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Canada, The Provinces and The Territories
Canada
COUNTRY: Canada
HEADLINE: Facts & Figures
GEOGRAPHY:
Location
The second-largest country in the world, Canada stretches across
the northern part of North America, excluding Alaska and Greenland. It
extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific, and its southern border
with the United States is formed along the upper St. Lawrence Seaway and
the Great Lakes, proceeding west along the 49th parallel. It is bordered
by the Arctic Ocean to the north and has a northwestern boundary with
Alaska.
Land Borders
5,526 miles
Coastline
151,492 miles (includes islands)
Capital
Ottawa
Area
3,844,928 sq. miles
Land Use
4.9% cropland; 3.0% permanent pasture; 53.6% forests and woodland;
38.5% other (wasteland, urban, inland water, and permafrost).
Arable Land
5%
Arable Land Per Capita
4.4 acre(s)
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; FAO Production Yearbook; The World
Factbook]
POPULATION:
Population
30,724,000 (1999 estimate)
World Population Rank
35th
Population Density
8 inhabs. per sq. mile (1999 estimate)
Population Distribution
76.7% urban (1995)
Age Distribution (1998) 0-14: 20.0%
15-64: 68.0%
65+: 12.0%
Median Age
36.3 years (2000 projection)
Population Growth Rate
1.0% per year (2000-2010 projection)
Regional Population
PROVINCES: Alberta (1996) 2,789,500
British Columbia (1996) 3,855,100
Manitoba (1996) 1,143,500
New Brunswick (1996) 762,500
Newfoundland (1996) 570,700
Nova Scotia (1996) 942,800
Ontario (1996) 11,252,400
Prince Edward Island (1996) 137,300
Quebec (1996) 7,389,100
Saskatchewan (1996) 1,022,500
TERRITORIES:
Northwest (1996) 66,000
Yukon (1996) 31,400
Major Cities Population
Toronto "Megacity" (1998) 2,300,000
Montreal (1996) 3,326,510
Vancouver (1996) 1,831,665
Ottawa (1996) 1,010,498
Edmonton (1996) 962,597
Calgary (1996) 821,628
Quebec (1996) 671,889
Winnipeg (1996) 667,209
Hamilton (1996) 624,360
London (1996) 398,616
Ethnic Composition
British - 40%; French - 27%; other European - 20%; indigenous
Indian and Eskimo - 1.5%; other (including Asian) - 11.5%.
Language
French and English are the official languages.
Religion
Roman Catholic - 45%; United Church - 12%; Anglican - 8%; other -
35%.
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; The World Factbook; World Population
Prospects]
EDUCATION:
Illiteracy: 3% (1994). In 1995, there were 12,700 primary schools with
2,413,126 students and 2,469,552 secondary school students. In 1996/97,
961,155 students were enrolled at universities and other institutions of
higher learning.
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; UNESCO Statistical Yearbook; The World
Factbook]
ECONOMIC-DATA:
Gross National Product
$589,348,600,000 (1997)
GNP per Capita
$19,878 (1997)
Gross Domestic Product
$555,110,700,000 (1997)
GDP per Capita
$18,442 (1997)
GDP as % by Sector
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing - 2.8%; mining - 4.2%;
manufacturing - 17.9%; utilities - 3.2%; construction - 12.3%; commerce -
14.4%; transportation and communication - 7.7%; other - 37.5% (1993).
Economic Aid Extended
$2,373,000,000 (1993)
External Public Debt
$426,531,700,000; service payments: (not available) (1991).
International Liquidity
Reserves (minus gold): $17,823,000,000 (1997).
Gold reserves: 3,090,000 fine troy ounces (1997).
Consumer Price Change
1997: 1.6%
1996: 2.6%
1995: 2.2%
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; External Debt Statistics; Geographical
Distribution of Financial Flows to Aid Recipients; Government Finance
Statistics Yearbook; International Financial Statistics; United Nations
Monthly Bulletin of Statistics; World Military and Social Expenditures]
ENERGY AND NATURAL RESOURCES:
Electric Power Generation
547,900,000,000 kWh. (1995); kWh. per capita consumption: 16,100
(1995).
