Location and Geography

Canada

• Identification

The name Canada comes from the St. Lawrence Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village" or "settlement".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.Cartier later used the word Canada to refer not only to that particular village, but the entire area subject to Donnacona (the chief at Stadacona);by 1545, European books and maps had begun referring to this region as Canada.]

In the 17th and early 18th centuries, "Canada" referred to the part of New France that lay along the St. Lawrence River. To punish the resistance of the Thirteen Colonies, Canada's territory was vastly expanded by the British in the 1774 Quebec Act to include unsettled territory in the Great Lakes region down to the Ohio river.Part of this arbitrarily added territory was turned over to the new United States in 1783, but all land north of the Great Lakes (making up much of modern Ontario) was retained by British Canada. In 1791 the British designated this region Upper Canada and the traditional French-speaking portion Lower Canada, they were reunified as the Province of Canada in 1841.

• Location and Geography.

Canada is located in the northern portion of the continent of North America, extending, in general, from the 49th parallel northward to the islands of the Arctic Ocean. Its eastern and western boundaries are the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans respectively. Its land area totals 3,851,809 square miles (9,976,185 square kilometers). The easternmost portion of the country is a riverine and maritime environment, consisting of the provinces of Newfoundland, Labrador, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick. The central portion of the country, in its southern areas, is primarily boreal forest (the provinces of Ontario and Quebec). This forest region extends across the entire country from the eastern slopes of the Rocky Mountains through to the Atlantic coast, and is dominated by coniferous trees. A section of the country westward from the Great Lakes basin along the southern extent of this forest region is a prairie made up mostly of flat grasslands (in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta). The westernmost portion of the country is dominated by the Rocky Mountains, with a narrow riverine environment, made up of northern rain forests, west of the mountains (in the province of British Columbia). Between the southern Carolinian forest of the central regions of the country lies a region in Ontario and Quebec characterized by numerous lakes and expanses of exposed rock known as the Canadian Shield, an area left exposed after the most recent glacial retreat. Across the northernmost portion of the country from east to west lies a region dominated by tundra and finally at its most northern reach, an arctic eco-zone (in northern Ontario and Quebec and in the territories of Nunavut, Northwest Territories, and the Yukon).

These variations have had important social and cultural effects. The largest segment of the population resides in the central Carolinian region, which has the richest and most varied agricultural land and, because the Great Lakes waterway system dominates the central portion of the country, is also where most of the major manufacturing is located. The savanna or prairie region is more sparsely populated, with several large urban centers in a network across the region, which is dominated by grain farming, cattle and other livestock production, and more recently, oil and natural gas extraction. The two coastal regions, which have some agricultural production, are best characterized by the dominance of port cities through which import and export goods move. In the northern section of the center of the country, also sparsely populated, resource extraction of minerals and lumber, has predominated. The effect of this concentration of the population, employment, and productive power in the central region of the country has been the concentration of political power in this region, as well as the development over time of intense regional rivalries and disparities in quality of life. Equally important, as employment in the center came to dominate gross national production, immigration has tended to flow into the center. This has created a diverse cultural mix in the central region of the country, while the prairie and the eastern maritime region have stabilized ethnically and culturally. The consequence of these diverse geographies has been the development of a rhetoric of regional cultures: Prairie, Maritime, Central, and because of its special isolation, West Coast.

A final differentiation is between urban and rural. Local cultural identity is often marked by expressions of contrasting values in which rural residents characterize themselves as harder working, more honest, and more deeply committed to community cooperation, in contrast to urban dwellers who are characterized by rural residents as greedy, dishonest, arrogant, and self-interested. Urban dwellers express their own identities as more modern and forward looking, more sophisticated, and more liberal in their overall social values, and perceive rural residents as conservative, overdependent on outmoded traditions, unsophisticated, and simple minded. This distinction is most explicit in Quebec, but also plays a key role in political, social, and cultural contentions in Ontario.

        

       3. National Identity.

Leading up to and following the emergence of Canada as an independent political state in 1867, English Canada and English identity dominated the political and cultural landscape. The remaining French presence, in Quebec and throughout the eastern part of the country, while a strong cultural entity in itself, exercised only limited influence and effect at the national level. English symbols, the English language, and the values of loyalty to the English crown prevailed throughout the nation as the core underpinnings of national identity.

