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{{Use Canadian English|date=February 2024}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=January 2025}}
{{If mobile |[[File:Benjamin West 005.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|The [[Battle of the Plains of Abraham]] was a pivotal battle during the [[French and Indian War]] over the fate of [[New France]], influencing the later creation of [[Canada]]. The painting shows the death of General [[James Wolfe]] in 1759.]]|{{History of Canada sidebar}}}}
The '''history of Canada''' covers the period from the arrival of the [[Paleo-Indians]] to [[North America]] thousands of years ago to the present day. The lands encompassing present-day [[Canada]] have been inhabited for millennia by [[Indigenous peoples in Canada|Indigenous peoples]], with distinct trade networks, spiritual beliefs, and styles of social organization. Some of these older civilizations had long faded by the time of the first [[European colonization of the Americas|European arrivals]] and have been discovered through [[List of archaeological periods (North America)|archeological]] investigations.

From the late 15th century, [[French colonization of the Americas|French]] and [[British colonization of the Americas|British]] expeditions explored, colonized, and fought over various places within North America in what constitutes present-day Canada. The colony of [[New France]] was claimed in 1534 by [[Jacques Cartier]], with permanent settlements beginning in 1608. [[Kingdom of France|France]] ceded nearly all its North American possessions to [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]] in 1763 at the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)|Treaty of Paris]] after the [[Seven Years' War]]. The now British [[Province of Quebec (1763–1791)|Province of Quebec]] was divided into [[The Canadas|Upper and Lower Canada]] in 1791. The two provinces were united as the [[Province of Canada]] by the [[Act of Union 1840]], which came into force in 1841. In 1867, the Province of Canada was joined with two other British colonies of [[New Brunswick]] and [[Nova Scotia]] through [[Canadian Confederation|Confederation]], forming a self-governing entity. "Canada" was adopted as the legal name of the new country and the word "[[Dominion]]" was conferred as the country's title. Over the next eighty-two years, Canada [[Territorial evolution of Canada|expanded by incorporating other parts]] of [[British North America]], finishing with [[Newfoundland and Labrador]] in 1949.

Although [[responsible government]] had existed in British North America since 1848, Britain continued to set its foreign and defence policies until the end of [[World War I]]. The [[Balfour Declaration of 1926]], the [[1930 Imperial Conference]] and the passing of the [[Statute of Westminster 1931|Statute of Westminster]] in 1931 recognized that Canada had become co-equal with the United Kingdom. The Patriation of the Constitution in 1982 marked the removal of legal dependence on the British parliament. Canada currently consists of [[Provinces and territories of Canada|ten provinces and three territories]] and is a [[parliamentary system|parliamentary democracy]] and a [[constitutional monarchy]].

Over centuries, elements of Indigenous, French, British and more recent [[History of immigration to Canada|immigrant]] customs have combined to form a [[Culture of Canada|Canadian culture]] that has also been strongly influenced by its linguistic, geographic and economic neighbour, the [[History of the United States|United States]]. Since the conclusion of the [[World War II|Second World War]], Canada's strong support for [[multilateralism]] and [[Internationalism (politics)|internationalism]] has been closely related to [[Canadian peacekeeping|its peacekeeping efforts]].

==Indigenous peoples==
{{See also|Timeline of Canadian history|List of years in Canada}}

===Indigenous societies ===
{{Main|Indigenous peoples in Canada}}
{{further|Technological and industrial history of Canada#Stone Age: Fire (14,000 BC – AD 1600)}}
[[File:Glacial lakes.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|The [[Great Lakes]] are estimated to have been formed at the end of the [[last glacial period]] (about 10,000 years ago), when the [[Laurentide ice sheet]] receded.]]
[[List of archaeological periods (North America)|Archeological]] and [[Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas|Indigenous genetic]] evidence indicates that North and South America were the last continents into which [[early human migrations|humans migrated]].<ref name="Ph.D.2011">{{cite encyclopedia |first1=David M. |last1=Lawrence |title=Beringia and the Peopling of the New World |editor-first=Alfred J. |editor-last=Andrea Ph.D. |encyclopedia=World History Encyclopedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LEqaIGsT8SsC&pg=PA99 |year=2011 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-930-6 |page=99}}</ref> During the [[Wisconsin glaciation]], which began 100,000–75,000 years ago and ended about 11,000 years ago, falling sea levels allowed people to move gradually across the Bering land bridge ([[Beringia]]), from [[Siberia]] into northwest [[North America]].<ref name=Goebel>{{cite journal |title=The Late Pleistocene Dispersal of Modern Humans in the Americas |first1=Ted |last1=Goebel |first2=Michael R. |last2=Waters |first3=Dennis H. |last3=O'Rourke |url=http://www.centerfirstamericans.com/cfsa-publications/Science2008.pdf  |year=2008 |doi=10.1126/science.1153569 |access-date=February 5, 2010 |pmid=18339930 |volume=319 |issue=5869 |journal=Science |pages=1497–502 |bibcode=2008Sci...319.1497G|citeseerx=10.1.1.398.9315 |s2cid=36149744 }}</ref> At that point, they were blocked by the [[Laurentide ice sheet]], then covering most of Canada, confining them to Alaska and the Yukon for thousands of years.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Graeme |last1=Wynn |title=Canada And Arctic North America: An Environmental History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bxGFaFvo2oMC&pg=PA20 |year=2007 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-437-0 |page=20}}<br />{{cite book|first1=Laurel |last1=Sefton MacDowell|title=An Environmental History of Canada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bM9TCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA14|year=2012|publisher=UBC Press|isbn=978-0-7748-2104-9|page=14}}<br />{{cite journal |first1=Guy |last1=Gugliotta |title=When Did Humans Come to the Americas? |url=http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-did-humans-come-to-the-americas-4209273/?all |journal=Smithsonian Magazine |date=February 2013 |access-date=June 25, 2015 }}</ref> The exact dates and routes of the [[peopling of the Americas]] are the subject of an ongoing debate.<ref name="Madsen2004">{{cite book |first1=Daryl W. |last1=Fedje |display-authors=etal |chapter=Late Wisconsin Environments and Archaeological Visibility on the Northern Northwest Coast |editor-first=David B.  |editor-last=Madsen |title=Entering America: Northeast Asia and Beringia Before the Last Glacial Maximum |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Dz2EVCRfBzAC&pg=PA125 |year=2004 |publisher=University of Utah Press |isbn=978-0-87480-786-8 |page=125}}</ref> 

About 16,000 years ago, the [[Last Glacial Maximum|glacial melt]] allowed people to move by land south and east out of Beringia, and into Canada.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first1=E. James |last1=Dixon |title=Archaeology and the First Americans |editor-first1=Bruce E. |editor-last1=Johansen |editor-first2=Barry M. |editor-last2=Pritzker |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of American Indian History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sGKL6E9_J6IC&pg=PA83 |year=2007 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-818-7 |page=83 |editor-link1=Bruce E. Johansen}}</ref> The [[Haida Gwaii]] islands, [[Old Crow Flats]], and the [[Bluefish Caves]] contain some of the earliest [[Paleo-Indians|Paleo-Indian]] archeological sites in Canada.<ref name="DirectorPresident1997">{{cite book |first1=Norman |last1=Herz |first2=Ervan G. |last2=Garrison |title=Geological Methods for Archaeology |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=YSPkmV_mRvkC&pg=PA125 |year=1998 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-802511-5 |page=125}}</ref><ref name="CarlsonBona1996">{{cite book |first1=Martin P.R. |last1=Mange |chapter=Comparative Analysis of Microblade Cores from Haida Gwaii |editor-first1=Roy L. |editor-last1=Carlson |editor-first2=Luke Robert |editor-last2=Dalla Bona |title=Early Human Occupation in British Columbia |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KT4A5dHuiSgC&pg=PA152 |year=1996 |publisher=University of British Columbia Press |isbn=978-0-7748-0535-3 |page=152}}</ref><ref name="E.Ames1998">{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Vaugh M. Jr |last1=Bryant |title=Pre-Clovis |editor-last1=Gibbon |editor-first1=Guy |display-editors=etal |encyclopedia=Archaeology of Prehistoric Native America: an Encyclopedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_0u2y_SVnmoC&pg=PA682 |year=1998 |publisher=Garland |isbn=978-0-8153-0725-9 |page=682}}</ref> Ice Age [[hunter-gatherer]]s of this period left [[lithic flake]] fluted stone tools and the remains of large butchered mammals.

The North American climate stabilized around 8000 BCE (10,000 years ago). Climatic conditions were similar to modern patterns; however, the receding glacial ice sheets still covered large portions of the land, creating lakes of meltwater.<ref name="icaage">{{cite book |last1=Imbrie |first1=John |first2=Katherina Palmer |last2=Imbrie |title=Ice Ages: Solving the Mystery |year=1979 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-44075-3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GIxRp9fRDGwC}}</ref> Most population groups during the [[Archaic period in the Americas|Archaic period]]s were still highly mobile hunter-gatherers.<ref name=Fiedel/> However, individual groups started to focus on resources available to them locally; thus with the passage of time, there is a pattern of increasing regional generalization (i.e.: [[Paleo-Arctic tradition|Paleo-Arctic]], [[Plano cultures|Plano]] and [[Maritime Archaic]] traditions).<ref name=Fiedel>{{cite book |first1=Stuart J. |last1=Fiedel |title=Prehistory of the Americas |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Yrhp8H0_l6MC&pg=PR5 |year=1992 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-0-521-42544-5 |page=5}}</ref>

The [[Woodland period|Woodland cultural period]] dates from about 2000 BCE to 1000 CE and is applied to the [[Ontario]], Quebec, and [[Maritimes|Maritime regions]].<ref name=Eras>{{cite web|title=C. Prehistoric Periods (Eras of Adaptation) |publisher=The University of Calgary (The Applied History Research Group) |year=2000 |url=https://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/firstnations/periods.html |access-date=April 15, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100412205024/http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/firstnations/periods.html |archive-date=April 12, 2010 }}</ref> The introduction of pottery distinguishes the Woodland culture from the previous Archaic-stage inhabitants. The [[St. Lawrence Iroquoians|Laurentian-related people]] of Ontario manufactured the oldest pottery excavated to date in Canada.<ref name="prepre">{{cite book |last1=Fagan |first1=Brian M. |title=People of the Earth: An Introduction to World Prehistory |year=1992 |publisher=[[HarperCollins|Harper Collins]] |isbn=978-0-321-01457-3 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/peopleofearthint09edfaga }}
</ref>
{{multiple image
|image1=Laurel complex map HRoe 2010.jpg
|caption1=[[Laurel complex]] in present day [[northern Ontario]] and [[Manitoba]]
|alt1=
|image2=Pt Peninsula and Saugeen complexes map HRoe 2010.jpg
|caption2=Complexes in present day [[southern Ontario]] and southwestern [[Quebec]]
|alt2=
|footer=Local cultural expressions of the [[Hopewell tradition]] during the [[Woodland period#Middle Woodland|Middle Woodland period]]
|align=left
|total_width=330
}}
The [[Hopewell tradition]] is an Indigenous culture that flourished along American rivers from 300 BCE to 500 CE. At its greatest extent, the [[Hopewell Exchange System]] connected cultures and societies to the peoples on the Canadian shores of [[Lake Ontario]].<ref name="Lockard2010">{{cite book |first1=Craig A. |last1=Lockard |title=Societies, Networks, and Transitions: A Global History |volume=I: to 1500 |edition=second |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=u4VOYN0dmqMC&pg=PA221 |year=2010 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-1-4390-8535-6 |page=221}}</ref> Canadian expression of the Hopewellian peoples encompasses the [[Point Peninsula complex|Point Peninsula]], [[Saugeen complex|Saugeen]], and [[Laurel complex]]es.<ref name="Hamilton2010">{{cite book |first1=Michelle |last1=Hamilton |title=Collections and Objections: Aboriginal Material Culture in Southern Ontario |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v3Wa8KkpJBMC&pg=PA24 |year=2010 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-3754-5 |page=24}}</ref>

The [[Eastern Woodlands tribes|eastern woodland areas]] of what became Canada were home to the [[Algonquian peoples|Algonquian]] and [[Iroquois|Iroquoian]] peoples. The Algonquian language is believed to have originated in the western plateau of Idaho or the plains of Montana and moved with migrants eastward,<ref name="FrancisFrancis2009a">{{cite book |first1=R. Douglas |last1=Francis |first2=Richard |last2=Jones |first3=Donald B. |last3=Smith |title=Journeys: A History of Canada |edition=second |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GbbZRIOKclsC&pg=PA11 |year=2009 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-0-17-644244-6 |page=11}}</ref> eventually extending in various manifestations all the way from [[Hudson Bay]] to what is today [[Nova Scotia]] in the east and as far south as the [[Tidewater region of Virginia]].<ref name="Brandon2012">{{cite book |first1=William |last1=Brandon |title=The Rise and Fall of North American Indians: From Prehistory through Geronimo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VRsK40MuAY8C&pg=PA236 |year=2012 |publisher=Roberts Rinehart |isbn=978-1-57098-453-2 |page=236}}</ref>

Speakers of [[eastern Algonquian languages]] included the [[Mi'kmaq people|Mi'kmaq]] and [[Abenaki]] of the Maritime region of Canada and likely the extinct [[Beothuk]] of [[Newfoundland and Labrador|Newfoundland]].<ref name="Marshall1996">{{cite book |first1=Ingeborg |last1=Marshall |title=History and Ethnography of the Beothuk |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ckOav3Szu7oC&pg=PA437 |year=1996 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-6589-0 |page=437}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=Maliseet and Mi'kmaq Languages |url=http://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/aboriginal_affairs/wolastoqiyik/languages.html |publisher=Government of New Brunswick |website=Aboriginal Affairs |access-date=January 22, 2016|date=June 3, 2010 }}</ref> The [[Ojibwa]] and other [[Ojibwe language|Anishinaabe speakers]] of the [[central Algonquian languages]] retain an oral tradition of having moved to their lands around the western and central [[Great Lakes]] from the sea, likely the Atlantic coast.<ref name="JOHANSENPRITZKER2007">{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Barry M. |last1=Pritzker |title=Pre-Contact Indian History |editor-first1=Bruce E. |editor-last1=Johansen |editor-first2=Barry M. |editor-last2=Pritzker |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of American Indian History |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sGKL6E9_J6IC&pg=PA10 |year=2007 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-85109-818-7 |page=10}}</ref> According to oral tradition, the Ojibwe formed the [[Council of Three Fires]] in 796 CE with the [[Odawa people|Odawa]] and the [[Potawatomi]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Background 1: Ojibwa history |website=Anishinaabe Arcs |url=http://csdt.rpi.edu/na/arcs/background1.html |publisher=Department of Science and Technology Studies · The Center for Cultural Design |year=2003 |access-date=April 15, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110831033014/http://csdt.rpi.edu/na/arcs/background1.html |archive-date=August 31, 2011 |url-status=dead  }}</ref>

