Towns Canada

Finding information on travel, universities, colleges, hospitals, airports and so much more on towns or cities in Canada has never been so easy and so much fun.

Cities Canada, Towns Canada, Villages Canada...
the best site around for all of your Canadian information!

Our interactive maps, slideshows and link directory provides an Easy To Use interface designed to Browse and Explorer and Learn about Canada as you search for a City, Town, Village, Hamlet, or even a Municipality.
Our extensive list doesn't stop there, if you need a local Hospital, School, Government Agency, a Non Profit Organization like a Chamber or Board of Trade it can be found at Towns Canada.

Are you interested in finding out what is happening in the town your visiting and you can not find their web site, Towns Canada is the best place to go to find it fast and accurate.

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and explore the fun side of Canada.

Overview

The capital city is Ottawa, Ontario, the seat of Canada's Parliament. Both the Governor General of Canada, who exercises the prerogatives of the head of state (the monarch), and the Prime Minister, who is the head of government, have official residences in Ottawa.

Originally a union of former French and British colonies, and sometimes (mostly formerly) styled as the Dominion of Canada, Canada is a founding member of the United Nations, the Commonwealth of Nations, and La Francophonie. Canada defines itself as a bilingual and multicultural nation:

English is the majority language in most provinces of Canada.
French is the majority language of Quebec, and is widely spoken in New Brunswick and some areas of Ontario, Nova Scotia, and Manitoba.
Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut and has official status there.

Canada is a technologically advanced and industrialized nation. It is a net exporter of energy because of its large fossil fuel deposits, nuclear energy generation, and hydroelectric power capacity. Its diversified economy relies heavily on an abundance of natural resources and trade, particularly with the U.S., with which it has had a long and complex relationship (see U.S.-Canada relations).

Canada has ten provinces and three territories they are the following: ( visit anyone of them to find your Home Town)

Canada's major cities that are not capital cities include Montreal, Quebec; Vancouver, British Columbia; and Calgary, Alberta.

History

Aboriginal tradition holds that the First Peoples have inhabited parts of what is now called Canada since the dawn of time. Archaeological records show that these lands have been inhabited for at least 10,000 years. Several Viking expeditions occurred circa AD 1000, with evidence of settlement at L'Anse aux Meadows.

British claims to North America date from 1497, when John Cabot reached what he called Newfoundland, though it is unclear whether Cabot landed in current Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, or Maine. French claims date from explorations by Jacques Cartier (from 1534) and Samuel de Champlain (from 1603). Neither Cabot's nor Cartier's explorations left any permanent settlers behind. In 1604, French settlers were the first Europeans to settle permanently in what is now Canada. After an unsuccessful winter in St. Croix Island (today in Maine), they settled Port-Royal in what is now the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia, but moved to found Quebec City in 1608. The current Acadians are descendants of settlers who came later in the same century and re-founded Port-Royal. New France was generally the name given to the French colonies of Canada and Acadia (and later Louisiana).

British settlements were established along the Atlantic seaboard and around Hudson Bay. As these colonies expanded, a struggle for control of North America took place between 1689 and 1763, exacerbated by wars in Europe between France and Great Britain. France progressively lost territory to Great Britain, surrendering peninsular Nova Scotia in the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht and the remainder of New France including what was left of Acadia in the Treaty of Paris (1763).

During and after the American Revolution approximately 70,000 Loyalists fled the Thirteen Colonies. Of these, roughly 50,000 United Empire Loyalists settled in the British North American colonies which then consisted of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, the Province of Quebec, and Prince Edward Island (created 1769). To accommodate the Loyalists, Britain created the colony of New Brunswick in 1784 from part of Nova Scotia, and divided Quebec into Lower Canada and Upper Canada under the Constitutional Act of 1791.