 

      4. Religion 

Religious affiliation is more prevalent than religious observance, though this varies by ethnic and religious group. Most Canadians claim some religious affiliation, most often Christian, although between the 1981 and 1991 census periods, the number of people claiming no religious affiliation has almost doubled from about 1.7 million to a little under 3.4 million. Nevertheless, there are significant practitioners of all the major world religions in Canada. Officially, Canada is a Christian nation, with respect for the Christian God enshrined in statute. Swearing on the Bible, for example, is part of most legal proceedings, though nonsecular alternatives are also practiced. Prayers open many official functions.

Personal religious observance has declined in the last several decades, a phenomenon similar to that found in most industrialized countries. This appears to be mostly a Christian phenomenon. Often new Canadians will make special efforts to maintain their religious observances as part of the process of retaining their original ethnic or cultural identity. Some religious groups have grown in membership, such as those associated with evangelical Christianity, but overall the trend in Canada has been toward increasing secularism in public and in private lives. An exception is the increase in the observance of traditional religious practices among First Nations peoples in recent decades, which should be seen both as a spiritual revitalization and as part of the historic process of reasserting their ethnic and political identities in Canada.

 

      5. Food in Daily Life.

The agricultural and ethnic richness of Canada has led to two distinctive characteristics of everyday food consumption. The first is its scale. Canadians are "big eaters," with meat portions in particular dominating the Canadian meal. There are generally three regular meals in a given day. Breakfast, often large and important in rural areas, but less so in urban areas, is most often not eaten in a group. Lunch, at midday, is most often a snack in urban areas, but remains a substantial meal in rural centers. Dinner, the final formal meal of the day, is also the meal most likely to be eaten by a residential group as a whole, and it is the largest and the most socially important meal of the day. It is the meal most often used as a social event or to which invitations to nonfamily members are extended, in contrast with lunch which is often, for adults, shared with coworkers. Meat plays a key role in all three of the formal meals, but with increasing importance at breakfast and dinner. Dinner should have some special, and most often, large, meat portion as its key component. Each of these three meals can be, and often are, very substantial. There are general rules concerning appropriate foods for each meal, rules that can be quite complex. For example, pork can figure in each meal, but only particular kinds of pork would be considered appropriate. Pork at breakfast may appear as bacon, or sausage, in small portions. Both of these products are made with the least valuable portion of the pig. At lunch, pork may appear in a sandwich in the form of processed meats, also made from the least valuable portion of the pig. For dinner, pork appears in large and more highly valued forms, such as roasts or hams, which require often elaborate preparation and which are presented to diners in a way that highlights their value and size.

The other main feature of Canadian food is diversity. The complex ethnic landscape of Canada and the tendency of ethnic groups to retain a dual cultural orientation have meant that Canadian cuisine is quite diverse in its content, with many ethnic dishes seen as somehow quintessentially Canadian as well. Whether pizza or chow mein, cabbage rolls or plum pudding, Canadian cuisine is best characterized as eclectic rather than consistent in content. There are a small number of food items that are considered distinctively Canadian, such as maple syrup, but overall the Canadian diet is drawn from a panoply of ethnic sources.

 

     6. Marriage.

Except for some ethnic sectors, marriages are freely chosen by the two partners. Marriage is restricted to the union of a man and a woman by statute, although this is currently under review by the country's courts. Official marriages, officiated by either religious authorities or by municipal clerks or judges, must be dissolved by the legal procedure of divorce.

A second form of marriage, the de facto or common-law union, gives the couple almost all the same privileges and obligations as official marriage. Common-law union is a matter of informal declaration by the partners. Common-law conjugal recognition has recently been extended to include same-sex partners. The dissolution of common-law unions or same-sex partnerships requires no special legal proceedings, although resolution of shared property rights and support responsibilities arising from the union often require legal intervention and enforcement.

In both cases, the marriage union involves mutuality of financial support, some degree of joint ownership of property, and joint responsibility for the care and support of children. Under Canadian law, all marriages must be monogamous. The de facto or common-law union is considered to be annulled should either partner take on a new conjugal partnership.

Marriages are most often celebrated privately between the two families involved. There is, however, an interesting rural/urban distinction. Engagement or marriage celebrations in smaller communities are often community events at which anyone may attend, usually for a small fee.