The Five Nations of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) were centred from at least 1000 CE in northern New York, but their influence extended into what is now southern Ontario and the Montreal area of modern Quebec. They spoke varieties of Iroquoian languages.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Peter G. |last1=Ramsden |date=August 28, 2015 |title=Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |edition=online |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/iroquois |access-date=January 16, 2016}}</ref> [[Iroquois#Formation of the League|The Iroquois Confederacy]], according to oral tradition, was formed in 1142 CE.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Johansen |first1=Bruce E. |year=1995 |title=Dating the Iroquois Confederacy |journal=Akwesasne Notes |series=New Series |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=62–63 |url=http://www.ratical.org/many_worlds/6Nations/DatingIC.html |access-date=October 1, 2014}}</ref><ref name="JohansenMann2000">{{cite book |editor-first1=Bruce Elliot |editor-last1=Johansen |editor-first2=Barbara Alice |editor-last2=Mann |title=Encyclopedia of the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois Confederacy) |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zibNDBchPkMC&pg=PR14 |year=2000 |publisher=Greenwood  |isbn=978-0-313-30880-2 |page=14}}</ref> In addition, there were other Iroquoian-speaking peoples in the area, including the [[St. Lawrence Iroquoian]]s, the Erie, and others.
{{multiple image|perrow=2|total_width=330|align=left| image2 = Algonquian langs.png|caption2=Pre-Columbian distribution of [[Algonquian languages]] in North America.| image1 = Na-Dene langs.png|caption1=Pre-Columbian distribution of [[Na-Dene languages]] in North America.
}}
On the [[Great Plains]], the [[Cree]] or ''Nēhilawē'' (who spoke a closely related Central Algonquian language, the [[plains Cree language]]) depended on the vast herds of bison to supply food and many of their other needs.<ref name="Rees2004">{{cite book |first1=John |last1=Opie |chapter=Ecology and Environment |editor-first=Amanda |editor-last=Rees |title=The Great Plains Region |volume=4 |series=The Greenwood Encyclopedia of American Regional Cultures |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v0MpNai3xdMC&pg=PA76 |year=2004 |publisher=Greenwood  |isbn=978-0-313-32733-9 |page=76}}</ref> To the northwest were the peoples of the [[Na-Dene languages]], which include the [[Athapaskan languages|Athapaskan-speaking peoples]] and the [[Tlingit people|Tlingit]], who lived on the islands of southern Alaska and northern [[British Columbia]]. The Na-Dene language group is believed to be linked to the [[Yeniseian languages]] of Siberia.<ref name=BENGTSON/> The [[Dene]] of the western Arctic may represent a distinct wave of migration from Asia to North America.<ref name="BENGTSON">{{cite journal |last1=Bengtson|first1=John D. |year=2008 |url=http://starling.rinet.ru/Texts/dene_gr.pdf |title=Materials for a Comparative Grammar of the Dene-Caucasian (Sino-Caucasian) Languages |journal=Aspects of Comparative Linguistics |volume=3 |pages=45–118 |access-date=April 11, 2010}}</ref>

The [[British Columbia Interior|Interior of British Columbia]] was home to the [[Salishan languages|Salishan language]] groups such as the [[Secwepemc|Shuswap (Secwepemc)]], [[Okanagan people|Okanagan]] and southern Athabaskan language groups, primarily the [[Dakelh]] (Carrier) and the [[Chilcotin people|Tsilhqot'in]].<ref name=Archives/> The inlets and valleys of the [[British Columbia Coast]] sheltered large, distinctive populations, such as the [[Haida people|Haida]], [[Kwakwaka'wakw]] and [[Nuu-chah-nulth people|Nuu-chah-nulth]], sustained by the region's abundant salmon and shellfish.<ref name=Archives/> These peoples developed [[complex society|complex cultures]] dependent on the [[western red cedar]] that included wooden houses, both seagoing whaling and war canoes, elaborately carved [[potlatch]] items, and [[totem poles]].<ref name=Archives>{{cite web|url=http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/exhibits/timemach/galler07/frames/wc_peop.htm |publisher=B.C. Archives |title=First Nations – People of the Northwest Coast |year=1999 |access-date=April 11, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100314102800/http://www.bcarchives.gov.bc.ca/exhibits/timemach/galler07/frames/wc_peop.htm |archive-date=March 14, 2010 }}</ref>

In the [[Arctic Archipelago]], the distinctive [[Paleo-Eskimo]]s known as [[Dorset culture|Dorset peoples]], whose culture has been traced back to around 500 BCE, were replaced by the ancestors of today's [[Inuit]] by 1500 CE.<ref name="WurmMühlhäusler1996">{{cite book |editor-first1=Stephen Adolphe |editor-last1=Wurm |editor-first2=Peter |editor-last2=Mühlhäusler |editor-first3=Darrell T. |editor-last3=Tyron |title=Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia, and the Americas: Maps |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=glU0vte5gSkC&pg=PA1065 |year=1996 |publisher=Mouton de Gruyter |isbn=978-3-11-013417-9 |page=1065}}</ref> This transition is supported by archeological records and [[Inuit mythology]] that tells of having driven off the ''Tuniit'' or 'first inhabitants'.<ref name="Whitty2010">{{cite book |first1=Julia |last1=Whitty |title=Deep Blue Home: An Intimate Ecology of Our Wild Ocean |url=https://archive.org/details/deepbluehomeinti0000whit |url-access=registration |year=2010 |publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt |isbn=978-0-547-48707-6 |page=[https://archive.org/details/deepbluehomeinti0000whit/page/154 154]}}</ref> [[Inuit#Traditional law|Inuit traditional laws]] are anthropologically different from [[Western law]]. ''[[Custom (law)|Customary law]]'' was non-existent in Inuit society before the introduction of the [[Law of Canada|Canadian legal system]].<ref name=tpm>{{cite web|url=http://nac.nu.ca/OnlineBookSite/vol2/introduction.html |title=Tirigusuusiit, Piqujait and Maligait: Inuit Perspectives on Traditional Law |publisher=Nunavut Arctic College |year=1999 |access-date=August 28, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110221063926/http://nac.nu.ca/OnlineBookSite/vol2/introduction.html |archive-date=February 21, 2011 }}</ref>

===European contact===
{{Further|European colonization of the Americas}}
[[File:L'AnseAuxMeadowsModel.jpg|right|thumb|A model of the Norse settlement at [[L'Anse aux Meadows]] on the island of Newfoundland. The Norse settlement dates to {{circa|1000 CE}}.]]
[[Viking|The Norse]], who had settled [[Greenland]] and [[Iceland]], arrived around 1000 CE and built a small settlement at [[L'Anse aux Meadows]] at the northernmost tip of [[Newfoundland]] (carbon dating estimate 990 – 1050 CE).<ref name="CordellLightfoot2008b">{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Birgitta |last1=Wallace |title=L'Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site |editor-first2=Linda S. |editor-last2=Cordell|editor-first3=Kent |editor-last3=Lightfoot|editor-first1=Francis P. |editor-last1=McManamon|editor-first4=George R. |editor-last4=Milner |encyclopedia=Archaeology in America: An Encyclopedia |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=arfWRW5OFVgC&pg=PA82 |year=2009 |publisher=Greenwood |isbn=978-0-313-33184-8 |pages=82}}</ref> L'Anse aux Meadows, the only confirmed Norse site in North America outside of Greenland, is also notable for its connection with the attempted settlement of [[Vinland]] by [[Leif Erikson]] around the same period or, more broadly, with [[Norse colonization of the Americas|Norse exploration of the Americas]].<ref name="CordellLightfoot2008b"/><ref name="Kristinsson2010">{{cite book|first1=Axel |last1=Kristinsson|title=Expansions: Competition and Conquest in Europe Since the Bronze Age|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9s2uzr47M-cC&pg=PA216|year=2010|publisher=ReykjavíkurAkademían|isbn=978-9979-9922-1-9|page=216}}</ref>
[[File:Cabotstamp.jpg|thumb|A commemorative stamp from 1947, depicting [[John Cabot]] aboard the ''[[Matthew (1497 ship)|Matthew]]'' off [[Cape Bonavista]] during his 1497 voyage]]
Under [[letters patent]] from King [[Henry VII of England]], the Italian [[John Cabot]] became the first European known to have landed in Canada after the [[Viking Age]]. Records indicate that on June 24, 1497, he sighted land at a northern location believed to be somewhere in the [[Atlantic provinces]].<ref name="Mills2003">{{cite encyclopedia |first1=William James |last1=Mills |title=Cabot, John (1450-ca. 1498) |encyclopedia=Exploring Polar Frontiers: A Historical Encyclopedia |volume=1, A-L |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PYdBH4dOOM4C&pg=PA123 |year=2003 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-57607-422-0 |page=123}}</ref> Official tradition deemed the first landing site to be at [[Cape Bonavista]], Newfoundland, although other locations are possible.<ref name="Wilson1996">{{cite book |first1=Ian |last1=Wilson |title=John Cabot and the Matthew |url=https://archive.org/details/johncabotmatthew0000wils |url-access=registration |year=1996 |publisher=Breakwater Books |isbn=978-1-55081-131-5 |page=[https://archive.org/details/johncabotmatthew0000wils/page/34 34]}}</ref> After 1497 Cabot and his son [[Sebastian Cabot (explorer)|Sebastian Cabot]] continued to make other voyages to find the [[Northwest Passage]], and other explorers continued to sail out of England to the New World, although the details of these voyages are not well recorded.<ref name="Grimbly2013">{{cite book|editor-first=Shona |editor-last=Grimbly |chapter=The Northwest Passage |title=Atlas of Exploration |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=lpEuAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA41 |year=2013|orig-year=2001 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-135-97006-2 |page=41}}</ref>
 
Based on the [[Treaty of Tordesillas]], the [[Monarchy of Spain|Spanish Crown]] claimed it had territorial rights in the area visited by John Cabot in 1497 and 1498 CE.<ref>{{cite web |first1=James |last1=Hiller |first2=Jenny |last2=Higgins |title=John Cabot's voyage of 1498 |url=http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/cabot1498.html |publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland |website=Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Web Site |year=2013 |orig-year=1997 |access-date=January 25, 2016}}</ref> However, Portuguese explorers like [[João Fernandes Lavrador]] would continue to visit the north Atlantic coast, which accounts for the appearance of "[[Labrador]]" on maps of the period.<ref name="Diffie1977">{{cite book |first1=Bailey Wallys |last1=Diffie |title=Foundations of the Portuguese Empire: 1415–1580 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vtZtMBLJ7GgC&pg=PA464 |year=1977 |publisher=University of Minnesota Press |isbn=978-0-8166-0782-2 |page=464}}</ref> In 1501 and 1502 the [[Corte-Real family|Corte-Real]] brothers explored Newfoundland (Terra Nova) and Labrador claiming these lands as part of the [[Portuguese Empire]].<ref name="Diffie1977" /><ref name="RorabaughCritchlow2004">{{cite book |first1=William J. |last1=Rorabaugh |first2=Donald T. |last2=Critchlow |first3=Paula C. |last3=Baker |title=America's Promise: A Concise History of the United States |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VL_6X5zWOokC&pg=PA11 |year=2004 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-7425-1189-7 |page=11}}</ref> In 1506, King [[Manuel I of Portugal]] created taxes for the cod fisheries in Newfoundland waters.<ref name="Sauer1975">{{cite book |first1=Carlo |last1=Sauer |chapter=The Atlantic Coast (1520–1526) |title=Sixteenth Century North America: The Land and the People as Seen by the Europeans |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EWXU6sjN9ZUC&pg=PA49 |year=1975|orig-year=1971 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-02777-0 |page=49}}</ref> [[João Álvares Fagundes]] and [[Pero de Barcelos]] established fishing outposts in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia around 1521 CE; however, these were later abandoned, with the [[Portuguese colonization of the Americas|Portuguese colonizers]] focusing their efforts on South America.<ref>{{cite book |title=Chronology of World History: a Calendar of Principal Events from 3000 BC to AD 1973 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=1975 |edition=2nd |page=387 |isbn=978-0-87471-765-5 |last1=Freeman-Grenville |first1=Greville Stewart Parker}}</ref> The extent and nature of Portuguese activity on the Canadian mainland during the 16th century remains unclear and controversial.<ref name="Rompkey2005">{{cite book |first1=Bill |last1=Rompkey |title=The Story of Labrador |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JkwIotsOMUAC&pg=PA20 |year=2005 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-7121-1 |page=20}}</ref><ref name=explorationp>{{cite web |first1=J.K. |last1=Hiller |title=The Portuguese Explorers |url=http://www.heritage.nf.ca/exploration/portuguese.html |publisher=Memorial University of Newfoundland |website=Newfoundland and Labrador Heritage Web Site |date=August 2004 |orig-year=1998 |access-date=June 27, 2010}}</ref>

==Canada under French rule ==
{{Main|New France|Former colonies and territories in Canada}}
[[File:Jacques Cartier a Hochelaga.jpg|thumb|[[Jacques Cartier]] meeting with the [[St. Lawrence Iroquois]] at [[Hochelaga (village)|Hochelaga]] during his second voyage in 1535]]
French interest in the [[New World]] began with [[Francis I of France]], who in 1524 sponsored [[Giovanni da Verrazzano]]'s navigation of the region between [[Florida]] and Newfoundland in hopes of finding a route to the Pacific Ocean.<ref name="Litalien2004">{{cite book|first1=Raymonde |last1=Litalien|title=Champlain: The Birth of French America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZnE0tjj9MbgC&pg=PA61|year=2004|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-7256-0|page=61}}</ref> Although the English had laid claims to it in 1497 when John Cabot made landfall somewhere on the North American coast (likely either modern-day Newfoundland or Nova Scotia) and had claimed the land for England on behalf of King Henry VII,<ref name="Short2003">{{cite book|first1=John R. |last1=Short|title=The World Through Maps: A History of Cartography|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kV3ybVPTN3sC&pg=PA94|year=2003|publisher=University of Maryland|isbn=978-1-55297-811-5|page=94}}</ref> these claims were not exercised and England did not attempt to create a permanent colony. 