The War of 1812 began when the U.S. attacked British forces in Canada in an attempt to reduce their control of North America and the Atlantic. In April 1813, U.S. forces burned York (now Toronto). The British/Canadians retaliated with the burning of Washington (DC) in a surprise attack in August 1814. The Treaty of Ghent was signed in December 1814. It was only after the French and Napoleonic wars ended in Europe that large-scale immigration to Canada resumed.

The Canadas were merged into a single colony, the Province of Canada, with the Act of Union (1840) in an attempt to assimilate the French Canadians. Once the U.S. agreed to the 49th parallel north as its border with western British North America, the British government created the colonies of British Columbia in 1848 and Vancouver Island in 1849. By the late 1850s, politicians in the Province of Canada had launched a series of western exploratory expeditions with the intention of assuming control of Rupert's Land (administered by the Hudson's Bay Company) and the Arctic.

In 1864 and 1866, British North American politicians, in what became known as the Great Coalition, held three conferences to create a federal union. Spearheaded by John A. Macdonald, on July 1, 1867, three colonies—Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick—were granted a constitution, the British North America Act, by the United Kingdom, creating the Dominion of Canada. The term "Canadian Confederation" refers to this 1867 unification of the provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec (formerly Canada East or Lower Canada), and Ontario (formerly Canada West or Upper Canada). The remaining British colonies and territories soon joined Confederation. By 1880 Canada included all of its present area except for Newfoundland and Labrador, which joined in 1949.

In 1919, Canada became a member of the League of Nations and, in the Imperial Conference of 1926, Canada assumed full control of its own foreign affairs through the Balfour Declaration. In 1927, Canada appointed its first ambassador to a foreign country, the United States. In 1931, the Statute of Westminster gave the Balfour Declaration constitutional force, confirming that no act of the UK's parliament would thereafter extend to Canada without its consent. Canadian citizenship was first distinguished from British in 1947; judicial appeals to the British Judicial Committee of the Privy Council ended in 1949. The power to amend Canada's constitution remained with the British parliament, although subject to the Statute of Westminster, until it was finally "patriated" to Canadian control by the Canada Act 1982.

The Quebec sovereignty movement has led to two referendums held in 1980 and 1995, with votes of 59.6% and 50.6% respectively against its proposals for sovereignty-association. In 1997, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled unilateral secession by a province to be unconstitutional.

Geography

Canada occupies the northern portion (precisely 41%) of North America. It is bordered to the south by the contiguous United States and to the northwest by Alaska. Off the southern coast of Newfoundland lies Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, an overseas community of France. The country stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west (hence the country's motto). To the north lies the Arctic Ocean; Greenland is to the northeast. Since 1925, Canada has claimed the portion of the Arctic between 60°W and 141°W longitude ([4]); this claim is not universally recognized. The northernmost settlement in Canada (and in the world) is Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Alert on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island – latitude 82.5°N – just 834 kilometres from the North Pole.

Canada is the world's second-largest country in total area, after Russia. Much of Canada lies in Arctic regions, however, and thus Canada has only the fourth-most arable land area behind Russia, China, and the U.S. The population density of 3.5 people per square kilometre is among the lowest in the world: Canada has a larger area than the U.S., but only one-ninth of its population.

The most densely populated part of the country is the Great Lakes-Saint Lawrence River Valley in the east. To the north of this region is the broad Canadian Shield, an area of rock scoured clean by the last ice age, thinly soiled, rich in minerals, and dotted with lakes and rivers—over 60% of the world's lakes are in Canada. The Canadian Shield encircles the immense Hudson Bay, extending from Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories at its westernmost point, to the Atlantic coast in Labrador in the east.

Newfoundland, North America's easternmost island if Greenland is excluded, is at the mouth of the Gulf of Saint Lawrence, the world's largest estuary. The Canadian Maritimes protrude eastward from the southern coasts of Quebec. New Brunswick and Nova Scotia are divided by the Bay of Fundy, which experiences the world's largest tidal variations. Prince Edward Island is Canada's smallest province.

West of Ontario, the broad, flat Canadian Prairies spread toward the Rocky Mountains, which separate them from British Columbia.