 

     8. Medicine and Health Care

Basic health care is provided in all places by a taxfunded system of hospitals and practitioners. Some specialist services require either complete or partial payment by the patient. The dominant medical model is Western biomedicine, though, as is the case in all ethnically diverse societies, other traditions do flourish serving local community needs, and increasingly, also serving the needs or health interests of the larger community. These "alternative" health providers may be spiritual practitioners or practitioners from other healing traditions such as acupuncture or Asian Ayurvedic systems. There is also a system of non-biomedical Western practitioners, such as chiropractors and homeopaths, who have their own training institutions and professional organizations. Except in restricted cases, these practitioners do not participate in the publicly funded health service system.

Canada has a system of public health surveillance which monitors infectious diseases, the safety of food and drinking water, and other health risks and problems.

 

     9. Art

Support for the Arts. Most artists in Canada are self supporting and there are very few artists whose entire income is drawn from their artistic efforts. Several tax-funded programs, at all levels of government, do exist to provide financial assistance to artists of all types. The Governor General's Awards are presented each year to artists, writers, musicians, and other performers. There is a federal National Art Gallery, and most provinces also have one major tax-funded art gallery, usually in the provincial capital.

Literature. Canada does not have a single national literary tradition, participating instead in the wider English world of literature. While there are many internationally known writers from Canada, in general there is no single canon of Canadian literature. One exception is the province of Quebec, which has a longstanding "national" literature known for its social criticism and experimentation.

In recent decades, the number of published Canadian authors has increased dramatically, and Canadians as a community buy and read more books than in most other industrialized countries. Nevertheless, there is no special preference given to Canadian literature.

Graphic Arts. Canada has a large cohort of artists working in all media. Most small cities, and all larger ones, have many art galleries, including the tax-funded galleries. Several artist cooperatives exist in cities across the country, providing artistic and financial support for members. There is no single model for artistic presentation operating across the country.

 

Performance Arts. Theater ranges from professional theaters, mostly in large cities, which offer mainstream entertainment such as musical theater, to small community theater companies which can be found throughout the country. Several specialist companies or events, such as the Stratford Shakespeare Festival and the Shaw Festival, both in Ontario, take place each year and are international draws.

The city of Toronto has the distinction of hosting more theater openings per year than any other city in the English-speaking world. Its theaters include large commercial venues offering mostly musical theater, several large venues for other kinds of musical performance, and a diverse range of theaters and theater companies offering both new works original to the company and works from almost every linguistic and cultural tradition.

For the most part, attendance follows class lines but with important exceptions. Smaller theaters and theater companies, and in particular those offering new, experimental or political theater, encourage and attract audiences from all classes. Indeed, that is part of their role and their goal. Many of these theater companies see themselves as activists promoting social change. This makes these theaters both performance spaces and informal NGOs, a dual role that, while not unique to Canada, is an important aspect of its political culture.

 

     10. The State of the Physical and Social Sciences

Canada has a network of publicly funded educational and research institutions; in particular, the system of universities and colleges. These institutions train successive generations of researchers and practitioners. The physical sciences dominate these institutions, attracting most of the government sponsored funding of university research. Research in the physical sciences, and increasingly in the social sciences as well, is most often done in collaboration with industry and business interests, who also provide substantial funding for university based research. The majority of students attending these institutions receive training in the physical sciences.

The social sciences and humanities, however, do not receive the same collaborative support. Canadian

A church and townhouses line a street, with Quebec City, Quebec, behind them.

postsecondary education is based on a "liberal arts" model which recognizes the importance of breadth of scholarship in all fields of human endeavor as a key to a successful education and to success as a citizen. Both economic constraints in recent decades, as well as ideological shifts in how education is defined and valued, has led, however, to the erosion of financial support for both the social sciences and the humanities. While Canada maintains a major funding body for research in the social science and humanities, its resources have declined in recent years, which has been the object of considerable political dispute.

Although the official commitment to the humanities and social sciences, among politicians, educators, and most of the public, remains substantial, the trend has been toward an increasingly technocratic model of higher education. While education has often celebrated, championed, and enhanced the ethnic and cultural diversity of Canada, economic and political changes are shifting emphasis away from diversity in the direction of a kind of practical homogenization in which practical application and financial benefit takes precedence over the breadth and depth of knowledge and understanding. This puts the social sciences and humanities in a precarious position, as the political culture of Canada changes.