As for the French, however, [[Jacques Cartier]] planted a cross in the [[Gaspé Peninsula]] in 1534 and claimed the land in the name of Francis I, creating a region called "[[Canada (New France)|Canada]]" the following summer.<ref name="Loren2008">{{cite book|first1=Diana Dipaolo |last1=Loren|title=In Contact: Bodies and Spaces in the Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-century Eastern Woodlands|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G0cuFvBDl8YC&pg=PA38|year=2008|publisher=Rowman Altamira|isbn=978-0-7591-0661-1|page=38}}</ref> Cartier had sailed up the St. Lawrence river as far as the [[Lachine Rapids]], to the spot where Montreal now stands.<ref>{{cite EB1911 |wstitle=Canada |volume=5 |page=156 |first=George Robert |last=Parkin}}</ref> Permanent settlement attempts by Cartier at [[Charlesbourg-Royal]] in 1541, at [[Sable Island]] in 1598 by Marquis de La Roche-Mesgouez, and at [[Tadoussac, Quebec]] in 1600 by [[François Gravé Du Pont]] all eventually failed.<ref name="Riendeau2007poi">{{cite book|first1=Roger E. |last1=Riendeau|title=A Brief History of Canada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CFWy0EfzlX0C&pg=PA36|year=2007|orig-year=2000 |edition=second |publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-0822-3|page=36}}</ref> Despite these initial failures, French fishing fleets visited the [[Atlantic Ocean|Atlantic coast]] communities and sailed into the [[St. Lawrence River]], trading and making alliances with [[First Nations in Canada|First Nations]],<ref name="PickettPickett2011">{{cite book|first1=Margaret F. |last1=Pickett|first2=Dwayne W. |last2=Pickett|title=The European Struggle to Settle North America: Colonizing Attempts by England, France and Spain, 1521–1608|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vTkyqDHcBvsC&pg=PA61|year=2011|publisher=McFarland|isbn=978-0-7864-6221-6|page=61}}</ref> as well as establishing fishing settlements such as in [[Percé, Quebec|Percé]] (1603).<ref name="Wright2014">{{cite book|first1=Louis B. |last1=Wright|title=The Thirteen Colonies|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Z4epBAAAQBAJ&pg=PT86|year=2014|publisher=New Word City|isbn=978-1-61230-811-1|page=86}}</ref> As a result of France's claim and activities in the colony of Canada, the name ''Canada'' was found on international maps showing the existence of this colony within the St. Lawrence river region.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://nationalpost.com/news/putting-canada-on-the-map-436-year-old-globe-that-first-labeled-great-white-north-to-be-sold-at-uk-auction |title=Putting Canada on the map: 16th-century globe that first labeled Great White North to be auctioned in U.K. |last1=Boswell |first1= Randy |date=April 22, 2013 |newspaper=National Post |location=Toronto}}</ref>
[[File:Champlain en canot 1603.jpg|thumb|[[Samuel de Champlain]] with two [[Innu]] guides in 1603]]
In 1604, a [[North American fur trade]] monopoly was granted to [[Pierre Dugua, Sieur de Mons|Pierre Du Gua, Sieur de Mons]].<ref name="Vaugeois">{{cite book|first1=Raymonde |last1=Litalien|title=Champlain: The Birth of French America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZnE0tjj9MbgC&pg=PA242|year=2004|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-7256-0|page=242}}</ref> The fur trade became one of the main economic ventures in North America.<ref name="Innis1999">{{cite book|first1=Harold Adams |last1=Innis|title=The Fur Trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=eCgps70cHV4C&pg=PR6|year=1999|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-8196-4|page=6}}</ref> Du Gua led his first colonization expedition to an island located near the mouth of the [[Saint Croix River (Maine – New Brunswick)|St. Croix River]]. Among his lieutenants was a geographer named [[Samuel de Champlain]], who promptly carried out a major exploration of the northeastern coastline of what is now the United States.<ref name="Vaugeois"/> In the spring of 1605, under Samuel de Champlain, the new [[Saint Croix Island, Maine#St. Croix Settlement|St. Croix settlement]] was moved to [[Port-Royal (Acadia)|Port Royal]] (today's [[Annapolis Royal, Nova Scotia]]).<ref name="IO">{{cite book|first1=J. M. |last1=Bumsted|title=Canada's Diverse Peoples: A Reference Sourcebook|url=https://archive.org/details/canadasdiversepe0000bums|url-access=registration|year=2003|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-57607-672-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/canadasdiversepe0000bums/page/37 37]}}</ref> Samuel de Champlain also landed at Saint John Harbour on June 24, 1604 (the feast of St. John the Baptist) and is where the city of [[Saint John, New Brunswick]], and the [[Saint John River (Bay of Fundy)|Saint John River]] gets their name.<ref name="thecanadianencyclopedia.ca">{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Elizabeth W. |last1=McGahan |title=Saint John |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |date=March 4, 2015 |url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/saint-john/}}</ref>
[[File:Fondation de la ville de Quebec par Samuel de Champlain en 1608.jpg|thumb|The establishment of Quebec City in 1608, with Samuel de Champlain and his party depicted in the bottom foreground.]]
In 1608 Champlain founded what is now [[Quebec City]], one of the earliest permanent settlements, which would become the capital of New France.<ref name="Kornwolf2002q">{{cite book|first1=James D. |last1=Kornwolf |title=Architecture and Town Planning in Colonial North America|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H_DV9DGUDzkC&pg=PR14|year=2002|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|isbn=978-0-8018-5986-1|page=14}}</ref> He took personal administration over the city and its affairs and sent out expeditions to explore the interior.<ref name="ConradFinkel2005">{{cite book|first1=Margaret |last1=Conrad|first2=Alvin |last2=Finkel|title=History of the Canadian Peoples|year=2005|publisher=Longman Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-321-27008-5|page=[https://archive.org/details/historyofcanadia0004conr/page/58 58]|url=https://archive.org/details/historyofcanadia0004conr/page/58}}</ref> Champlain became the first known European to encounter [[Lake Champlain]] in 1609. By 1615, he had travelled by canoe up the [[Ottawa River]] through [[Lake Nipissing]] and [[Georgian Bay]] to the centre of [[Wyandot people|Huron]] country near [[Lake Simcoe]].<ref name="R2002">{{cite book|last1=Magocsi |first1=Paul R.|title=Aboriginal peoples of Canada: a short introduction|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GkAuYRVjlE8C&pg=PA15|year=2002|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-8469-9|page=15}}</ref> During these voyages, Champlain aided the Wyandot people (aka "Hurons") in their battles against the Iroquois Confederacy.<ref name="Hodge2003">{{cite book|first1=Frederick Webb |last1=Hodge|title=Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=68ERQ9fkyTMC&pg=PA585|year= 2003|publisher=Digital Scanning Inc|isbn=978-1-58218-749-5|page=585}}</ref> As a result, the Iroquois would become enemies of the French and be involved in multiple conflicts (known as the [[Beaver Wars|French and Iroquois Wars]]) until the signing of the [[Great Peace of Montreal]] in 1701.<ref name="Havard2001v">{{cite book|first1=Gilles |last1=Havard|title=The Great Peace of Montreal of 1701: French-native Diplomacy in the Seventeenth Century|url=https://archive.org/details/greatpeaceofmont0000hava|url-access=registration|year=2001|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press|isbn=978-0-7735-6934-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/greatpeaceofmont0000hava/page/4 4]}}</ref>

The English, led by [[Humphrey Gilbert]], had claimed [[St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador|St. John's, Newfoundland]], in 1583 as the first North American [[English overseas possessions|English colony]] by royal prerogative of Queen [[Elizabeth I]].<ref name=DCgil>{{cite DCB |first=David B. |last=Quinn |title=Gilbert, Sir Humphrey |volume=1 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/gilbert_humphrey_1E.html |access-date=September 10, 2011}}</ref> In the reign of [[James VI and I|King James I]], the English established additional colonies in [[Cupids, Newfoundland and Labrador|Cupids]] and [[Ferryland]], [[Newfoundland (island)|Newfoundland]], and soon after established the first successful permanent settlements of [[Virginia]] to the south.<ref name=hornsby>{{cite book|last1=Hornsby|first1=Stephen J|title=British Atlantic, American frontier : spaces of power in early modern British America|year=2005|publisher=University Press of New England|isbn=978-1-58465-427-8|pages=14, 18–19, 22–23}}</ref> On September 29, 1621, a charter for the foundation of a New World [[Scottish colonization of the Americas|Scottish colony]] was granted by King James to [[William Alexander, 1st Earl of Stirling|William Alexander]].<ref name=Michael>{{cite book| last1 =Fry| first1=Michael|title=The Scottish Empire| publisher=Tuckwell Press| year =2001|isbn=978-1-84158-259-7|page=21}}</ref> In 1622, the first settlers left Scotland. They initially failed and permanent Nova Scotian settlements were not firmly established until 1629 during the end of the [[Anglo-French War (1627–1629)|Anglo-French War]].<ref name=Michael/> These colonies did not last long except the fisheries in Ferryland under [[David Kirke]].<ref name="PopeLewis-Simpson2013">{{cite book|first1=Peter Edward |last1=Pope|first2=Shannon |last2=Lewis-Simpson|title=Exploring Atlantic Transitions: Archaeologies of Transience and Permanence in New Found Lands|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gagTAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA278|year=2013|publisher=Boydell & Brewer Ltd|isbn=978-1-84383-859-3|page=278}}</ref> In 1631, under [[Charles I of England]], the [[Treaty of Suza]] was signed, ending the war and returning Nova Scotia to the French.<ref>{{cite web|title=Charles Fort National Historic Site of Canada|url=http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/charles/natcul/natcul3.aspx|year=2009|publisher=Parks Canada|access-date=June 23, 2010|archive-date=October 4, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121004220926/http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/ns/charles/natcul/natcul3.aspx|url-status=dead}}</ref> New France was not fully restored to French rule until the 1632 [[Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye (1632)|Treaty of Saint-Germain-en-Laye]].<ref name="Kingsford1888">{{cite book|first1=William |last1=Kingsford|title=The History of Canada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IBUwAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA109|year=1888|publisher=K. Paul, French, Trübner & Company|page=109}}</ref> This led to new French immigrants and the founding of [[Trois-Rivières]] in 1634.<ref name="Powell2009a">{{cite book|first1=John |last1=Powell|title=Encyclopedia of North American Immigration|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VNCX6UsdZYkC&pg=PA67|year=2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-1012-7|page=67}}</ref>
[[File:QueenAnnesWarBefore.svg|thumb|upright=1.2|left|Map of North America in 1702, showing areas occupied by European settlements. By the 18th century, the British and French had several competing claims in [[northern America]].]]
After Champlain's death in 1635, the [[Catholic Church and the Age of Discovery|Roman Catholic Church]] and the [[Jesuit missions in North America|Jesuit establishment]] became the most dominant force in New France and hoped to establish a [[utopia]]n European and Aboriginal Christian community.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Li|last1= Shenwen|year= 2001|title= Stratégies missionnaires des Jésuites Français en Nouvelle-France et en Chine au XVII<sup>ième</sup> siècle |publisher=Les Presses de l'Université Laval, L'Harmattan|page=44|isbn=978-2-7475-1123-0}}</ref> In 1642, the [[Sulpicians]] sponsored a group of settlers led by [[Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve]], who founded Ville-Marie, the precursor to present-day [[Montreal]].<ref name="Miquelon">{{cite encyclopedia |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/ville-marie-colony |title=Ville-Marie (Colony) |last1=Miquelon |first1=Dale |date=December 16, 2013 |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |edition=online |access-date=January 17, 2016 |archive-date=February 27, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140227080146/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/ville-marie-colony/ |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1663 the [[French crown]] took direct control of the colonies from the [[Company of New France]].<ref name="Hartz1969">{{cite book|first1=Louis |last1=Hartz|title=The Founding of New Societies: Studies in the History of the United States, Latin America, South Africa, Canada, and Australia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=e7YFyzsBYnEC&pg=PT224|year=1969|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|isbn=978-0-547-97109-4|page=224}}</ref>

Although immigration rates to New France remained very low under direct French control,<ref name="Preston2009">{{cite book|first1=David L. |last1=Preston|title=The Texture of Contact: European and Indian Settler Communities on the Frontiers of Iroquoia, 1667–1783|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L-9N6-6UCnoC&pg=PA43|year=2009|publisher=U of Nebraska Press|isbn=978-0-8032-2549-7|page=43}}</ref> most of the new arrivals were farmers, and the rate of population growth among the settlers themselves had been very high.<ref name="McIlwraithMuller2001">{{cite book|first1=Thomas F. |last1=McIlwraith|first2=Edward K. |last2=Muller|title=North America: The Historical Geography of a Changing Continent|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Fa--xLT_dRYC&pg=PA72|year=2001|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield Publishers|isbn=978-1-4616-3960-2|page=72}}</ref> The women had about 30 per cent more children than comparable women who remained in France.<ref name=Landry/> Yves Landry says, "Canadians had an exceptional diet for their time."<ref name=Landry/> This was due to the natural abundance of meat, fish, and pure water; the good food conservation conditions during the winter; and an adequate wheat supply in most years.<ref name=Landry>{{cite journal|first1=Yves |last1=Landry|title=Fertility in France and New France: The Distinguishing Characteristics of Canadian Behavior in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries |journal=Social Science History |volume=17 |issue=4 |pages=577–592|jstor=1171305|date=Winter 1993|doi=10.1017/s0145553200016928|s2cid=147651557 }}</ref> The [[1666 census of New France]] was conducted by [[Intendant of New France|France's intendant]], [[Jean Talon]], in the winter of 1665–1666. The census showed a population count of 3,215 ''[[Acadians]]'' and ''[[habitants]]'' (French-Canadian farmers) in the administrative districts of [[Acadia]] and Canada.<ref name=Talon>{{cite web|title=(Census of 1665–1666) Role-playing Jean Talon|url=http://www.statcan.gc.ca/kits-trousses/jt2-eng.htm|publisher=Statistics Canada|year=2009|access-date=June 23, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120225232904/http://www.statcan.gc.ca/kits-trousses/jt2-eng.htm|archive-date=February 25, 2012}}</ref> The census also revealed a great difference in the number of men at 2,034 versus 1,181 women.<ref name=Histories>{{cite web|title=Statistics for the 1666 Census|url=http://amicus.collectionscanada.gc.ca/aaweb-bin/aamain/itemdisp?sessionKey=999999999_142&l=0&d=2&v=0&lvl=1&itm=30327415|publisher=[[Library and Archives Canada]]|year=2006|access-date=June 24, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150904053654/http://amicus.collectionscanada.gc.ca/aaweb-bin/aamain/itemdisp?sessionKey=999999999_142&l=0&d=2&v=0&lvl=1&itm=30327415|archive-date=September 4, 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