Generating Capacity
113,650,000 kW. (1995)
Nuclear Power Plants and Output
16 power plants; total output: 11,994 MWe. (1998).
Crude Oil Production
90,936,000 metric tons; 666,560,900 barrels (1996).
Natural Gas Production
7,505,600 terajoules; 674,756,000 cubic feet (1996).
Natural Resources
Nickel, coal, crude oil, zinc, copper, natural gas, gold, silver,
lead, potash, molybdenum, fish, timber.
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; Information Digest; United Nations
Monthly Bulletin of Statistics; The World Factbook]
INDUSTRY AND LABOR:
Agricultural Products
Wheat, hay, barley, dairy products, tobacco, maize, cattle, pigs,
oilseed, fish.
Industrial Products
Fur products, fish, transportation equipment, foodstuffs, paper
and paper products, wood, metals, minerals, petroleum, natural gas,
chemicals, fuels.
Labor Profile
Agriculture, forestry, and fishing - 4.1%; manufacturing - 14.8%;
transportation and communication - 7.1%; construction - 5.6%; commerce -
16.6%; community and social services - 36.2%; other - 15.6% (1996).
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; The World Almanac and Book of Facts; The
World Factbook]
TRANSPORTATION:
Roads
Total miles: 634,400 (1995); paved miles: 222,700 (1995).
Vehicles
Registrations: 16,963,000 (1995). Passenger cars: 13,182,000;
persons per car: 2 (1995). Trucks and buses: 3,484,000 (1995).
Motorcycles: 297,000 (1995).
Railroads
Total track-miles: 43,607 (1995). Passenger-miles traveled:
851,939,400; freight ton-miles carried: 166,070,715,000 (1992).
Ports
Total: 16. Major: 7 (Vancouver, Montreal, Quebec, St. John's
[Newfoundland], Toronto, Halifax, and St. John [New Brunswick]).
Cargo loaded (short tons): 194,740,000; unloaded (short tons): 91,807,000
(1995).
Merchant Fleet
18 freighters; 16 bulk carriers; 21 tankers; 775,400 dwt. tons
(1996 estimate).
Civil Aviation
Usable airfields: 1,139 (1996 estimate). Paved runways 8,000 feet
and over: 32 (1996 estimate). Commercial aircraft over 20,000 lbs takeoff
weight: 310 turbojets; 187 turboprops; and 140 piston-driven (1992).
Scheduled airline traffic: passenger-miles 38,439,804,000 (1997),
international 25,435,144,800 (1997); short ton-miles 1,408,834,000 (1997),
international 1,143,796,600 (1997).
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; The World Almanac and Book of Facts; The
World Factbook]
COMMUNICATIONS:
Radio
Stations: 929 (1994). Receivers: 30,950,000; per 1,000 pop.: 1,053
(1995).
Television
Stations: 53 (1994). Sets in use: 21,000,000; per 1,000 pop.: 714
(1995 estimate).
Newspapers
Major dailies: 105 (1996). Combined circulation: 5,200,000; per
1,000 pop.: 175 (1996).
Telephones
Sets in use: 18,000,000; per 1,000 pop.: 611 (1994).
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; Political Handbook of the World; UNESCO
Statistical Yearbook; The World Factbook]
GOVERNMENT:
Government
Because it recognizes the British sovereign as head of state,
Canada is a monarchy, although in practice the Canadian Constitution and
Canada's Parliament limit the monarch's power. Canada is a confederation
with a parliamentary democratic system of government at both the federal
and provincial levels. The member provinces exercise a wide range of
powers independent of the federal government.