Northern Canadian vegetation tapers from coniferous forests to tundra and finally to Arctic barrens in the far north. The northern Canadian mainland is ringed with a vast archipelago containing some of the world's largest islands.

Canada has a reputation for cold temperatures but, throughout, experiences four distinct seasons. Winters can be harsh in many regions of the country, with risks of blizzards and ice storms. Temperatures often reach lows of -50°C in the far North; the record coldest temperature in North America was -63°C, at Snag, Yukon, in 1947. Coastal British Columbia is an exception: it enjoys a temperate climate with much milder winters than the rest of the country. Summers in Canada range from mild (low to high 20s C) on the east and west coasts to hot (mid to high 30s C), particularly in Central Canada, the Prairies and the intermontane regions of British Columbia. The highest recorded temperature in Canada was 45°C at both Midale and Yellow Grass in Saskatchewan on July 5, 1937.

Politics

Canada's head of state is the monarch, currently Elizabeth II who is styled "Queen of Canada." The day-to-day duties of the head of state are exercised by the Governor General, who is generally a retired politician or other prominent Canadian. He or she is formally appointed by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister. The Governor General is a non-partisan figure who fulfils many ceremonial and symbolic roles including providing Royal Assent to bills, reading the Speech from the Throne, officially welcoming dignitaries of foreign countries, presenting honours such as the Order of Canada, signing state documents, formally opening and ending sessions of Parliament, and dissolving Parliament for an election.

Canada's constitution governs the legal framework of the country and consists of written text and unwritten traditions and conventions. The federal government and the governments of nine provinces agreed to the patriation of the constitution, with procedures for amending it, at a meeting of First Ministers in November 1981. Quebec did not agree to the changes, and Quebec nationalists refer to that night as the Night of the Long Knives.

The position of Prime Minister, Canada's head of government, in practice belongs to the leader of the political party who can command a majority in the House of Commons. The Prime Minister is formally appointed by the governor general. The prime minister, in turn, appoints the Cabinet, drawn by convention from members of the prime minister's party in both legislative houses, though mostly from the Commons. Executive power is exercised by the prime minister and cabinet, all of whom are sworn into the Privy Council of Canada and become ministers of the Crown. The Prime Minster exercises a great deal of individual political power, especially in terms of the appointment of other officials within the government and civil service.

The legislative branch of government has two houses: the elected House of Commons and the appointed Senate. Each member in the Commons is elected by simple plurality in one electoral district or "riding"; general elections are called by the governor general when the prime minister so advises, and must occur every five years or less. Members of the Senate, whose seats are apportioned on a regional basis, are chosen by the prime minister and formally appointed by the governor general, and serve until age 75.

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; its nine members are directly appointed by Cabinet. All judges at the superior and appellate levels are selected and appointed by the federal government, after consultation with non-governmental legal bodies. The federal cabinet also appoints justices to superior courts at the provincial and territorial levels. Judicial posts at the lower provincial and territorial levels are filled by their respective governments.

Common law prevails everywhere except in Quebec, where civil law predominates. Criminal law is solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada. Law enforcement, including criminal courts, is a provincial responsibility, but in most provinces policing is contracted to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). The RCMP is the only police force in the world to perform three different levels of enforcement: municipal, provincial, and federal.

Foreign Relations

Canada has a close relationship with the United States, sharing the world's longest undefended border, co-operating on some military campaigns and exercises, and being each other's largest trading partners. Canada also shares a history and long relationship with Great Britain as its "mother country".

In the last century, Canada has been an advocate for multilateralism, making efforts to reach out to the rest of the world and promoting itself as a "middle power" able to work with large and small nations alike. This was clearly demonstrated during the Suez Crisis whereby Lester B. Pearson mollified the tension by introducing the idea of peacekeeping and the inception of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force. In 1957, Pearson was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. In that spirit, Canada developed and has tried to maintain a leading role in UN peacekeeping efforts. Canada has cumulatively contributed more troops to peacekeeping operations worldwide than all other nations combined and currently serves in over 40 different peacekeeping missions, most recently in Afghanistan.