===Wars during the colonial era===
{{Further|French and Indian Wars}}
{{See also|Military history of Canada}}
[[File:Les Anglais évacuant le Fort Nelson en 1697 dans la baie d'Hudson.jpg|thumb|[[Hudson's Bay Company]] personnel surrender [[York Factory|Fort Nelson]] to French forces after the [[Battle of Hudson's Bay]]]]
By the early 1700s, the [[List of French forts in North America|New France settlers were well established]] along the shores of the St. Lawrence River and parts of Nova Scotia, with a population of around 16,000.<ref>{{cite web|title=Estimated population of Canada, 1605 to present|url=http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/98-187-x/4151287-eng.htm|publisher=Statistics Canada|year=2009|access-date=August 26, 2010}}</ref> However, new arrivals stopped coming from France in the proceeding decades,<ref name="Powell2009b">{{cite book|first1=John |last1=Powell|title=Encyclopedia of North American Immigration|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VNCX6UsdZYkC&pg=PA203|year=2009|publisher=Infobase Publishing|isbn=978-1-4381-1012-7|page=203}}</ref><ref name="Dale2004b">{{cite book|first1=Ronald J. |last1=Dale|title=The Fall of New France: How the French Lost a North American Empire 1754–1763|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pZmpn3g3UFQC&pg=PR2|year=2004|publisher=James Lorimer & Company|isbn=978-1-55028-840-7|page=2}}</ref><ref name="FindlingThackeray2011">{{cite book|first1=John E. |last1=Findling|first2=Frank W. |last2=Thackeray|title=What Happened?: An Encyclopedia of Events that Changed America Forever|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K2YSI904ZNsC&pg=PA38|year=2011|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-59884-621-8|page=38}}</ref> meaning that the English and Scottish settlers in Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the southern [[Thirteen Colonies]] outnumbered the French population approximately ten to one by the 1750s.<ref name="Preston2009"/><ref name="Hart-Davis2012">{{cite book|first1=Adam |last1=Hart-Davis|title=History: From the Dawn of Civilization to the Present Day|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SCouMhrlDzYC&pg=PA483|year=2012|publisher=DK Publishing|isbn=978-0-7566-9858-4|page=483}}</ref>

From 1670, through the [[Hudson's Bay Company]], the English also laid claim to Hudson Bay and its drainage basin, known as [[Rupert's Land]], establishing [[List of Hudson's Bay Company trading posts|new trading posts and forts]], while continuing to operate fishing settlements in Newfoundland.<ref name="Porter1994">{{cite book|first1=Andrew Neil |last1=Porter|title=Atlas of British overseas expansion|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=q8EOAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA60|year= 1994|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-06347-0|page=60}}</ref> French expansion along the Canadian canoe routes challenged the Hudson's Bay Company claims, and in 1686, [[Pierre de Troyes, Chevalier de Troyes|Pierre Troyes]] led an [[Hudson Bay expedition (1686)|overland expedition from Montreal to the shore of the bay]], where they managed to capture a handful of outposts.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Marsh |first1=James |date=December 16, 2013 |title=Pierre de Troyes |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |edition=online |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/pierre-de-troyes |access-date=November 27, 2013 |archive-date=December 3, 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131203010458/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/pierre-de-troyes/ |url-status=live }}</ref> [[René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle|La Salle]]'s explorations gave France a claim to the [[Mississippi River|Mississippi River Valley]], where fur trappers and a few settlers set up [[List of French forts in North America#United States|scattered forts and settlements]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://hbcheritage.ca/hbcheritage/history/people/explorers/samuelhearne.asp |title=Our History: People: Explorers: Samuel Hearne |access-date=November 14, 2007 |publisher=Hudson's Bay Company}}</ref>
[[File:Days of Old (35913521205).jpg|thumb|left|The port inside the [[Fortress of Louisbourg]]. The French built the fortress during the mid-18th century to protect the Acadian colony on [[Île-Royale (New France)|Île-Royale]].]]
There were four [[French and Indian Wars]] and two additional wars in Acadia and Nova Scotia between the Thirteen American Colonies and New France from 1688 to 1763. During [[King William's War]] (1688 to 1697), military conflicts in Acadia included the [[Battle of Port Royal (1690)]]; a naval battle in the Bay of Fundy ([[Action of July 14, 1696]]); and the [[Raid on Chignecto (1696)]].<ref name="Grenier2008a">{{cite book|first1=John |last1=Grenier|title=The Far Reaches Of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710–1760|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jVG5h6G5fWMC&pg=PA123|year=2008|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-3876-3|page=123}}</ref> The [[Peace of Ryswick|Treaty of Ryswick]] in 1697 ended the war between the two colonial powers of England and France for a brief time.<ref name="ZuehlkeDaniel2006">{{cite book|first1=Mark |last1=Zuehlke|first2=C. Stuart |last2=Daniel|title=Canadian Military Atlas: Four Centuries of Conflict from New France to Kosovo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KyNlm8SuplEC&pg=PA16|year= 2006|publisher=Douglas & McIntyre|isbn=978-1-55365-209-0|pages=16–}}</ref> During [[Queen Anne's War]] (1702 to 1713), the British [[Siege of Port Royal (1710)|Conquest of Acadia]] occurred in 1710,<ref name="Reid2004">{{cite book|first1=John G. |last1=Reid|title=The "Conquest" of Acadia, 1710: Imperial, Colonial, and Aboriginal Constructions|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MqJ9qFqWK4IC&pg=PA48|year=2004|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-8538-2|pages=48–}}</ref> resulting in Nova Scotia (other than Cape Breton) being officially ceded to the British by the [[Treaty of Utrecht (1713)|Treaty of Utrecht]], including Rupert's Land, which France had conquered in the late 17th century ([[Battle of Hudson's Bay]]).<ref name="Axelrod2007">{{cite book|first1=Alan |last1=Axelrod|title=Blooding at Great Meadows: young George Washington and the battle that shaped the man|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7EBKOCt_P0EC&pg=PA62|year=2007|publisher=Running Press|isbn=978-0-7624-2769-7|pages=62–}}</ref> As an immediate result of this setback, France founded the powerful [[Fortress of Louisbourg]] on [[Cape Breton Island]].<ref name="Dale2004a">{{cite book|first1=Ronald J. |last1=Dale|title=The Fall of New France: How the French Lost a North American Empire 1754–1763|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pZmpn3g3UFQC&pg=PA13|year=2004|publisher=James Lorimer & Company|isbn=978-1-55028-840-7|page=13}}</ref>

Louisbourg was intended to serve as a year-round military and naval base for France's remaining North American empire and to protect the entrance to the St. Lawrence River. [[Father Rale's War]] resulted in both the fall of New France's influence in present-day [[Maine]] and the British recognition that it would have to negotiate with the Mi'kmaq in Nova Scotia. During [[King George's War]] (1744 to 1748), an army of New Englanders led by [[William Pepperrell]] mounted an expedition of 90 vessels and 4,000 men against Louisbourg in 1745.<ref name="Irvin2002">{{cite book|first1=Benjamin |last1=Irvin|title=Samuel Adams: Son of Liberty, Father of Revolution|url=https://archive.org/details/samueladamssonof0000irvi|url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-513225-0|page=[https://archive.org/details/samueladamssonof0000irvi/page/32 32]}}</ref> Within three months the fortress surrendered. The return of Louisbourg to French control by the peace treaty prompted the British to found [[City of Halifax|Halifax]] in 1749 under [[Edward Cornwallis]].<ref>{{cite book|first1=Thomas H|last1=Raddall|title=Halifax, Warden of the North|publisher=McClelland and Stewart Limited|year=1971|pages=[https://archive.org/details/halifaxwardenofn00radd_1/page/18 18–21]|url=https://archive.org/details/halifaxwardenofn00radd_1/page/18|isbn=978-1-55109-060-3|access-date=January 13, 2011}}</ref> Despite the official cessation of war between the British and French empires with the [[Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748)|Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle]], the conflict in Acadia and Nova Scotia continued as [[Father Le Loutre's War]].<ref name="Grenier2008b">{{cite book|first1=John |last1=Grenier|title=The far reaches of empire: war in Nova Scotia, 1710–1760|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jVG5h6G5fWMC&pg=PA138YEAR|publisher=University of Oklahoma Press|isbn=978-0-8061-3876-3|pages=138–140|year=2008}}</ref>
[[File:Acadian deportation map.jpg|thumb|upright=1.2|A migratory map showing the movements of Acadian deportees during the [[Expulsion of the Acadians|Great Upheaval]]]]
The British ordered the Acadians expelled from their lands in 1755 during the [[French and Indian War]], an event called the [[Expulsion of the Acadians]] or {{lang|fr|le Grand Dérangement}}.<ref name="Jobb2008">{{cite book|first1=Dean W. |last1=Jobb|author-link1=Dean Jobb|title=The Acadians: A People's Story of Exile and Triumph|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bzksi8dKPCsC&pg=PP296|year=2008|publisher=Wiley|isbn=978-0-470-15772-5|page=296}}</ref> The "expulsion" resulted in approximately 12,000 Acadians being shipped to destinations throughout Britain's North America and to France, Quebec and the French Caribbean colony of [[Saint-Domingue]].<ref name="Lacoursière1996">{{cite book|first1=Jacques |last1=Lacoursière|title=Histoire populaire du Québec: De 1841 à 1896. III|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hbrS3bYEzKoC&pg=PP270|year=1996|publisher=Les éditions du Septentrion|isbn=978-2-89448-066-3|page=270}}</ref> The first wave of the expulsion of the Acadians began with the [[Bay of Fundy Campaign (1755)]] and the second wave began after the final [[Siege of Louisbourg (1758)]]. Many of the Acadians settled in southern [[Louisiana]], creating the [[Cajun]] culture there.<ref name=Jacques>{{cite book|first1=Jacques |last1=Lacoursière|title=Histoire populaire du Québec: De 1841 à 1896. III|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hbrS3bYEzKoC&pg=PA270|access-date=May 21, 2013|year=1996|publisher=Les éditions du Septentrion|language=fr|isbn=978-2-89448-066-3|page=270}}</ref> Some Acadians managed to hide and others eventually returned to Nova Scotia, but they were far outnumbered by a new migration of [[New England Planters]] who settled on the former lands of the Acadians and transformed Nova Scotia from a colony of occupation for the British to a settled colony with stronger ties to New England.<ref name=Jacques/> Britain eventually gained control of Quebec City after the [[Battle of the Plains of Abraham]] and the [[Battle of Fort Niagara]] in 1759, and finally [[Montreal Campaign|captured Montreal]] in 1760.<ref name="Fryer1993">{{cite book|first1=Mary |last1=Beacock Fryer|title=More battlefields of Canada|url=https://archive.org/details/morebattlefields0000frye|url-access=registration|year=1993|publisher=Dundurn Press Ltd.|isbn=978-1-55002-189-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/morebattlefields0000frye/page/161 161]–}}</ref>

==Canada under British rule ==
{{Main|Canada under British rule|British North America}}
[[File:NorthAmerica1762-83.png|thumb|upright=1.2|Map showing British territorial gains following the [[Seven Years' War]]. [[Treaty of Paris (1763)|Treaty of Paris]] gains in pink, and Spanish territorial gains after the [[Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762)|Treaty of Fontainebleau]] in yellow.]]
As part of the terms of the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)]], signed after the defeat of New France in the [[Seven Years' War]], France renounced its claims to territory in mainland [[North America]], except for fishing rights off Newfoundland and the two small islands of [[Saint Pierre and Miquelon]] where its fishermen could dry their fish. France had already secretly transferred its vast [[Louisiana (New France)|Louisiana territory]] to Spain under the [[Treaty of Fontainebleau (1762)]] in which King [[Louis XV]] of France had given his cousin King [[Charles III of Spain]] the entire area of the [[drainage basin]] of the Mississippi River from the Great Lakes to the [[Gulf of Mexico]] and from the [[Appalachian Mountains]] to the [[Rocky Mountains]]. France and Spain kept the Treaty of Fontainebleau secret from other countries until 1764.<ref name="FrentzosThompson2014">{{cite book|last1=Frentzos|first1=Christos G.|last2=Thompson|first2=Antonio S.|title=The Routledge Handbook of American Military and Diplomatic History: The Colonial Period to 1877|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SkmDBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA87|year=2014|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-1-317-81335-4|page=87}}</ref> However under the Treaty of Paris, the eastern side of the Mississippi river basin became British territory. Great Britain returned to France its most important sugar-producing colony, [[Guadeloupe]], which the French considered more valuable than Canada. (Guadeloupe produced more sugar than all the British islands combined, and [[Voltaire]] had notoriously dismissed Canada as "{{lang|fr|Quelques arpents de neige}}", "[[A few acres of snow]]").<ref name="(Peter)1987b">{{cite book|last1=Kerr |first1=Donald P. (Peter) |title=Historical Atlas of Canada [cartographic Material] |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=itsTLSnw8qgC&pg=PA171 |year=1987 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-0-8020-2495-4 |page=171 }}</ref>

Following the Treaty of Paris, King [[George III]] issued the [[Royal Proclamation of 1763]].<ref name=William>{{cite web |title=The Royal Proclamation |url=http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/PreConfederation/rp_1763.html |publisher=The Solon Law Archive |first1=William F |last1=Maton |year=1996 |access-date=April 11, 2010 }}</ref> The proclamation organized [[British colonization of the Americas|Great Britain's new North American empire]] and stabilized relations between [[The Canadian Crown and Aboriginal peoples|the British Crown and Aboriginal peoples]], formally recognizing aboriginal title, regulated trade, settlement, and land purchases on the [[Frontier|western frontier]].<ref name=William/> In the former French territory, the new British rulers of Canada first abolished and then later reinstated most of the property, religious, political, and social culture of the French-speaking {{lang|fr|habitants}}, guaranteeing the right of the {{lang|fr|Canadiens}} to practice the Catholic faith and to the use of [[Law of France|French civil law]] (now [[Quebec Civil Code]]) in the [[Quebec Act]] of 1774, passed by the British Parliament.<ref>{{cite web|title=Original text of The Quebec Act of 1774 |url=http://www.solon.org/Constitutions/Canada/English/PreConfederation/qa_1774.html |publisher=Canadiana (Library and Archives Canada)|date=1774|access-date=April 11, 2010}}</ref>

