robert Borden brought in compulsory military service over the objections of French-speaking Quebecers. In 1919, Canada joined the League of Nations independently of Britain,^[53] and the 1931 Statute of Westminster affirmed Canada's independence.^[4]

The Great Depression of the early 1930s brought great economic hardship to Canada. In response to the downturn, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in Saskatchewan introduced many elements of a welfare state (as pioneered by Tommy Douglas) in the 1940s and 1950s.^[55] Canada declared war on Germany independently during World War II under Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King, three days after Britain. The first Canadian Army units arrived in Britain in December 1939.^[53]

Canadian troops played important roles in many key battles of the war, including the failed 1942 Dieppe Raid, the Allied invasion of Italy, the Normandy landings, the Battle of Normandy, and the Battle of the Scheldt in 1944.^[53] Canada provided asylum for the monarchy of the Netherlands while that country was occupied, and is credited by the Netherlands for major contributions to its liberation from Nazi Germany.^[56] The Canadian economy boomed during the war as its industries manufactured military materiel for Canada, Britain, China, and the Soviet Union.^[53] Despite another Conscription Crisis in Quebec, Canada finished the war with a large army and strong economy.^[57]

Modern times[link]

At Rideau Hall, Governor General the Viscount Alexander of Tunis (centre) receives the bill finalizing the union of Newfoundland and Canada on March 31, 1949.

The Dominion of Newfoundland (now Newfoundland and Labrador) was unified with Canada in 1949.^[58] Canada's post-war economic growth, combined with the policies of successive Liberal governments, led to the emergence of a new Canadian identity, marked by the adoption of the current Maple Leaf Flag in 1965,^[59] the implementation of official bilingualism (English and French) in 1969,^[60] and the institution of official multiculturalism in 1971.^[61] Socially democratic programs were also instituted, such as Medicare, the Canada Pension Plan, and Canada Student Loans, though provincial governments, particularly Quebec and Alberta, opposed many of these as incursions into their jurisdictions.^[62] Finally, another series of constitutional conferences resulted in the 1982 patriation of Canada's constitution from the United Kingdom, concurrent with the creation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.^[63] In 1999, Nunavut became Canada's third territory after a series of negotiations with the federal government.^[64]

At the same time, Quebec underwent profound social and economic changes through the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, giving birth to a modern nationalist movement. The radical Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) ignited the October Crisis in 1970,^[65] and the sovereignist Parti Québécois was elected in 1976, organizing an unsuccessful referendum on sovereignty-association in 1980. Attempts to accommodate Quebec nationalism constitutionally through the Meech Lake Accord failed in 1990.^[66] This led to the formation of the Bloc Québécois in Quebec and the invigoration of the Reform Party of Canada in the West.^[67][68] A second referendum followed in 1995, in which sovereignty was rejected by a slimmer margin of just 50.6 to 49.4 percent. In 1997, the Supreme Court ruled that unilateral secession by a province would be unconstitutional, and the Clarity Act was passed by parliament, outlining the terms of a negotiated departure from Confederation.^[66]

In addition to the issues of Quebec sovereignty, a number of crises shook Canadian society in the late 1980s and early 1990s. These included the explosion of Air India Flight 182 in 1985, the largest mass murder in Canadian history;^[69] the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989, a university shooting targeting female students;^[70] and the Oka Crisis of 1990,^[71] the first of a number of violent confrontations between the government and Aboriginal groups.^[72] Canada also joined the Gulf War in 1990 as part of a US-led coalition force, and was active in several peacekeeping missions in the late 1990s.^[73] Canada sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001, but declined to send forces to Iraq when the US invaded in 2003.^[74] In 2011, Canadian forces participated in the NATO-led intervention into the Libyan civil war.^[75]

Geography[link]

A satellite composite image of Canada. Boreal forests prevail on the rocky Canadian Shield, while ice and tundra are prominent in the Arctic. Glaciers are visible in the Canadian Rockies and Coast Mountains. The flat and fertile prairies facilitate agriculture. The Great Lakes feed the St. Lawrence River in the southeast, where lowlands host much of Canada's population.