Constitution
The "living" Constitution of Canada, like that of most
of the older constitutional democracies, cannot be found in a single
document. It consists of a series of written documents, judicial
pronouncements, unwritten customs and usages, and other sources. Of the
written documents, by far the most important are the British North America
Act (later renamed the Constitution Act), passed by the British Parliament
in 1867, its amendments, the Constitution Act of 1982, and the Canadian
Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Canadian statutes also form an important
"written" source of the Constitution (for example, the laws
establishing the Supreme Court of Canada and the original Canadian
"Bill of Rights"). Judicial interpretation of these statutes has
had a profound effect on constitutional practice, notably on the division
of powers between the federal government and the provinces. Moreover, the
whole Canadian political system is strongly influenced by customs and
usages that are not specifically embodied in legislation or judicial
decisions. The federal Cabinet will resign when it loses the confidence of
a majority in the legislature. The governor general will exercise the
office's immense powers only with the advice of the Cabinet. These are
simply customary rules, taken for granted. Many of them have their origin
in the British parliamentary tradition. Other usages grew up in Canadian
practice for example, the consultation of the federal prime minister with
provincial premiers on important federal issues.
Since the passage of the British North America Act in 1867, two trends
have marked the evolution of the Constitution: Canada has assumed
ever-greater autonomy in conducting internal and external affairs, and the
provinces have assumed ever greater powers in dealing with the federal
government. These two trends culminated in the Constitution Act of Apr 17,
1982, by which legal control of the Constitution passed from the British
Parliament to Canada itself.
Executive
The British monarch is the titular head of state in Canada, and
under the British North America Act (renamed the Constitution Act) is
vested with a vast array of executive, legislative, and judicial powers.
Royal assent is necessary for all bills to become law. The monarch
appoints judges and the officials of the executive branch, and may
dissolve the House of Commons and call for new elections. In practice,
however, the monarch never exercises these or other powers except
according to the advice of the leaders of the elected legislature. This is
the central feature of constitutional monarchy in the British and Canadian
tradition. The monarch appoints (on the advice of the Cabinet) a governor
general who is authorized to exercise most of the Crown's powers in
Canada. It is an established convention that the governor general will be
a Canadian citizen and that the office will alternate among bilingual
Canadians from the English and French communities. The governor general
appoints (on the advice of the federal Cabinet) a lieutenant governor for
each province to represent the sovereign there.
The Cabinet, or Ministry, is the key institution of the Canadian political
system and the vital link between the legislative and executive branches.
Its members are leaders of the House of Commons and are the top officials
in the executive branch. The Cabinet provides leadership in the
legislature by identifying the major problems that Canada faces and
formulating a legislative program to deal with them. The Cabinet is
formally a committee of the Privy Council, of which all Cabinet ministers
must be members, and through the Privy Council the Cabinet determines how
the monarch's representatives exercise the vast array of executive powers
constitutionally vested in the Crown. The Cabinet is in a position to
coordinate legislative and executive programs because of its membership in
both branches of government.
The most important Cabinet official is the prime minister (head of
government), who is designated by the governor general from among the
members of the House of Commons. The prime minister usually is the leader
of the majority party or leading party coalition in the Commons. When
there is no majority, the leader of one of the main parties may be named,
if it is expected that that person can carry a legislative program through
Parliament. The prime minister advises the governor general on the
appointment of the other top officials in the government, who will hold
Cabinet posts. Major government policies are the result of collective
decisions of the Cabinet as a whole, but the Cabinet has increasingly
become the prime minister's instrument.
Legislature
The legislative powers of the federal government are vested in the
Parliament for Canada, which consists of the monarch, the Senate, and the
House of Commons. The role of the monarch and the governor general in the
legislative process is now a formality, and "Parliament" is
generally understood to refer to the two chambers or even to the House of
Commons alone. The 104 members of the Senate are apportioned unequally
among the 10 provinces and two territories. Quebec and Ontario have the
largest delegations, with 24 senators each. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick,
the other original members of the federation, have 10 senators each. The
other provinces have six each, except Prince Edward Island, which has only
four senators. Direct popular representation in the federal legislature is
provided by the 301-member House of Commons.