===American Revolution and the Loyalists===
{{Further|Invasion of Quebec (1775)|Nova Scotia in the American Revolution}}
[[File:Canadian militiamen and British soldiers repulse the American assault at Sault-au-Matelot.jpg|thumb|left|British soldiers and the [[Canadian militia]] repel an American column during the [[Battle of Quebec (1775)|Battle of Quebec]]]]
During the [[American Revolution]], there was some sympathy for the [[Loyalist (American Revolution)|American cause]] among the Acadians and the New Englanders in Nova Scotia.<ref name=Kenneth/> Neither party joined the rebels, although several hundred individuals joined the revolutionary cause.<ref name=Kenneth>{{cite book|first1=Kenneth|last1=McNaught|title=The Pelican History of Canada|publisher=Pelican|page=[https://archive.org/details/pelicanhistoryof00mcna/page/2 2d ed. 53]|year=1976|isbn=978-0-14-021083-5|url=https://archive.org/details/pelicanhistoryof00mcna/page/2}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last1=Raddall|first1=Thomas Head|title=Halifax Warden of the North|publisher=McClelland and Stewart|page=[https://archive.org/details/halifaxwardenofn00radd_1/page/85 85]|year=2003|isbn=978-1-55109-060-3|url=https://archive.org/details/halifaxwardenofn00radd_1/page/85}}</ref> An [[Invasion of Quebec (1775)|invasion of Quebec]] by the [[Continental Army]] in 1775, with a goal to take Quebec from British control, was halted at the [[Battle of Quebec (1775)|Battle of Quebec]] by [[Guy Carleton, 1st Baron Dorchester|Guy Carleton]], with the assistance of local militias. The defeat of the British army during the [[Siege of Yorktown]] in October 1781 signalled the end of Great Britain's struggle to suppress the American Revolution.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.smuggling.co.uk/history_expansion.html |title=The expansion and final suppression of smuggling in Britain |publisher=Smuggling.co.uk |access-date=August 23, 2010}}</ref>

When the British [[History of New York City|evacuated New York City]] in 1783, they took many Loyalist refugees to Nova Scotia, while other Loyalists went to southwestern Quebec. So many Loyalists arrived on the shores of the [[Saint John River (New Brunswick)|St. John River]] that a separate colony—[[New Brunswick]]—was created in 1784;<ref>{{cite web|title=Territorial Evolution, 1867|url=http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/auth/english/maps/historical/territorialevolution/1867/1|publisher=Natural Resources Canada|year=2010|access-date=April 12, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101215180858/http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/auth/english/maps/historical/territorialevolution/1867/1|archive-date=December 15, 2010}}</ref> followed in 1791 by the division of [[Quebec]] into the largely French-speaking [[Lower Canada]] ([[French Canada]]) along the St. Lawrence River and the Gaspé Peninsula and an anglophone Loyalist [[Upper Canada]], with its capital settled by 1796 in [[York, Upper Canada|York]] (present-day [[Toronto]]).<ref name="Armstrong1985">{{cite book|first1=F. H. |last1=Armstrong|title=Handbook of Upper Canadian Chronology|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZL9EJW4v2FYC&pg=PA2|year=1985|publisher=Dundurn|isbn=978-0-919670-92-1|page=2}}</ref> After 1790, most of the new settlers were American farmers searching for new lands; although generally favourable to republicanism, they were relatively non-political and stayed neutral in the [[War of 1812]].<ref>{{cite book|first1= Fred |last1=Landon |title=Western Ontario and the American Frontier|year=1941|publisher=Carleton University Press|pages=17–22|isbn=978-0-7710-9734-8}}</ref> In 1785, Saint John, New Brunswick became the first incorporated city in what would later become Canada.<ref name="thecanadianencyclopedia.ca"/>

[[File:Henry Sandham - The Coming of the Loyalists.jpg|thumb|Landing of [[United Empire Loyalists|loyalist migrants]] to [[New Brunswick]], 1783. After the [[American Revolutionary War]], the remaining [[British North America]]n colonies saw an influx of loyalist migrants.]]
[[File:AricanNovaScotianByCaptain William Booth1788.png|thumb|A [[Black Loyalist]] wood cutter in [[Shelburne, Nova Scotia]] in 1788]]

The signing of the [[Treaty of Paris (1783)|Treaty of Paris]] in 1783 formally ended the war. Great Britain made several concessions to the US at the expense of the North American colonies.<ref name=Jones>{{cite book|first1=Howard |last1=Jones|title=Crucible of power: a history of American foreign relations to 1913|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TFyLOUrdGFwC&pg=PA23|access-date=September 17, 2011|year=2002|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-0-8420-2916-2|page=23}}</ref> Notably, the [[Canada–United States border|borders between Canada and the United States]] were officially demarcated;<ref name=Jones/> all land south and west of the Great Lakes, which was formerly a part of the [[Province of Quebec (1763-1791)|Province of Quebec]] and included modern-day Michigan, Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio, was ceded to the Americans. Fishing rights were also granted to the United States in the [[Gulf of St. Lawrence]] and on the coast of Newfoundland and the [[Grand Banks]].<ref name=Jones/> The British ignored part of the treaty and maintained their military outposts in the Great Lakes areas it had ceded to the U.S., and they continued to supply their native allies with munitions. The British evacuated the outposts with the [[Jay Treaty]] of 1795, but the continued supply of munitions irritated the Americans in the run-up to the War of 1812.<ref name="Willig2008">{{cite book|first1=Timothy D. |last1=Willig |title=Restoring the chain of friendship: British policy and the Indians of the Great Lakes, 1783–1815|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FtzyNOrEjY8C&pg=PP1YEAR|publisher=U of Nebraska Press |isbn=978-0-8032-4817-5 |pages=243–44<!---The holding forts = p 14; Jay treaty is pp 55-56; evacuation of posts = p 59; weapon sales are on p 104 & 121; support for Indians in Midwest = 59-61; Indians in Michigan = p 76--->|year=2008}}</ref>

Canadian historians have had mixed views on the long-term impact of the American Revolution. [[Arthur R. M. Lower|Arthur Lower]] in the 1950s provided the long-standard historical interpretation that for English Canada the results were counter-revolutionary:

<blockquote>[English Canada] inherited, not the benefits, but the bitterness of the Revolution…. English Canada started its life with as powerful a nostalgic shove backward into the past as the Conquest had given to French Canada: two little peoples officially devoted to counter-revolution, to lost causes, to the tawdry ideals of a society of men and masters, and not to the self-reliant freedom alongside of them.<ref name="Lower1958">{{cite book|first1=A.R.M.|last1=Lower|title=Canadians in the making: a social history of Canada|url=https://www.questia.com/read/982591/canadians-in-the-making-a-social-history-of-canada|year=1958|publisher=Longmans, Green|pages=135–36|access-date=August 29, 2017|archive-date=February 13, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180213025019/https://www.questia.com/read/982591/canadians-in-the-making-a-social-history-of-canada|url-status=dead}}</ref></blockquote>

Recently Michel Ducharme has agreed that Canada did indeed oppose "republican liberty", as exemplified by the United States and France. However, he says it did find a different path forward when it fought against British rulers after 1837 to secure "modern liberty". That form of liberty focused not on the virtues of citizens but on protecting their rights from infringement by the state.<ref>Michel Ducharme, ''The Idea of Liberty in Canada during the Age of Atlantic Revolutions, 1776–1838'' (2014).</ref><ref>{{cite journal | last1 = McNairn | first1 = Jeffrey L. | year = 2016 | title = As the Tsunami of Histories of Atlantic and Liberal Revolutions Wash up in Upper Canada: Worries from a Colonial Shore | journal = History Compass | volume = 14 | issue = 9| pages = 407–429 | doi = 10.1111/hic3.12334 }}</ref>

===War of 1812===
{{Main|War of 1812}}
[[File:Laura Secord warns Fitzgibbons, 1813.jpg|thumb|Loyalist [[Laura Secord]] warning the British Lieutenant [[James FitzGibbon]] and First Nations of an impending [[Battle of Beaver Dams|American attack at Beaver Dams]], 1813]]
The War of 1812 was fought between the United States and the British, with the British North American colonies being heavily involved.<ref name="ThompsonRandall2002">{{cite book|first1=John |last1=Herd Thompson |first2=Stephen J. |last2=Randall|title=Canada and the United States: Ambivalent Allies|url=https://archive.org/details/canadaunitedstat00thom_0|url-access=registration|year=2002|publisher=University of Georgia Press|isbn=978-0-8203-2403-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/canadaunitedstat00thom_0/page/19 19]}}</ref> Greatly outgunned by the [[Royal Navy|British Royal Navy]], the American war plans focused on an invasion of Canada (especially what is today [[Eastern Ontario|eastern]] and [[Southwestern Ontario|western Ontario]]). The American frontier states voted for war to suppress the First Nations raids that frustrated the settlement of the frontier.<ref name="ThompsonRandall2002"/> The war on the border with the United States was characterized by a series of multiple failed invasions and fiascos on both sides. American forces took control of [[Lake Erie]] in 1813, driving the British out of western Ontario, killing the Shawnee leader [[Tecumseh]], and breaking the military power of [[Tecumseh's Confederacy|his confederacy]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia
 |last1        = Allen
 |first1       = Robert S
 |first2       = Tabitha
 |last2        = Marshall
 |title        = Tecumseh
 |encyclopedia = [[The Canadian Encyclopedia]]
 |publisher    = [[Historica Canada]]
 |edition      = online
 |date         = July 23, 2015
|url          = https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/tecumseh
 |access-date  = January 17, 2016
|archive-date = December 5, 2013
|archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20131205082828/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/tecumseh/
 |url-status   = live
}}</ref> The war was overseen by British army officers like [[Isaac Brock]] and [[Charles de Salaberry]] with the assistance of First Nations and loyalist informants, most notably [[Laura Secord]].<ref>{{cite DCB |first=Ruth |last=McKenzie |title=Ingersoll, Laura |volume=9 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/ingersoll_laura_9E.html}}</ref>

The War ended with no boundary changes thanks to the [[Treaty of Ghent]] of 1814, and the [[Rush–Bagot Treaty]] of 1817.<ref name="ThompsonRandall2002"/> A demographic result was the shifting of the destination of American migration from Upper Canada to [[Ohio]], [[Indiana]] and [[Michigan]], without fear of Indigenous attacks.<ref name="ThompsonRandall2002"/> After the war, supporters of Britain tried to repress the [[republicanism in Canada|republicanism]] that was common among American [[Immigration to Canada|immigrants to Canada]].<ref name="ThompsonRandall2002"/> The troubling memory of the war and the American invasions etched itself into the consciousness of Canadians as a distrust of the intentions of the United States towards the British presence in North America.<ref name=Gwyn>{{cite book|first1=Richard |last1=Gwyn|title=John A: The Man Who Made Us|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CHs8qlWcl4gC&pg=PP1|volume=1|year=2008|publisher=Random House of Canada|isbn=978-0-679-31476-9|page=1}}</ref><sup>pp.&nbsp;254–255</sup>

===Rebellions and the Durham Report===
{{Further|Rebellions of 1837|Durham Report}}
[[File:L'Assemblée des six comtés à Saint-Charles-sur-Richelieu, en 1837 by Charles Alexander 1891.tif|thumb|Leaders of the [[Patriote movement]] and their followers during the [[Assembly of the Six Counties]] in 1837.]]
The [[rebellions of 1837]] against the [[British Empire|British colonial government]] took place in both Upper and Lower Canada. In Upper Canada, a band of Reformers under the leadership of [[William Lyon Mackenzie]] took up arms in a disorganized and ultimately unsuccessful series of small-scale skirmishes around Toronto, [[London, Ontario|London]], and [[Hamilton, Ontario|Hamilton]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mccord-museum.qc.ca/scripts/explore.php?Lang=1&tableid=11&tablename=theme&elementid=2__true |title=The 1837–1838 Rebellion in Lower Canada |website=McCord Museum's collections |date=1999 |access-date=December 10, 2006}}</ref>

In Lower Canada, a more substantial rebellion occurred against British rule. Both English- and French-Canadian rebels, sometimes using bases in the neutral United States, fought several skirmishes against the authorities. The towns of [[Chambly, Quebec|Chambly]] and [[Sorel, Quebec|Sorel]] were taken by the rebels, and Quebec City was isolated from the rest of the colony. Montreal rebel leader [[Robert Nelson (insurrectionist)|Robert Nelson]] read the "[[Declaration of Independence of Lower Canada]]" to a crowd assembled at the town of [[Napierville, Quebec|Napierville]] in 1838.<ref name=Elinor/> The rebellion of the ''[[Patriote movement]]'' was defeated after battles across Quebec. Hundreds were arrested, and several villages were burnt in reprisal.<ref name=Elinor>{{cite book|first1=Allan |last1=Greer|title=The Patriots and the People: The Rebellion of the 1837 in Rural Lower Canada|url=https://archive.org/details/patriotspeoplere0000gree|url-access=registration|year=1993|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-6930-6|page=[https://archive.org/details/patriotspeoplere0000gree/page/6 6]}}</ref>
[[File:Incendie Parlement Montreal.jpg|thumb|left|The [[burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal]] in 1849. Painting by [[Joseph Légaré]], c. 1849.]]
The British government then sent [[John Lambton, 1st Earl of Durham|Lord Durham]] to examine the situation; he stayed in Canada for five months before returning to Britain, bringing with him his [[Report on the Affairs of British North America (1839)|Durham Report]], which strongly recommended [[responsible government]].<ref name=Responsible/> A less well-received recommendation was the amalgamation of Upper and Lower Canada for the deliberate assimilation of the French-speaking population. [[The Canadas]] were merged into a single colony, the [[United Province of Canada]], by the 1840 [[Act of Union (1840)|Act of Union]], and responsible government was achieved in 1848, a few months after it was accomplished in Nova Scotia.<ref name=Responsible>{{cite web|title=1839–1849, Union and Responsible Government|url=http://www.canadiana.org/citm/themes/constitution/constitution11_e.html|website=Canada in the Making |year=2005|access-date=April 11, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080329164624/http://www.canadiana.org/citm/themes/constitution/constitution11_e.html|archive-date=2008-03-29}}</ref> The parliament of [[United Canada]] in Montreal was [[Burning of the Parliament Buildings in Montreal|set on fire by a mob of Tories]] in 1849 after the passing of an indemnity bill for the people who suffered losses during the rebellion in Lower Canada.<ref name="FrancisFrancis2009b">{{cite book |first1=R. D. |last1=Francis |first2=Richard |last2=Jones |first3=Donald B. |last3=Smith|title=Journeys: A History of Canada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GbbZRIOKclsC&pg=PA147|year= 2009|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0-17-644244-6|page=147}}</ref>