Canada occupies a major northern portion of North America, sharing land borders with the contiguous United States to the south and the US state of Alaska to the northwest. Canada stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean.^[76][77] Greenland is to the northeast, while Saint Pierre and Miquelon is south of Newfoundland.

By total area (including its waters), Canada is the second-largest country in the world, after Russia. By land area alone, Canada ranks fourth.^[77] The country lies between latitudes 41° and 84°N, and longitudes 52° and 141°W.

Since 1925, Canada has claimed the portion of the Arctic between 60° and 141°W longitude,^[78] but this claim is not universally recognized. Canada is home to the world's northernmost settlement, Canadian Forces Station Alert, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island – latitude 82.5°N – which lies 817 kilometres (508 mi) from the North Pole.^[79] Much of the Canadian Arctic is covered by ice and permafrost. Canada has the longest coastline in the world, with a total length of 202,080 kilometres (125,570 mi);^[77] additionally, its border with the United States is the world's longest land border, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi).^[80]

The Horseshoe Falls in Niagara Falls, Ontario, is one of the world's most voluminous waterfalls.^[81]

Since the end of the last glacial period, Canada has consisted of eight distinct forest regions, including extensive boreal forest on the Canadian Shield.^[82] Canada has around 31,700 large lakes,^[83] more than any other country, containing much of the world's fresh water.^[84] There are also fresh-water glaciers in the Canadian Rockies and the Coast Mountains. Canada is geologically active, having many earthquakes and potentially active volcanoes, notably Mount Meager, Mount Garibaldi, Mount Cayley, and the Mount Edziza volcanic complex.^[85] The volcanic eruption of the Tseax Cone in 1775 was among Canada's worst natural disasters, killing 2,000 Nisga'a people and destroying their village in the Nass River valley of northern British Columbia. The eruption produced a 22.5-kilometre (14.0 mi) lava flow, and, according to Nisga'a legend, blocked the flow of the Nass River.^[86]

Canada's population density, at 3.3 inhabitants per square kilometre (8.5 /sq mi), is among the lowest in the world. The most densely populated part of the country is the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor, situated in Southern Quebec and Southern Ontario along the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River.^[87]

Average winter and summer high temperatures across Canada vary from region to region. Winters can be harsh in many parts of the country, particularly in the interior and Prairie provinces, which experience a continental climate, where daily average temperatures are near −15 °C (5 °F), but can drop below −40 °C (−40 °F) with severe wind chills.^[88] In noncoastal regions, snow can cover the ground for almost six months of the year, while in parts of the north snow can persist year-round. Coastal British Columbia has a temperate climate, with a mild and rainy winter. On the east and west coasts, average high temperatures are generally in the low 20s °C (70s °F), while between the coasts, the average summer high temperature ranges from 25 to 30 °C (77 to 86 °F), with temperatures in some interior locations occasionally exceeding 40 °C (104 °F).^[89]

Government and politics[link]

Parliament Hill in Canada's capital city, Ottawa

Canada has a parliamentary system within the context of a constitutional monarchy, the monarchy of Canada being the foundation of the executive, legislative, and judicial branches.^{[90][91][92][93]} The sovereign is Queen Elizabeth II, who also serves as head of state of 15 other Commonwealth countries and each of Canada's ten provinces and resides predominantly in the United Kingdom. As such, the Queen's representative, the Governor General of Canada (presently David Lloyd Johnston), carries out most of the federal royal duties in Canada.^[94][95]

The direct participation of the royal and viceroyal figures in areas of governance is limited;^[92][96][97] in practice, their use of the executive powers is directed by the Cabinet, a committee of ministers of the Crown responsible to the elected House of Commons and chosen and headed by the Prime Minister of Canada (presently Stephen Harper),^[98] the head of government, though the governor general or monarch may in certain crisis situations exercise their power without ministerial advice.^[96] To ensure the stability of government, the governor general will usually appoint as prime minister the person who is the current leader of the political party that can obtain the confidence of a plurality in the House of Commons.^[99] The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) is thus one of the most powerful institutions in government, initiating most legislation for parliamentary approval and selecting for appointment by the Crown, besides the aforementioned, the governor general, lieutenant governors, senators, federal court judges, and heads of Crown corporations and government agencies.^[96] The leader of the party with the second-most seats usually becomes the Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition (presently Thomas Mulcair) and is part of an adversarial parliamentary system intended to keep the government in check.^[100]