Canada is a member of the United Nations, Commonwealth of Nations, La Francophonie, the Organization of American States (OAS), North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the World Trade Organization, the G8, and Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC).

Military

Canada currently employs about 62,000 regular and 26,000 reserve military personnel. The unified Canadian Forces are comprised of: the Canadian Forces Land Force Command (army), the Canadian Forces Maritime Command (navy), and the Canadian Forces Air Command (air force). Equipment deployed by the forces includes 2,400 armoured fighting vehicles, 34 combat vessels, and 140 combat aircraft.

Defence spending in Fiscal Year 2004-5 was approximately $14 billion. However, in the 2005 federal budget, the Liberal government allocated an additional $12.8 billion over five years to the armed forces, and committed to increasing troop levels by an additional 8,000 regular and reserve personnel over the same period.

Canadian forces have served in various wars including World War I, World War II, the Korean War and recently, in Afghanistan. Since Lester B. Pearson proposed the first UN peacekeeping force in 1956, the Canadian Forces have served in 42 peacekeeping missions—more than any other country.

Provinces and Territories of Canada

Canada is composed of ten provinces and three territories. The provinces have a large degree of autonomy from the federal government, the territories somewhat less. Each has its own provincial or territorial symbols.

The provinces are responsible for most of Canada's social programs (such as health care, education, and welfare) and together collect more revenue than the federal government, an almost unique structure among federations in the world. The federal government can initiate national policies that the provinces can opt out of, but this rarely happens 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.

All provinces have unicameral, elected legislatures headed by a premier selected in the same way as the Prime Minister of Canada. Each province also has a figurehead lieutenant governor representing the Queen, analogous to the Governor General of Canada, appointed on the recommendation of the Prime Minister of Canada, though with increasing levels of consultation with provincial governments in recent years.

Most provinces have provincial counterparts to the three national federal parties. However, some provincial parties are not formally linked to the federal parties that share the same name. Some provinces have regional political parties, such as the Saskatchewan Party. The provincial political climate of Quebec is quite different: the main split is between separatism, represented by the Parti Québécois, and federalism, represented by the Parti Libéral du Québec.

The three territories have fewer political powers than provinces, having been created by acts of the national Parliament rather than having their status enshrined in the Constitution. There is no lieutenant governor to represent and fulfil the functions of the Queen, but each has a politically neutral commissioner appointed by the federal government to act as its senior representative. Only the Yukon legislature follows the same political system as the provincial legislatures. The other two territories use a consensus government system in which each member runs as an independent and the premier is elected by and from the members.

Economy

As an affluent, high-tech industrial society, Canada today closely resembles the U.S. in its market-oriented economic system, pattern of production, and high living standards. In the last century, the impressive growth of the manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation from a largely rural economy into one primarily industrial and urban. Canada has vast deposits of natural gas on the east coast and in the west, and a plethora of other natural resources contributing to self-sufficiency in energy. The 1989 Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) (which included Mexico) touched off a dramatic increase in trade and economic integration with the U.S. Since 2001, Canada has successfully avoided economic recession and has maintained the best overall economic performance in the G8.

Two long-term concerns loom. One is the continuing political differences over the Constitution between Quebec and the rest of Canada, periodically raising the possibility of Quebec independence. As the economy becomes stronger, notably in Quebec, fears of separation have generally waned. Another concern is the "Brain Drain", the emigration of professionals to the U.S. in search of higher pay, lower taxes, and high-tech opportunities. However, a largely under-recognized "Brain Gain" is occurring simultaneously, as educated immigrants (particularly from developing countries) continue to enter Canada.