Between the [[Napoleonic Wars]] and 1850, some 800,000 immigrants came to the colonies of British North America, mainly from the [[British Isles]], as part of the [[Great Migration of Canada|great migration of Canada]].<ref>{{cite web | publisher = Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis | url = http://www.minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/04-05/essay.cfm | title = The Industrial Revolution | access-date = November 14, 2007 | first1= Robert Jr. |last1=Lucas | year = 2003 | quote = it is fairly clear that up to 1800 or maybe 1750, no society had experienced sustained growth in per capita income. (Eighteenth-century population growth also averaged one-third of one per cent, the same as production growth.) That is, up to about two centuries ago, per capita [[real income|incomes]] in all societies stagnated at around $400 to $800 per year. | author-link = Robert Lucas, Jr. | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20080516211911/http://minneapolisfed.org/pubs/region/04-05/essay.cfm | archive-date = May 16, 2008 }}</ref> These included [[Scottish Gaelic|Gaelic]]-speaking [[Highland Scots]] displaced by the [[Highland Clearances]] to Nova Scotia and Scottish and English settlers to the Canadas, particularly Upper Canada. The Irish Famine of the 1840s significantly increased the pace of [[Irish Catholic]] immigration to British North America, with over 35,000 distressed Irish landing in Toronto alone in 1847 and 1848.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Mark |last1=McGowan|title=Death or Canada: the Irish Famine Migration to Toronto 1847|publisher=Novalis Publishing Inc|year= 2009|page= 97|isbn=978-2-89646-129-5}}</ref>

===Pacific colonies===
{{Further|History of British Columbia}}
[[File:Oregoncountry2.png|thumb|Map of the [[Columbia District]], also referred to as [[Oregon Country]]. The region was [[Oregon boundary dispute|disputed territory]] between the UK and the US until 1846, with the signing of the [[Oregon Treaty]].]]
Spanish explorers had taken the lead in the [[Pacific Northwest|Pacific Northwest coast]], with the voyages of [[Juan José Pérez Hernández]] in 1774 and 1775.<ref name=Barman>{{cite book|first1=Jean |last1=Barman|title=The West beyond the West: a history of British Columbia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_X_aK5pD5kgC&pg=PA20|year=1996|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-7185-9|page=20}}</ref> By the time the Spanish determined to build a fort on [[Vancouver Island]], the British navigator [[James Cook]] had visited [[Nootka Sound]] and charted the coast as far as Alaska, while British and American [[Maritime Fur Trade|maritime fur traders]] had begun a busy era of commerce with [[Indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast|the coastal peoples]] to satisfy the brisk market for sea otter pelts in China, thereby launching what became known as the [[Old China Trade|China Trade]].<ref name=Sutton>{{cite book|first1=John |last1=Sutton Lutz|title=Makúk: A New History of Aboriginal-White Relations|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=J2MNSaoAecIC&pg=PA44|year=2009|publisher=UBC Press|isbn=978-0-7748-5827-4|page=44}}</ref>
In 1789 war threatened between Britain and Spain on their respective rights; the [[Nootka Crisis]] was resolved peacefully largely in favour of Britain, the much stronger naval power at the time. In 1793 [[Alexander Mackenzie (explorer)|Alexander MacKenzie]], a Scotsman working for the [[North West Company]], crossed the continent and with his Aboriginal guides and French-Canadian crew, reached the mouth of the [[Bella Coola River]], completing the first continental crossing north of Mexico, missing [[George Vancouver]]'s charting expedition to the region by only a few weeks.<ref>{{cite book
|first1=Margaret
|last1=Ormsby
|author-link = Margaret Ormsby
|title=British Columbia: A History
|publisher=Macmillan
|year=1976
|url=https://www.questia.com/library/book/british-columbia-a-history-by-margaret-a-ormsby.jsp
|isbn=978-0-7581-8813-7
|page= 33
|access-date=April 16, 2010}}</ref> In 1821, the North West Company and Hudson's Bay Company merged, with a combined trading territory that was extended by a licence to the [[North-Western Territory]] and the [[Columbia District|Columbia]] and [[New Caledonia (Canada)|New Caledonia]] fur districts, which reached the Arctic Ocean on the north and the Pacific Ocean on the west.<ref>{{cite web
|title=Our History
|publisher=Hudson's Bay Company
|url=http://www.hbc.com/hbc/history/
|year=2009
|access-date=April 16, 2010
|archive-date=April 24, 2010
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100424100034/http://www.hbc.com/hbc/history/
|url-status=dead
}}</ref>

The [[Colony of Vancouver Island]] was chartered in 1849, with the trading post at [[Fort Victoria (British Columbia)|Fort Victoria]] as the capital. This was followed by the [[Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands]] in 1853, and by the creation of the [[Colony of British Columbia (1858-1866)|Colony of British Columbia]] in 1858 and the [[Stikine Territory]] in 1861, with the latter three being founded expressly to keep those regions from being overrun and annexed by American gold miners.<ref name=Barman2>{{cite book|first1=Jean |last1=Barman|title=The West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JbYe6fCOSTAC&pg=PA67|access-date=September 8, 2013|year=2006|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-7185-9|page=67}}</ref> The Colony of the Queen Charlotte Islands and most of the Stikine Territory were merged into the Colony of British Columbia in 1863 (the remainder, north of the 60th Parallel, became part of the North-Western Territory).<ref name=Barman2/>

===Rural Canada in 1860s===
The 1940 "Report" of the [[Rowell–Sirois Commission]] described the economy of rural Canada in the late 1860s, when just under half the labor force was in farming. It stated:<ref>'' Report of the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations. Book One Canada 1857-1939'' (1940) p. 27   [https://archive.org/details/31761116341199/page/n34/mode/1up  online] </ref> <blockquote> The farm household in Upper Canada [Ontario] was still a basically self-sufficient unit. Food was grown and processed at home. The raw products of the farm were  turned into articles of wear with the assistance of the local shoemaker and tailor who would take  produce in return for their services. Such necessaries as tea, sugar, hardware and certain articles of clothing which could not be produced at home were generally obtained by barter from the local general store. Tallow was turned into candles, fatty refuse into soap, and the tools which were beyond the ingenuity of the farm workshop could generally be contrived by the local blacksmith.  What was true of the Upper Canada farm was even more true of the agricultural communities in Lower Canada [Quebec] and the Maritimes, where such things as furniture, carts, and carriages were frequently made on the farm. The farm of the period was a miniature factory or combination of factories. Much of the work of the large industrial army of today, concentrated in highly specialized factories in the cities and towns was, in that early period, performed in a multitude of rural households.  However prices might fall and cash income from other sources might melt away, the farm household always produced enough to prevent abject poverty. This fact had its importance for other industries as well. The farm was often a base of operations, on which individuals could fall back when other projects and occupations ended in disaster. In the Maritimes, agriculture, fishing and lumbering were closely allied. Everywhere the family and its relatives were a close economic unit; the various members helped one another when new enterprises were started or old ones failed. The material basis for this mutual welfare association was the family farm. </blockquote>

==Confederation==
{{Main|Canadian Confederation}}
[[File:Fathers of Confederation LAC c001855.jpg|thumb|1885 photo of [[Robert Harris (painter)|Robert Harris']] 1884 painting, ''Conference at Quebec in 1864''. The scene is an amalgamation of the Charlottetown and Quebec City conference sites and attendees, the [[Fathers of Confederation]].]]
The [[Seventy-Two Resolutions]] from the [[Quebec Conference, 1864|1864 Quebec Conference]] and [[Charlottetown Conference]] laid out the framework for uniting British colonies in North America into a federation.<ref name=Confederation/> The Resolutions became the basis for the [[London Conference of 1866]], which led to the formation of the Dominion of Canada on July 1, 1867.<ref name=Confederation>{{cite web |url=http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/confederation/index-e.html |title=Introduction |website=Canadian Confederation |publisher=[[Library and Archives Canada]] |date=January 9, 2006 |issn=1713-868X}}</ref> The term [[Name of Canada#Adoption of Dominion|''dominion'' was chosen]] to indicate Canada's status as a self-governing [[polity]] of the British Empire, the first time it was used about a country.<ref name="Heard">{{cite web|title = Canadian Independence |first1=Andrew |last1=Heard |url = https://www.sfu.ca/~aheard/324/Independence.html|publisher=Simon Fraser University |year = 1990 |access-date=April 10, 2010}}</ref> With the coming into force of the [[British North America Act, 1867]] (enacted by the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|British Parliament]]), Canada became a federated country in its own right.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/ceem-cced/symbl/101/102-eng.cfm| last=Department of Canadian Heritage| title=Ceremonial and Canadian Symbols Promotion: The crown in Canada| publisher=Queen's Printer for Canada| access-date=February 19, 2009| archive-date=August 27, 2011| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110827092532/http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/ceem-cced/symbl/101/102-eng.cfm| url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=Buck1>{{cite web| url=https://www.royal.uk/canada| publisher=The Royal Household| title=Canada|access-date=8 March 2025}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.saintjohn.nbcc.nb.ca/heritage/CorporateSeal/heraldry.htm |title=Heritage Saint John > Canadian Heraldry |publisher=Heritage Resources of Saint John and New Brunswick Community College |access-date=July 3, 2009 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110617120638/http://www.saintjohn.nbcc.nb.ca/heritage/CorporateSeal/heraldry.htm |archive-date=June 17, 2011 }}</ref> (According to James Bowden, writing in [[The Dorchester Review]], "Ottawa turned its back on 'Dominion' in the 1940s and 1950s," impelled by what historian C.P. Champion referred to as "neo-nationalism.")<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Bowden |first=J.W.J. |title='Dominion': A Lament |url=https://jameswjbowden.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/bowden-2015-the-death-of-the-dominion.pdf |magazine=The Dorchester Review |date=Autumn–Winter 2015}}</ref>
Federation emerged from multiple impulses: the British wanted Canada to defend itself; the Maritimes needed railroad connections, which were promised in 1867; [[English Canadians|English-Canadian]] [[Canadian nationalism|nationalism]] sought to unite the lands into one country, dominated by the English language and [[Loyalism|loyalist]] culture; many French-Canadians saw an opportunity to exert political control within a new largely French-speaking Quebec<ref name=Gwyn/><sup>pp.&nbsp;323–324</sup> and exaggerated fears of possible U.S. expansion northward.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://doi.org/10.1080/02722011.2017.1406965 | doi=10.1080/02722011.2017.1406965 | title=But There Was No War: The Impossibility of a United States Invasion of Canada after the Civil War | year=2017 | last1=MacKenzie | first1=Scott A. | journal=American Review of Canadian Studies | volume=47 | issue=4 | pages=357–371 | s2cid=148776615 | url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Heard"/> On a political level, there was a desire for the expansion of responsible government and elimination of the legislative deadlock between Upper and Lower Canada, and their replacement with provincial legislatures in a federation.<ref name="Heard"/> This was especially pushed by the liberal [[Reform movement (pre-Confederation Canada)|Reform movement]] of Upper Canada and the French-Canadian ''[[Parti rouge]]'' in Lower Canada who favoured a decentralized union in comparison to the Upper Canadian Conservative party and to some degree the French-Canadian ''[[Parti bleu]]'', which favoured a centralized union.<ref name="Heard"/><ref>{{cite book|first1=Paul |last1=Romney|title=Getting it Wrong: How Canadians Forgot Their Past and Imperiled Confederation|year=1999 |page=78|publisher=University of Toronto Press |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=gOqcacMkvX4C&pg=PA78|isbn=978-0-8020-8105-6|access-date=August 24, 2010}}</ref>