Judiciary
Canada has a unified judicial system, with the same courts
interpreting and enforcing both provincial and federal law. The main court
system consists of county courts, provincial superior courts, and the
higher federal courts, with all judges appointed by the central
authorities. In addition, there are minor courts, appointed and supported
by provincial authorities (e.g., municipal police courts, probate courts,
juvenile courts), but if matters of great importance are raised in these
courts, the case is removed to the ordinary court system. Most courts are
created by the provinces, but the federal government is empowered to
create courts. The governor general appoints (with the advice of the
Cabinet) all the judges in the main court system. They serve during good
behavior, but most are required to retire at age 75. Judges in the
provincial supreme courts and the federal-level courts may be removed by
the governor general, but only after a "joint address" by both
houses of Parliament, a procedure of almost insurmountable difficulty.
Judges of the county courts may be removed by the governor general after
formal investigation by a committee of the Privy Council. The Supreme
Court of Canada (founded in 1875 by Canadian statute) is the highest court
in the land. It has both original and appellate jurisdiction in all civil
and criminal cases, specializing in cases that involve the government,
appeals of the decisions of administrative agencies, and cases regarding
taxation. There is also a Courts Martial Appeal Court supervising the
military court system and a federal Court of Appeal that can hear appeals
from the trials division and from the decisions of administrative bodies.
Local Government
Canada comprises 10 provinces and three territories. The provinces
are Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova
Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. The
territories are the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut. Each
province has its own constitution, but the structure and operation of
government, in their broad outlines, are similar to those of the federal
government. In each there is a chief provincial officer who exercises vast
titular powers, but only with the advice of the political leaders of the
elected legislature (who form a provincial Cabinet, headed by a premier).
Government in the territories is less representative, with appointed
officials of the federal government playing the leading role. Each
province has a popularly elected unicameral legislative assembly that
varies in size from province to province. With rare exceptions,
representatives are elected from single-member districts to serve terms of
up to five years. As a rule, general elections occur about every four
years. The establishment and supervision of local governments are the
responsibility of the provincial governments. Although there are
variations from province to province, most local governments enjoy
considerable independent authority over local affairs. Normally, the local
government consists of an elected council, which in turn appoints an
executive committee (usually from its own membership) to exercise
day-to-day supervision. The Yukon Territory and the Northwest Territories
(Mackenzie, Keewatin, and Franklin Districts) are under the jurisdiction
of the federal government. The chief government official in the Northwest
Territories is the territorial commissioner, appointed by the central
authorities. There is also an elected council with 24 members serving
four-year terms. The commissioner and the council together exercise
limited legislative power in local matters (licenses, local taxes, etc.).
The Yukon Territory has more local autonomy, with a 17-member Legislative
Assembly elected along party lines. In 1991 government representatives
reached agreement with members of the Inuit to create a new territory with
a high degree of self-government. The plan was approved by referendum the
following year. The territory, called Nunavut, came into being on Apr 1,
1999. Nunavut receives a share of the proceeds from mining and oil
extraction on territory that primarily remains federally owned.
International Affiliations
United Nations, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, World
Trade Organization, Commonwealth of Nations, North Atlantic Treaty
Organization, Organization of American States.
Election Qualifications
Canadian citizens 18 years of age and older are eligible to vote.
Political Parties
On the national level, Canada traditionally has followed a
two-party political pattern, with power alternating between the two
dominant political parties: the Liberal Party and the Progressive
Conservative Party. Between them the two major parties have been able to
command around 60% of the vote in national elections, despite strong
challenges by third parties. The Progressive Conservatives controlled the
federal government from September 1984 October 1993, when the party was
decimated in general elections because of voter discontent over
unemployment and a massive budget deficit. Third parties tend to have
regional rather than national followings, and are more likely to be
successful at the provincial rather than federal level.
The Liberal Party, which is led by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, favors an
expanded social welfare program, cooperation between federal and
provincial governments, and a foreign policy cooperative with, but
relatively independent of, the United States and other advanced industrial
nations.