Language

Canada's two official languages are English and French. On July 7, 1969, under the Official Languages Act, French was made commensurate to English throughout the federal government. This started a process that led to Canada redefining itself as a bilingual and multicultural nation:

• English and French have equal status in Parliament, in federal courts, and in all federal institutions.
• Any defendant in a criminal case has the right to a trial in either English or French.
• The public has the right, where there is sufficient demand, to receive federal government services in either English or French.
• Official language minority groups in most provinces and territories have the right to be educated in their language, in their own schools, with their own elected school boards, where they exist in sufficient numbers.
• While multiculturalism is official policy, to become a citizen one must be able to speak either English or French.
• More than 98% of Canadians speak English or French or both.

While the nation remains officially bilingual, the majority of Canadians are fluent only in English.

The official language of Quebec is French, as defined by the province's Charter of the French Language, which was introduced by the Parti Quebecois in 1976. However, the charter also provides certain rights for speakers of English and aboriginal languages. Quebec provides most government services in both French and English.

French is mostly spoken in Quebec with pockets in New Brunswick, eastern and northern Ontario, Saskatchewan, and southern Manitoba. In the 2001 census, 6,864,615 people listed French as a first language, of whom 85% lived in Quebec. 17,694,835 people listed English as a first language.

New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province, a status specifically guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Some provincial governments, notably Manitoba and Ontario, offer many services to their French minority populations.

Non-official languages are also important in Canada, with 5,470,820 people listing a non-official language as a first language. (The above three statistics include those who listed more than one first language.) Among the most important non-official first language groups are Chinese (853,745 first-language speakers), Italian (469,485), German (438,080), and Punjabi (271,220).

Aboriginal Groups

The Constitution Act of 1982 recognizes three groups of aboriginal peoples in Canada: the Indians (now often called First Nations), Inuit, and Métis. The aboriginal population is growing almost twice as fast as the rest of the population in Canada. Aboriginal peoples number 790,000 people (or 3% of Canada's population) of whom about 69% are First Nations, 26% are Métis, and 5% are Inuit.

Today, there are more than 50 different languages spoken by Aboriginal peoples, most of which are spoken only in Canada and are in decline. The only aboriginal languages believed to be currently fully sustainable are Ojibwe and Cree, together totalling up to 150,000 speakers, and Inuktitut, with about 29,000 speakers in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Nunavik (Northern Quebec), and Nunatsiavut (Northern Labrador).

Two of Canada's territories give official status to aboriginal languages. In Nunavut, Inuktitut and Inuinnaqtun are official languages alongside English and French, and Inuktitut is a common vehicular language in government. In the Northwest Territories, the Official Languages Act specifies no fewer than eleven official languages: Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich'in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey and Tåîchô. However, besides English and French, these languages are not vehicular in government; official status entitles citizens to receive services in them on request and to deal with the government in them.

National Symbols

The use of the maple leaf as a Canadian symbol dates back to the early 18th century, and is depicted on its current and previous flags, the penny, and on the coat of arms. White (for England) and Red (for France) were proclaimed national colours in 1921. Red and white are also the colours of England's Cross of St. George. Canada is known for its vast forests and mountain ranges (including the Rocky Mountains) and the animals that reside within them, such as moose, caribou, beavers, polar bears, grizzly bears, and the common loon. The beaver's emblematic status originated from the fact that early Canadian settlers traded fur. Other symbols include the ship Bluenose, which is featured on the Canadian dime, and the Canada goose. Canada is also well known for its Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and products made from the country's natural resources, such as maple syrup. Anything pertaining to hockey, Canada's official winter sport, is also often used as a national symbol of unity and pride; lacrosse is the official summer sport. The Canadian Football League with three downs and a 110-yard field has also been seen as part of a heritage worth preserving.

In recent years, other symbols such as beer have become a source of pride as well. One example was the former Montreal-based Molson Canadian, which often infused beer with Canadian nationalism in its commercials (see I am Canadian). The Canadian fashion retailer Roots also sells a variety of merchandise designed to evoke nationalistic sentiment.