===Territorial expansion west (1867–1914)===
{{Main|Post-Confederation Canada (1867–1914)}}
{{see also|Territorial evolution of Canada}}
{{see also|Numbered Treaties}}
[[File:Canadian Pacific Railway Crew at lower Fraser Valley (1881).jpg|thumb|Construction for the [[Canadian Pacific Railway]] at the lower [[Fraser Valley]] in 1881]]
Using the lure of the [[Canadian Pacific Railway]], a transcontinental line that would unite the nation, Ottawa attracted support in the Maritimes and in British Columbia. 
In 1866, the Colony of British Columbia and the Colony of Vancouver Island merged into a [[Colony of British Columbia (1866–1871)|single Colony of British Columbia]]. After Rupert's Land was transferred to Canada by Britain in 1870, connecting to the eastern provinces, British Columbia joined Canada in 1871. In 1873, [[Prince Edward Island]] joined. Newfoundland—which had no use for a transcontinental railway—voted no in 1869, and did not join Canada until 1949.<ref>{{cite book |first1=J. M. |last1=Bumsted |title=The Peoples of Canada: A Post-Confederation History |publisher=Oxford University Press |date=1992 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195406900/page/8 8]–11 |isbn=978-0-1954-0914-7 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195406900|url-access=registration}}</ref>
[[File:Battle of Fish Creek.jpg|thumb|The [[Battle of Fish Creek]] in 1885 was a [[Métis people (Canada)|Métis]] victory over the [[Canadian Militia]] during the [[North-West Rebellion]]]]
In 1873, [[John A. Macdonald]] ([[List of Prime Ministers of Canada|First Prime Minister of Canada]]) created the [[North-West Mounted Police]] (now the [[Royal Canadian Mounted Police]]) to help police the [[Northwest Territories]].<ref name=rcmp/> Specifically the Mounties were to assert Canadian sovereignty to prevent possible American encroachments into the area.<ref name=rcmp>{{cite web|title=The RCMP's History|url=http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/index-eng.htm|publisher=Royal Canadian Mounted Police|date=2009|access-date=April 12, 2010|archive-date=March 2, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100302191141/http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/hist/index-eng.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> The Mounties' first large-scale mission was to suppress the second independence movement by [[Manitoba]]'s [[Métis people (Canada)|Métis]], a [[Mixed blood|mixed-blood]] people of joint First Nations and European descent, who originated in the mid-17th century.<ref name=testt>{{cite web
 |title=What to Search: Topics-Canadian Genealogy Centre-Library and Archives Canada 
 |work=Ethno-Cultural and Aboriginal Groups 
 |publisher=Government of Canada 
 |date=May 27, 2009 |url=http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogie/022-905.004-e.html 
 |access-date=October 2, 2009 |url-status=dead 
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141006095911/http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/genealogie/022-905.004-e.html 
 |archive-date=October 6, 2014}}</ref> The desire for independence erupted in the [[Red River Rebellion]] in 1869 and the later [[North-West Rebellion]] in 1885 led by [[Louis Riel]].<ref name=rcmp/><ref name=Boulton>{{cite book |last1=Boulton |first1=Charles A. |date=1886 |url=http://www.ourroots.ca/e/page.aspx?id=3718748 |title=Reminiscences of the North-West Rebellions |location=Toronto |publisher=The Grip Printing and Publishing |access-date=January 28, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160206075652/http://www.ourroots.ca/e/page.aspx?id=3718748 |archive-date=February 6, 2016 |url-status=dead}}</ref> Suppressing the Rebellion was Canada's first independent military action and demonstrated the need to complete the Canadian Pacific Railway. It guaranteed Anglophone control of the Prairies and demonstrated the national government was capable of decisive action. However, it lost the Conservative Party most of their support in Quebec and led to a permanent distrust of the Anglophone community on the part of the Francophones.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Thomas |last1=Flanagan |title=Riel and the Rebellion: 1885 Reconsidered |publisher=University of Toronto Press |date=2000 |pages=4–8 |edition=second |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4u4RGj742v0C&pg=PA4 |isbn=9780802082824}}</ref>
[[File:David Laird explaining Treaty 8 Fort Vermilion 1899 - NA-949-34.jpg|thumb|The [[lieutenant governor of the North-West Territories]] explaining the terms of [[Treaty 8]] to First Nations at [[Fort Vermilion]], 1899]]
As Canada expanded, the Canadian government rather than the British Crown negotiated treaties with the resident First Nations' peoples, beginning with ''[[Treaty 1]]'' in 1871.<ref>{{cite web |first=Gretchen |last=lbers |date=September 25, 2015 |title=Treaties 1 and 2 |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/treaties-1-and-2 |website=The Canadian Encyclopedia |access-date=June 3, 2021}}</ref> The treaties extinguished [[aboriginal title]] on traditional territories, created [[Indian reserves|reserves]] for the indigenous peoples' exclusive use, and opened up the rest of the territory for settlement. Indigenous people were induced to move to these new reserves, sometimes forcibly.<ref>{{cite book |last=Daschuk |first=James|page=123|title=Clearing The Plains: disease, politics of starvation, and the loss of Indigenous life |year=2019 |publisher=University of Regina Press |isbn=9780889776227}}</ref> The government imposed the ''[[Indian Act]]'' in 1876 to govern the relations between the federal government and the Indigenous peoples and govern the relations between the new settlers and the Indigenous peoples.<ref name="revparl_IndianAct2002">{{cite journal|url=http://www.revparl.ca/english/issue.asp?art=255&param=83|title=The Indian Act: An Historical Perspective|first1=John F. |last1=Leslie|journal=Canadian Parliamentary Review|volume=25|number=2|date=2002}}</ref> Under the ''Indian Act'', the government started the [[Canadian Indian residential school system|Residential School System]] to convert the Indigenous peoples to "industrious Christian Canadians" and extinguish native language and culture.<ref name="GordonWhite">{{cite journal|last1=Gordon |first1=Catherine E. |last2=White |first2=Jerry P. |title=Indigenous Educational Attainment in Canada |url=http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1195&context=iipj |journal=International Indigenous Policy Journal |date=June 2014 |volume=5 |issue=3 |doi=10.18584/iipj.2014.5.3.6 |doi-access=free |access-date=June 27, 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151130184321/http://ir.lib.uwo.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1195&context=iipj |archive-date=November 30, 2015}}</ref><ref name="IndigenousFoundations">{{cite web|title=The Residential School System|url=http://indigenousfoundations.arts.ubc.ca/the_residential_school_system/|website=Indigenous Foundations|publisher=UBC First Nations and Indigenous Studies|access-date=April 14, 2017}}</ref><ref name="Luxen">{{cite news|last1=Luxen |first1=Micah |title=Survivors of Canada's 'cultural genocide' still healing |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33001425 |access-date=June 28, 2016 |publisher=BBC |date=June 24, 2016 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160725181119/http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-33001425 |archive-date=July 25, 2016}}</ref>

In the 1890s, legal experts codified a framework of criminal law, culminating in ''[[Criminal Code (Canada)|The Criminal Code, 1892]]''.<ref>{{cite book |title=The Criminal Code, 1892 |publisher=Printed by Samuel Edward Dawson |location=Ottawa |year=1892 |url=https://archive.org/details/criminalcodevic00canagoog |author=Dominion of Canada}}</ref> This solidified the liberal ideal of "equality before the law" in a way that made an abstract principle into a tangible reality for every adult Canadian.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Ian |last1=McKay |title=The Liberal Order Framework: A Prospectus for a Reconnaissance of Canadian History |date=December 2000 |journal=Canadian Historical Review |volume=81 |issue=4 |pages=616–678 |doi=10.3138/chr.81.4.616|s2cid=162365787}}</ref> [[Wilfrid Laurier]] who served 1896–1911 as the Seventh Prime Minister of Canada felt Canada was on the verge of becoming a world power, and declared that the 20th century would "belong to Canada"<ref name=Herd>{{cite book |first1=John Herd |last1=Thompson |first2=Stephen J. |last2=Randall |title=Canada and the United States: ambivalent allies |publisher=University of Georgia Press |date=2008 |page=79 |isbn=978-0-8203-2403-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4KxDd4K1X-gC&pg=PA79}}</ref>

The [[Alaska boundary dispute]], simmering since the [[Alaska Purchase]] of 1867, became critical when gold was discovered in the [[Yukon]] during the late 1890s, with the U.S. controlling all the possible ports of entry. Canada argued its boundary included the port of [[Skagway, Alaska|Skagway]]. The dispute went to arbitration in 1903, but the British delegate sided with the Americans, angering Canadians who felt the British had betrayed Canadian interests to curry favour with the U.S.<ref name="D.M.L.FARR">{{cite encyclopedia |date=March 4, 2015 |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/alaska-boundary-dispute |title=Alaska Boundary Dispute |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |edition=online |access-date=January 17, 2016 |first1=D.M.L. |last1=Farr |archive-date=June 12, 2018 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612163203/https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/alaska-boundary-dispute/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

In 1905, [[History of Saskatchewan|Saskatchewan]] and [[History of Alberta|Alberta]] were admitted as provinces. They were growing rapidly thanks to [[Agriculture in Canada|abundant wheat crops]] that attracted immigration to the plains by [[Ukrainian Canadian|Ukrainians]] and Northern and Central Europeans and by settlers from the United States, Britain and eastern Canada.<ref name="AoC-dominion">{{cite web|title=Territorial evolution |work=Atlas of Canada |publisher=Natural Resources Canada |url=http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/reference/anniversary_maps/terr_evol |access-date=October 9, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070809154930/http://atlas.nrcan.gc.ca/site/english/maps/reference/anniversary_maps/terr_evol |archive-date=August 9, 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Canada: History |work=Country Profiles |publisher=Commonwealth Secretariat |url=http://www.thecommonwealth.org/YearbookInternal/145152/history/ |access-date=October 9, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071012021238/http://www.thecommonwealth.org/YearbookInternal/145152/history/ |archive-date=October 12, 2007}}</ref>

Laurier signed a reciprocity treaty with the U.S. that would lower tariffs in both directions. Conservatives under [[Robert Borden]] denounced it, saying it would integrate Canada's economy into that of the U.S. and loosen ties with Britain. The Conservative party won the [[1911 Canadian federal election]].<ref>{{cite book |first1=L. Ethan |last1=Ellis |title=Reciprocity, 1911: A Study in Canadian-American Relations |publisher=Yale University Press |date=1939 |url=https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=94573370 |access-date=August 29, 2017 |archive-date=November 3, 2004 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20041103011801/http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=94573370 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

== World Wars and Interwar Years (1914–1945)==
{{Main|Canada in the World Wars and Interwar Years}}

===First World War===
{{main|Military history of Canada during World War I}}
[[File:Crowds as soldiers leave Union Station 1914.jpg|thumb|A train filled with soldiers departs from Toronto's Union Station shortly after [[World War I]] began in 1914]]
The [[Canadian Forces]] and [[Canadians|civilian]] participation in the First World War helped to foster a sense of [[Canada – United Kingdom relations|British-Canadian nationhood]]. The highpoints of [[Military history of Canada during the First World War|Canadian military achievement during the First World War]] came during the [[Battle of the Somme|Somme]], [[Battle of Vimy Ridge|Vimy]], [[Second Battle of Passchendaele|Passchendaele]] battles and what later became known as "[[Canada's Hundred Days]]".<ref name="cook">{{Cite journal |last1=Cook |first1=Tim |title='A Proper Slaughter': The March 1917 Gas Raid at Vimy |journal=Canadian Military History |volume=8 |issue=2 |pages=7–24 |year=1999 |url=http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/back%20issues/CMH/volume%208/Issue%202/Cook%20-%20A%20Proper%20Slaughter%20-%20The%20March%201917%20Gas%20Attack%20at%20Vimy%20Ridge.pdf |access-date=April 10, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090327164336/http://www.wlu.ca/lcmsds/cmh/back%20issues/CMH/volume%208/Issue%202/Cook%20-%20A%20Proper%20Slaughter%20-%20The%20March%201917%20Gas%20Attack%20at%20Vimy%20Ridge.pdf |archive-date=March 27, 2009 }}</ref> The reputation Canadian troops earned, along with the success of Canadian flying aces including [[William George Barker]] and [[Billy Bishop]], helped to give the [[Canadian identity|nation a new sense of identity]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Bashow |first1=David |url=http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vo3/no3/doc/55-60-eng.pdf |title=The Incomparable Billy Bishop: The Man and the Myths |journal=Canadian Military Journal |volume=3 |issue=3 |date=Autumn 2002 |pages=55–60 |access-date=September 1, 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160202043503/http://www.journal.dnd.ca/vo3/no3/doc/55-60-eng.pdf |archive-date=February 2, 2016 }}</ref> The [[War Office]] in 1922 reported approximately 67,000 killed and 173,000 wounded during the war.<ref name="The War Office 1922 237"/> This excludes civilian deaths in war-time incidents like the [[Halifax Explosion]].<ref name="The War Office 1922 237">{{cite book |title=Statistics of the Military Effort of the British Empire During the Great War 1914–1920 |last=The War Office |author-link=War Office |year=1922 |publisher=Reprinted by Naval & Military Press |isbn=978-1-84734-681-0 |page=237}}</ref>

Support for Great Britain during the First World War caused a major [[Conscription Crisis of 1917|political crisis over conscription]], with [[Francophones]], mainly from Quebec, [[Military Service Act (Canada)|rejecting national policies]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.histori.ca/peace/page.do?pageID=278 |title=The Conscription Crisis of 1917 |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |access-date=August 10, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080122023740/http://www.histori.ca/peace/page.do?pageID=278 |archive-date=January 22, 2008 |url-status=dead }}</ref> During the crisis, large numbers of enemy aliens (especially German and Ukrainian immigrants) were put under government controls.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.lermuseum.org/ler/mh/wwi/homefront1917.html |title=Military History: First World War: Homefront, 1917 |publisher=Lermuseum.org |access-date=August 10, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100610150442/http://www.lermuseum.org/ler/mh/wwi/homefront1917.html |archive-date=June 10, 2010 }}</ref> The [[Liberal Party of Canada|Liberal party]] was deeply split, with most of its [[English Canadian|Anglophone]] leaders joining the [[Unionist Party (Canada)|unionist government]] headed by Prime Minister Borden, the leader of the [[Conservative Party of Canada (1867–1942)|Conservative party]].<ref name="Bothwell1998">{{cite book |first1=Robert |last1=Bothwell |title=Canada and Quebec: one country, two histories |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=IftRWNt_0bcC&pg=PA57 |year=1998 |publisher=University of British Columbia Press |isbn=978-0-7748-0653-4 |page=57}}</ref> The Liberals regained their influence after the war under the leadership of [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]], who served as prime minister with three separate terms between 1921 and 1949.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Robert Craig |last1=Brown |first2=Ramsay |last2=Cook |title=Canada, 1896–1921 A Nation Transformed |publisher=McClelland & Stewart |year=1974 |page=ch 13 |isbn=978-0-7710-2268-5 |url=https://archive.org/details/canada18961921na0000brow }}</ref>

===Women's suffrage===
{{further|History of Canadian women#Feminism and woman suffrage}}
{{See also|Canadian women during the world wars}}
When Canada was founded, women could not vote in federal elections. Women did have a local vote in some provinces, as in [[Canada West]] from 1850, where women owning land could vote for school trustees. By 1900 other provinces adopted similar provisions, and in 1916 Manitoba took the lead in extending full [[women's suffrage]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first1=Susan |last1=Jackel |first2=Dominique |last2=Millette |date=March 4, 2015 |url=http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/womens-suffrage/ |title=Women's Suffrage |encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |edition=online |access-date=January 17, 2016 |archive-date=February 25, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150225094612/http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com/en/article/womens-suffrage/ |url-status=dead }}</ref> Simultaneously suffragists gave strong support to the prohibition movement, especially in Ontario and the Western provinces.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=John H. |last1=Thompson |title='The Beginning of Our Regeneration': The Great War and Western Canadian Reform Movements |journal=Historical Papers |date=1972 |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=231 <!--|pp=227–245--> |doi=10.7202/030750ar |url=https://www.erudit.org/revue/hp/1972/v7/n1/030750ar.pdf|doi-access=free }}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |first1=Paul |last1=Voisey |title=The "Votes For Women" Movement |journal=Alberta History |date=Summer 1975 |volume=23 |issue=3 |pages=10–23 |url=http://peel.library.ualberta.ca/bibliography/9021.23.3/12.html}}</ref>
[[File:Canadian nurses voting 1917.jpg|thumb|Nursing sisters at the [[Canadian women during the World Wars|Canadian hospital in France during the First World War]] casting their votes for the 1917 general election]]
The ''[[Military Voters Act]]'' of 1917 gave the vote to British women who were war widows or had sons or husbands serving overseas. Unionist Prime Minister Borden pledged himself during the 1917 campaign to equal suffrage for women. After his landslide victory, he introduced a bill in 1918 for extending the franchise to women. This passed without division but did not apply to Quebec provincial and municipal elections. The women of Quebec gained full suffrage in 1940. The first woman elected to Parliament was [[Agnes Macphail]] of Ontario in 1921.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Catherine L. |last1=Cleverdon |title=The Woman Suffrage Movement in Canada: The Start of Liberation, 1900–20 |url=https://archive.org/details/womansuffragemov00clev |url-access=registration |edition=2nd |date=1974 |publisher=University of Toronto |isbn=978-0-8020-6218-5}}</ref>

