Who We Are

Canada has inherited the world's oldest continuous constitutional tradition.

Canada is the only constitutional monarchy in North America.

Canada's institutions are committed to “Peace, Order, and Good Government”, a key phrase from the British North America Act of 1867, Canada's original constitutional document.

Poets and songwriters have called Canada the “Great Dominion”.

Canada has three founding peoples: Aboriginal, French and British.

The ancestors of Aboriginal peoples are believed to have come from Asia many thousands of years ago, long before European explorers arrived in North America.

Aboriginal and treaty rights are part of the Canadian Constitution.

King George III's Royal Proclamation of 1763 first guaranteed territorial rights. It set the basis for making treaties with newcomers, though those treaties were not always fully respected.

From the 1800s to the 1980s, the federal government put many Aboriginal children in residential schools to educate them and assimilate them into mainstream culture.

The residential schools had little funding and caused hardship; some students suffered physical abuse. Aboriginal languages and cultural practices were mostly banned.

In 2008, Ottawa made a formal apology to the former students of residential schools.

“Indian” means all Aboriginal people who are not Inuit or Métis. The term First Nations came into use in the 1970s.

Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language. The Inuit live in small communities spread across the Arctic.

The Métis are a distinct people with mixed Aboriginal and European ancestry. Most of them live in the Prairie provinces.

The Métis come from both French-speaking and English-speaking backgrounds and have their own dialect, called Michif.

John Buchan (Lord Tweedsmuir), a popular Governor General from 1935 to 1940, said immigrant groups should keep their individuality and each add to the national character.

English and French are Canada's official languages and shape daily life for most people.

By law, the federal government must provide services in English and French everywhere in Canada.

New Brunswick is the only province that is officially bilingual.

The Acadians descend from French colonists who started settling in 1604 in what are now the Maritime provinces.

From 1755 to 1763, during the war between Britain and France, over two-thirds of the Acadians were deported. This is called the “Great Upheaval”, but the Acadians survived and kept their identity.

Quebecers are the people of Quebec, and most speak French. Most descend from 8,500 French settlers of the 1600s and 1700s.

In 2006, the House of Commons recognized the Quebecois as a nation within a united Canada.

Life in English-speaking areas was shaped by hundreds of thousands of settlers, soldiers and migrants from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, from the 1600s to the 20th century.

Anglophones (people who speak English) are usually called English Canadians.

Some Canadians come from places where they lived through war or conflict. Those experiences do not justify bringing violent, extreme or hateful prejudices to Canada.

People who become Canadian are expected to accept democratic principles, such as the rule of law.

Canada is often called a land of immigrants, because over the last 200 years millions of newcomers have helped build and defend the Canadian way of life.

Traditionally, the state has worked with faith communities on social welfare, schools, health care, resettling refugees and protecting religious freedom.

Gay and lesbian Canadians are fully protected and treated equally under the law, including access to civil marriage.