Formerly led by Lucien Bouchard, the Bloc Quebecois (Quebec Bloc) favors
sovereignty for Quebec within a framework of economic cooperation with
Canada. It was formed after the Meech Lake Accord on Quebecan sovereignty
collapsed in 1990.
The New Democratic Party is a democratic socialist party that favors a
planned economy, a wider variety of social welfare programs, and an
internationalist foreign policy.
The Reform Party is a right-wing grouping led by Preston Manning. Founded
in 1987, the party opposes bilingualism and immigration and advocates
increased power for the federal government. Its primary support is drawn
from Alberta and British Columbia.
Founded in 1854, the Progressive Conservative Party stresses British and
Commonwealth links and a more traditionally nationalistic outlook, but
otherwise differs only in degree from the Liberals. The party advocates
free enterprise and individualism.
[Sources: Chiefs of State and Cabinet Members of Foreign Governments;
Europa World Year Book; Facts on File World News Digest; Keesing's Record
of World Events; Political Handbook of the World; The World Factbook]
TRADE:
Imports
Motor vehicles and parts, machinery, petroleum, chemicals,
telecommunication equipment, computers, fruits, vegetables.
Total Imports
$195,463,000,000 (1997); $170,038,000,000 (1996);
$163,288,000,000(1995).
Exports
Motor vehicles and parts, machinery, petroleum, paper and paper
products, beverages, wheat, natural gas, precious metals, timber,
foodstuffs, coal.
Total Exports
$213,020,000,000 (1997); $200,146,000,000 (1996); $190,187,000,000
(1995).
Trading Partners
(Imports) United States - 67.5%; Japan - 4.6%; Mexico - 2.5%;
United Kingdom - 2.4%; China - 2.3% (1997).
(Exports) United States - 82.3%; Japan - 3.4%; United Kingdom - 1.3%;
Korea - 1.0; Germany - 1.0% (1997).
Balance of Payments
1997: -$9.261,000,000
1996: +$3,323,000,000
1995: -$4,586,000,000
[Sources: Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook; Europa World Year Book;
International Financial Statistics; The World Factbook]
STANDARDS:
Time
Same as U.S. Eastern Standard (Ottawa)
5 hours earlier than Greenwich Mean (Note: Canada covers 5 time zones.)
Currency
100 cents = 1 Canadian dollar
Weights and Measures
The metric system is in use.
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; The World Factbook]
TRAVEL AND TOURISM:
Climate
Canada has a climate of extremes, with cold winters (especially
inland) and hot summers. Rainfall is light to moderate, and heavy snows
occur in the winter, when temperatures are often well below freezing.
Holidays
[1999] Jan 1 (New Year), Apr 2 (Good Friday), Apr 5 (Easter
Monday), May 24 (Victoria Day), Jul 1 (Canada Day), Sep 6 (Labor Day), Oct
11 (Thanksgiving), Nov 11 (Remembrance Day), Dec 25 ( Christmas), Dec 26
(Boxing Day).
Tourists
Total: 17,286,000 (1996). Revenue: $7,058,934,000 (1996).
Region of origin: Americas - 78%; Europe - 13%; Asia - 8% (1995).
Miscellaneous
Tourists are attracted to Canada's beautiful scenery and cultural and
ethnic diversity, as well as such special summertime events as the Calgary
Stampede and the Shakespearean Festival in Stratford, Ontario.
Health Precautions
None
Embassies
Canadian Embassy in the United States
501 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001
Tel: (202) 682-1740
Fax: (202) 682-7726
Telex: 89664
U.S. Embassy in Canada
100 Wellington Street
P.O. Box 866, Station B
Ottawa, ON K1P 5T1
Tel: (613) 238-4470
Fax: (613) 238-8750
[Sources: Europa World Year Book; International Travel and Health;
Yearbook of Labor Statistics]
Copyright 1999 ABC-CLIO, Inc.
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