The Senate chamber within the Centre Block on Parliament Hill

Each of the 308 Members of Parliament in the House of Commons is elected by simple plurality in an electoral district or riding. General elections must be called by the governor general, on the advice of the prime minister, within four years of the previous election, or may be triggered by the government losing a confidence vote in the House.^[101] The 105 members of the Senate, whose seats are apportioned on a regional basis, serve until age 75.^[102] Five parties had representatives elected to the federal parliament in the 2011 elections: the Conservative Party of Canada (governing party), the New Democratic Party (the Official Opposition), the Liberal Party of Canada, the Bloc Québécois, and the Green Party of Canada. The list of historical parties with elected representation is substantial.

Canada's federal structure divides government responsibilities between the federal government and the ten provinces. Provincial legislatures are unicameral and operate in parliamentary fashion similar to the House of Commons.^[97] Canada's three territories also have legislatures, but these are not sovereign and have fewer constitutional responsibilities than the provinces.^[103] The territorial legislatures also differ structurally from their provincial counterparts.^[104]

Law[link]

The Constitution of Canada is the supreme law of the country, and consists of written text and unwritten conventions. The Constitution Act, 1867 (known as the British North America Act prior to 1982) affirmed governance based on parliamentary precedent and divided powers between the federal and provincial governments; the Statute of Westminster 1931 granted full autonomy; and the Constitution Act, 1982, ended all legislative ties to the UK, added a constitutional amending formula, and added the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantees basic rights and freedoms that usually cannot be overridden by any government – though a notwithstanding clause allows the federal parliament and provincial legislatures to override certain sections of the Charter for a period of five years.^[105]

The Indian Chiefs Medal, presented to commemorate the Numbered Treaties

Although not without conflict, European Canadians' early interactions with First Nations and Inuit populations were relatively peaceful. The Crown and Aboriginal peoples began interactions during the European colonialization period. Numbered Treaties, the Indian Act, the Constitution Act of 1982, and case laws were established.^[106] A series of eleven treaties were signed between Aboriginals in Canada and the reigning Monarch of Canada from 1871 to 1921.^[107] These treaties are agreements with the Government of Canada administered by Canadian Aboriginal law and overseen by the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. The role of the treaties was reaffirmed by Section Thirty-five of the Constitution Act, 1982, which "recognizes and affirms existing Aboriginal and treaty rights".^[106] These rights may include provision of services such as health care, and exemption from taxation.^[108] The legal and policy framework within which Canada and First Nations operate was further formalized in 2005, through the First Nations–Federal Crown Political Accord.^[106]

The Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, west of Parliament Hill

Canada's judiciary plays an important role in interpreting laws and has the power to strike down laws that violate the Constitution. The Supreme Court of Canada is the highest court and final arbiter and has been led by the Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, P.C. (the first female Chief Justice) since 2000.^[109] Its nine members are appointed by the governor general on the advice of the Prime Minister and Minister of Justice. All judges at the superior and appellate levels are appointed after consultation with nongovernmental legal bodies. The federal cabinet also appoints justices to superior courts at the provincial and territorial levels.^[110]

Common law prevails everywhere except in Quebec, where civil law predominates. Criminal law is solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada.^[111] Law enforcement, including criminal courts, is officially a provincial responsibility, conducted by provincial police forces.^[112] However, in most rural areas and some urban areas, policing responsibilities are contracted to the federal Royal Canadian Mounted Police.^[113]

Foreign relations and military[link]

Prime Minister Stephen Harper meeting President of the United States Barack Obama in 2009

Canada currently employs a professional, volunteer military force of over 67,000 regular personnel and approximately 43,000 reserve personnel, including supplementary reserves.^[114] The unified Canadian Forces (CF) comprise the Canadian Army, Royal Canadian Navy, and Royal Canadian Air Force. In 2011, Canada's military expenditure totalled approximately C$24.5 billion.^[115]

Canada and the United States share the world's longest undefended border, co-operate on military campaigns and exercises, and are each other's largest trading partner.^[116] Canada nevertheless has an independent foreign policy, most notably maintaining full relations with Cuba and declining to officially participate in the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Canada also maintains historic ties to the United Kingdom and France and to other former British and French colonies through Canada's membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and the Francophonie.^[117] Canada is noted for having a positive relationship with the Netherlands, owing, in part, to its contribution to the Dutch liberation during World War II.^[56]

Canada's strong attachment to the British Empire and Commonwealth led to major participation in British military efforts in the Second Boer War, World War I and World War II. Since then, Canada has been an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to resolve global issues in collaboration with other nations.^[118][119] Canada was a founding member of the United Nations in 1945 and of NATO in 1949. During the Cold War, Canada was a major contributor to UN forces in the Korean War and founded the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in cooperation with the United States to defend against potential aerial attacks from the Soviet Union.^[120]

Canadian Army soldiers from the Royal 22nd Regiment deploying during UNITAS exercises in April 2009

During the Suez Crisis of 1956, future Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson eased tensions by proposing the inception of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force, for which he was awarded the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize.^[121] As this was the first UN peacekeeping mission, Pearson is often credited as the inventor of the concept. Canada has since served in 50 peacekeeping missions, including every UN peacekeeping effort until 1989,^[53] and has since maintained forces in international missions in Rwanda, the former Yugoslavia, and elsewhere; Canada has sometimes faced controversy over its involvement in foreign countries, notably in the 1993 Somalia Affair.^[122]

Canada joined the Organization of American States (OAS) in 1990 and hosted the OAS General Assembly in Windsor, Ontario, in June 2000 and the third Summit of the Americas in Quebec City in April 2001.^[123] Canada seeks to expand its ties to Pacific Rim economies through membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum (APEC).^[124]

The Halifax-class frigate HMCS Regina, a warship of the Royal Canadian Navy, during the 2004 RIMPAC exercises

In 2001, Canada deployed troops to Afghanistan as part of the US stabilization force and the UN-authorized, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force. Starting in July 2011, Canada began withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan. In all, Canada lost 158 soldiers, one diplomat, two aid workers, and one journalist during the mission,^[125] which cost approximately C$11.3 billion.^[126]

In February 2007, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom, Norway, and Russia announced their joint commitment to a $1.5-billion project to help develop vaccines for developing nations, and called on other countries to join them.^[127] In August 2007, Canada's territorial claims in the Arctic were challenged after a Russian underwater expedition to the North Pole; Canada has considered that area to be sovereign territory since 1925.^[128] In July 2010, the federal government announced the largest purchase in Canadian military history – the acquisition of 65 F-35 Lightning II jet fighters, totalling C$9 billion.^[129] Between March and October 2011, Canadian forces participated in a UN-mandated NATO intervention into the 2011 Libyan civil war.^[130]

Provinces and territories[link]

Canada is a federation composed of ten provinces and three territories. In turn, these may be grouped into four main regions: Western Canada, Central Canada, Atlantic Canada, and Northern Canada ("Eastern Canada" refers to Central Canada and Atlantic Canada together). Provinces have more autonomy than territories, having responsibility for social programs such as health care, education, and welfare. Together, the provinces collect more revenue than the federal government, an almost unique structure among federations in the world. Using its spending powers, the federal government can initiate national policies in provincial areas, such as the Canada Health Act; the provinces can opt out of these, but rarely do so in practice. Equalization payments are made by the federal government to ensure that reasonably uniform standards of services and taxation are kept between the richer and poorer provinces.^[131]

Economy[link]

Representatives of the governments of Canada, Mexico, and the United States sign the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1992.

Canada is the world's eleventh-largest economy, with a 2011 nominal GDP of approximately US$1.74 trillion.^[7] It is a member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the G8, and is one of the world's top ten trading nations, with a highly globalized economy.^[132][133] Canada is a mixed economy, ranking above the US and most western European nations on the Heritage Foundation's index of economic freedom.^[134] The largest foreign importers of Canadian goods are the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan.^[135]

In the past century, the growth of Canada's manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy to an advanced, urbanized, industrial one. Like many other First World nations, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three-quarters of the country's workforce.^[136] However, Canada is unusual among developed countries in the importance of its primary sector, in which the logging and petroleum industries are two of the most prominent elements.^[137]

Canada is one of the few developed nations that are net exporters of energy.^[138] Atlantic Canada possesses vast offshore deposits of natural gas, and Alberta also hosts large oil and gas resources. The immense Athabasca oil sands give Canada the world's second-largest proven oil reserves, after Saudi Arabia.^[139] Canada is additionally one of the world's largest suppliers of agricultural products; the Canadian Prairies are one of the most important global producers of wheat, canola, and other grains.^[140] Canada is a major producer of zinc and uranium, and is a leading exporter of many other minerals, such as gold, nickel, aluminum, and lead.^[141][138] Many towns in northern Canada, where agriculture is difficult, are sustainable because of nearby mines or sources of timber. Canada also has a sizable manufacturing sector centred in southern Ontario and Quebec, with automobiles and aeronautics representing particularly important industries.^[142]

Canada's economic integration with the United States has increased significantly since World War II. The Automotive Products Trade Agreement of 1965 opened Canada's borders to trade in the automobile manufacturing industry. In the 1970s, concerns over energy self-sufficiency and foreign ownership in the manufacturing sectors prompted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau's Liberal government to enact the National Energy Program (NEP) and the Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA).^[143] In the 1980s, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's Progressive Conservatives abolished the NEP and changed the name of FIRA to "Investment Canada", in order to encourage foreign investment.^[144] The Canada – United States Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two countries, while the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) expanded the free-trade zone to include Mexico in 1994.^[140] In the mid-1990s, Jean Chrétien's Liberal government began to post annual budgetary surpluses, and steadily paid down the national debt.^[145]

In 2008, Canada's imported goods were worth over $442.9 billion, of which $280.8 billion originated from the United States, $11.7 billion from Japan, and $11.3 billion from the United Kingdom.^[135] The country’s 2009 trade deficit totaled C$4.8 billion, compared with a C$46.9 billion surplus in 2008.^[146]

The global financial crisis of 2008 caused a major recession, which led to a significant rise in unemployment in Canada.^[147] By October 2009, Canada's national unemployment rate reached 8.6 percent, with provincial unemployment rates varying from a low of 5.8 percent in Manitoba to a high of 17 percent in Newfoundland and Labrador.^[148] Between October 2008 and October 2010, the Canadian labour market lost 162,000 full-time jobs and a total of 224,000 permanent jobs.^[149] Canada's federal debt was estimated to total $566.7 billion for the fiscal year 2010–11, up from $463.7 billion in 2008–09.^[150] Canada’s net foreign debt rose by $41 billion to $194 billion in the first quarter of 2010.^[151]

Science and technology[link]

The Canadarm robotic manipulator in action on Space Shuttle Discovery during the STS-116 mission in 2006.

In 2011, Canada spent approximately C$29.9 billion on domestic research and development.^[152] The country has produced ten Nobel laureates in physics, chemistry and medicine,^[153] and is home to a number of global technology firms, such as smartphone maker Research In Motion and video games developer BioWare.^[154] Canada ranks twelfth in the world for Internet users as a proportion of the population, with over 28 million users – equivalent to around 84 percent of its total 2011 population.^[155]

The Canadian Space Agency operates a highly active space program, conducting space, planetary, and aviation research, and developing rockets and satellites. In 1984, Marc Garneau became Canada's first astronaut, serving as payload specialist on NASA's STS-41-G Space Shuttle mission. As of 2012, nine Canadians have flown into space, over the course of fifteen manned missions.^[156]

Canada is a participant in the International Space Station (ISS), and is a pioneer in space robotics, having constructed the Canadarm, Canadarm2 and Dextre robotic manipulators for the ISS and NASA. Since the 1960s, Canada's aerospace industry has designed and built numerous marques of satellite, including Radarsat-1 and 2, ISIS and MOST.^[157] Canada has also produced a successful and widely used sounding rocket, the Black Brant; over 1,000 Black Brants have been launched since the rocket's introduction in 1961.^[158]

Demographics[link]