===1920s===
====On the world stage====
[[File:William Orpen – The Signing of Peace in the Hall of Mirrors, Versailles 1919, Ausschnitt.jpg|thumb|upright=1.8|The German delegate is portrayed signing the peace treaties at the [[Paris Peace Conference (1919–1920)|Paris Peace Conference]], surrounded by [[Allies of World War I|Allied]] delegates. The Canadian delegate, [[George Eulas Foster|George Foster]] is visible in the back row (fourth from the left), in the [[Hall of Mirrors]] at the [[Palace of Versailles]]]]

Convinced that Canada had proven itself on the battlefields of Europe, Prime Minister Borden demanded that it have a separate seat at the [[Paris Peace Conference, 1919|Paris Peace Conference]] in 1919. This was initially opposed not only by Britain but also by the United States, which saw such a delegation as an extra British vote. Borden responded by pointing out that since Canada had lost nearly 60,000 men, a far larger proportion of its men, its right to equal status as a nation had been consecrated on the battlefield. British Prime Minister [[David Lloyd George]] eventually relented, and convinced the reluctant Americans to accept the presence of delegations from Canada, [[British Raj|India]], Australia, [[Dominion of Newfoundland|Newfoundland]], New Zealand, and South Africa. These also received their own seats in the League of Nations.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=L.F. |last1=Fitzhardinge |title=Hughes, Borden, and Dominion Representation at the Paris Peace Conference |journal=Canadian Historical Review |date=June 1968 |volume=49 |issue=2 |pages=160 <!--|pp=160–169--> |doi=10.3138/CHR-049-02-03 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Canada asked for neither reparations nor mandates. It played only a modest role in Paris, but just having a seat was a matter of pride. It was cautiously optimistic about the new League of Nations, in which it played an active and independent role.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Margaret |last1=McMillan |chapter=Canada and the Peace Settlements |editor-first=David |editor-last=Mackenzie |title=Canada and the First World War |date=2005 |pages=379–408 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=iqtjsLl292oC&pg=PA379 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |isbn=978-0-8020-8445-3}}</ref>

In 1922 British Prime Minister David Lloyd George appealed repeatedly for Canadian support in the [[Chanak crisis]], in which a war threatened between Britain and Turkey. Canada refused, leading to the fall of Lloyd George.<ref name="Dawson1959">{{cite book|first1=Robert |last1=MacGregor Dawson|title=William Lyon Mackenzie King: 1874–1923|year=1959|publisher=University of Toronto Press|pages=401–22}}</ref> The [[Department of External Affairs (Canada)|Department of External Affairs]], which had been founded in 1909, was expanded and promoted Canadian autonomy as Canada reduced its reliance on British diplomats and used its own foreign service.<ref name="HillikerCanada1990">{{cite book|first1=John |last1=Hilliker|author2=Institute of Public Administration of Canada|title=Canada's Department of External Affairs: The early years, 1909–1946|url=https://archive.org/details/canadasdepartmen0002hill|url-access=registration|year=1990|publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-0751-7|page=[https://archive.org/details/canadasdepartmen0002hill/page/n9 3]}}</ref> Thus began the careers of such important diplomats as [[Norman Robertson]] and [[Hume Wrong]], and future prime minister [[Lester Pearson]].<ref name="English1989">{{cite book|last1=English|first1=John|title=Shadow of Heaven: the Life of Lester Pearson|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=uxEVAAAAYAAJ|volume=One: 1897–1948|year=1989|publisher=Lester & Orpen Dennys|isbn=978-0-88619-165-8}}</ref>

In the 1920s, Canada set up a successful wheat marketing "pool" to keep prices high. Canada negotiated with the United States, Australia, and the Soviet Union to expand the pool, but the effort failed when the Great Depression caused distrust and low prices.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Jason |last1=McCollom |title='We Love You People Better than We Like Ourselves': Canada, the United States, Australia, the Soviet Union, and the International Wheat Pool Movement of the 1920s |journal=Agricultural History |year=2018 |volume=92 |issue=92.3 (2018) |pages=404–428 |doi=10.3098/ah.2018.092.3.404 |jstor=10.3098/ah.2018.092.3.404 }}</ref>

[[File:I'm Alone Canadian Ship.jpg|thumb|left|''[[I'm Alone]]'', a Canadian ship used to [[Rum-running|smuggle alcohol]] across the border during the alcohol prohibition era in the United States]] 
With prohibition underway in the United States, smugglers bought large quantities of Canadian liquor. Both the Canadian distillers and the U.S. State Department put heavy pressure on the Customs and Excise Department to loosen or tighten border controls. Liquor interests paid off corrupt Canadian border officials until the U.S. finally ended prohibition in 1933.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=John |last1=Willis |title=Tango along the Canadian–American Border in the 1920s |journal=American Review of Canadian Studies |issue=48.2 (2018) |pages=163–190}}</ref>

====Domestic affairs====
In 1921 to 1926, William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal government pursued a conservative domestic policy with the object of lowering wartime taxes and, especially, cooling wartime ethnic tensions, as well as defusing postwar labour conflicts. The Progressives refused to join the government but did help the Liberals defeat non-confidence motions. King faced a delicate balancing act of reducing tariffs enough to please the Prairie-based Progressives, but not too much to alienate his vital support in industrial Ontario and Quebec, which needed tariffs to compete with American imports. King and Conservative leader [[Arthur Meighen]] sparred constantly and bitterly in Commons debates.<ref>Dawson (1958) ch 14, 15</ref> The Progressives gradually weakened. Their effective and passionate leader, [[Thomas Crerar]], resigned to return to his grain business, and was replaced by the more placid [[Robert Forke]]. The socialist reformer [[J.&nbsp;S. Woodsworth]] gradually gained influence and power among the Progressives, and he reached an accommodation with King on policy matters.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Bruce |last1=Hutchison |title=The Incredible Canadian |year=1952 |pages=76–78}}</ref>
[[File:KingImperialConference.jpg|thumb|Prime Minister [[William Lyon Mackenzie King]] (left) at the [[1926 Imperial Conference]] in London. King sought to redefine the role of governor general at the conference, as a result of the [[King-Byng affair]] earlier that year.]]
In 1926 Prime Minister Mackenzie King advised the [[Governor General of Canada|Governor General]], [[Julian H.G. Byng, Viscount Byng of Vimy|Lord Byng]], to dissolve Parliament and call another election, but Byng refused, the only time that the Governor General has exercised such a power. Instead, Byng called upon Meighen, the Conservative Party leader, to form a government.<ref name="RussellSossin2009">{{cite book |first1=Peter H. |last1=Russell |first2=Lorne |last2=Sossin|title=Parliamentary Democracy in Crisis|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f9uIZ12yh-UC&pg=PT232|year=2009|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-1-4426-9337-1|page=232}}</ref> Meighen attempted to do so but was unable to obtain a majority in the Commons and he, too, advised dissolution, which this time was accepted. The episode, the [[King–Byng affair]], marks a constitutional crisis that was resolved by a new tradition of complete non-interference in Canadian political affairs on the part of the British government.<ref name="GillisR1986">{{cite book|first1=R. Peter |last1=Gillis |last2=Roach |first2=Thomas R. |title=Lost Initiatives: Canada's Forest Industries, Forest Policy, and Forest Conservation|url=https://archive.org/details/lostinitiativesc0000gill|url-access=registration|year=1986|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-313-25415-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/lostinitiativesc0000gill/page/219 219]}}</ref>

===Great Depression===
{{main|Great Depression in Canada}}
[[File:ReliefWorkHighway.jpg|thumb|Road construction between [[Kimberley, British Columbia|Kimberley]] and [[Wasa, British Columbia]] by Relief Project workers, 1934]]
Canada was hit hard by the worldwide [[Great Depression]] that began in 1929. Between 1929 and 1933, the gross national product dropped 40 per cent (compared to 37 per cent in the US). Unemployment reached 27 per cent at the depth of the Depression in 1933.<ref name=f1/> Many businesses closed, as corporate profits of {{CAD|396&nbsp;million}} in 1929 turned into losses of {{CAD|98&nbsp;million}} in 1933. Canadian exports shrank by 50% from 1929 to 1933. Construction all but stopped (down 82 per cent, 1929–33), and wholesale prices dropped 30%. Wheat prices plunged from 78c per bushel (1928 crop) to 29c in 1932.<ref name=f1>{{cite book |editor-first=M.C. |editor-last=Urquhart |title=Historical Statistics of Canada |year=1965 |issue=series F1-F13}}</ref>

[[File:YongeStreetMission.jpg|thumb|A crowd gathers for free food at the Yonge Street Mission in Toronto during the [[Great Depression]]]]

Urban unemployment nationwide was 19 per cent; Toronto's rate was 17 per cent, according to the census of 1931. Farmers who stayed on their farms were not considered unemployed.<ref>Canada, Bureau of the Census, ''Unemployment'' Vol. VI (Ottawa 1931), pp. 1, 267</ref> By 1933, 30 per cent of the labour force was out of work, and one-fifth of the population became dependent on government assistance. Wages fell as did prices. The worst hit were areas dependent on primary industries such as farming, [[Mining in Canada|mining]] and logging, as prices fell and there were few alternative jobs. Most families had moderate losses and little hardship, though they too became pessimistic and their debts became heavier as prices fell. Some families saw most or all of their assets disappear and suffered severely.<ref name="Berton2012">{{cite book|first1=Pierre |last1=Berton|title=The Great Depression: 1929–1939|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vuVOyizWolgC&pg=PP1|year=2012|publisher=Doubleday Canada|isbn=978-0-307-37486-8|pages=2–613}}</ref><ref name="Neatby2003">{{cite book|author-link1=H. Blair Neatby|first1=H. |last1=Blair Neatby|title=The Politics of Chaos : Canada in the Thirties|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MpmjZNrPqgoC&pg=PP1|year=2003|publisher=Dundurn|isbn=978-1-894908-01-6|pages=1–162}}</ref>

In 1930, in the first stage of the long depression, Prime Minister Mackenzie King believed that the crisis was a temporary swing of the business cycle and that the economy would soon recover without government intervention. He refused to provide unemployment relief or federal aid to the provinces, saying that if Conservative provincial governments demanded federal dollars, he would not give them "a five-cent piece."<ref>Neatby, ''William Lyon Mackenzie King'', 2:312, 318</ref> The main issue was the rapid deterioration in the economy and whether the prime minister was out of touch with the hardships of ordinary people.<ref name="Berton2012b">{{cite book|first1=Pierre |last1=Berton|title=The Great Depression: 1929–1939|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vuVOyizWolgC&pg=PP54|year=2012|publisher=Doubleday Canada|isbn=978-0-307-37486-8|page=54}}</ref><ref name="Morton1999">{{cite book |first1=Desmond |last1=Morton|title=Working People: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Labour Movement|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E_-19s_1NOYC&pg=PP139|year=1999|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-7554-7|page=139}}</ref> The winner of the 1930 election was [[Richard Bedford Bennett]] and the Conservatives. Bennett had promised high tariffs and large-scale spending, but as deficits increased, he became wary and cut back severely on Federal spending. With falling support and the depression getting only worse, Bennett attempted to introduce policies based on the [[New Deal]] of President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] (FDR) in the United States, but he got little passed. Bennett's government became a focus of popular discontent. For example, auto owners saved on gasoline by using horses to pull their cars, dubbing them [[Bennett Buggy|Bennett Buggies]]. The Conservative failure to restore prosperity led to the return of Mackenzie King's Liberals in the [[1935 Canadian federal election|1935 election]].<ref>{{cite book|first1=J. R. H. |last1=Wilbur|title=The Bennett New Deal: Fraud or Portent?|year=1968|publisher=Copp Clark |pages=78–112, 147–90}}</ref>

In 1935, the Liberals used the slogan "King or Chaos" to win a landslide in the 1935 election.<ref>H. Blair Neatby, ''William Lyon Mackenzie King: 1932–1939'' (1976) pp 143–48.</ref> Promising a much-desired trade treaty with the U.S., the Mackenzie King government passed the 1935 Reciprocal Trade Agreement. It marked the turning point in Canadian-American economic relations, reversing the disastrous trade war of 1930–31, lowering tariffs and yielding a dramatic increase in trade.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Boucher | first1 = Marc T. | year = 1985–1986 | title = The Politics of Economic Depression: Canadian-American Relations in the Mid-1930s | journal = International Journal | volume = 41 | issue = 1| pages = 3–36 | doi=10.2307/40202349| jstor = 40202349 }}</ref>

The worst of the Depression had passed by 1935, as the Government of Canada launched relief programs such as the ''National Housing Act'' and the National Employment Commission. The [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]] became a [[crown corporation]] in 1936. Trans-Canada Airlines (the precursor to [[Air Canada]]) was formed in 1937, as was the [[National Film Board of Canada]] in 1939. In 1938, Parliament transformed the [[Bank of Canada]] from a private entity to a crown corporation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bankofcanada.ca/about/who-we-are/ |title=Who we are |work=Bank of Canada |access-date=June 9, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611204829/http://www.bankofcanada.ca/about/who-we-are/ |archive-date=June 11, 2011 }}</ref>

One political response was a highly restrictive immigration policy and a rise in [[Nativism (politics)|nativism]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/readings/CanadaandJewishRefugeesinthe1930s.html|title=Quebec History|first=Claude|last=Bélanger|website=faculty.marianopolis.edu}}</ref>

[[File:Kamloops on to Ottawa.jpg|thumb|left|Strikers from unemployment relief camps on a train in [[Kamloops]], en route to Eastern Canada, 1935]]

Times were especially hard in western Canada, where a full recovery did not occur until the Second World War began in 1939. One response was the creation of new political parties such as the [[Canadian social credit movement|Social Credit movement]] and the [[Cooperative Commonwealth Federation]], as well as popular protest in the form of the [[On-to-Ottawa Trek]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The On-to-Ottawa Trek|url=https://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/calgary/onottawa.html|publisher=The University of Calgary (The Applied History Research Group)|year=1997|access-date=April 12, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090923010231/http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/calgary/onottawa.html|archive-date=September 23, 2009}}</ref>

===Statute of Westminster ===
{{main|Statute of Westminster, 1931}}
Following the [[Balfour Declaration of 1926]], the British Parliament passed the [[Statute of Westminster 1931|Statute of Westminster]] in 1931 which acknowledged Canada as coequal with the United Kingdom and the other [[Commonwealth realms]]. It was a crucial step in the development of Canada as a separate state in that it provided for nearly complete legislative autonomy from the Parliament of the United Kingdom.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/federal/1931.htm|title=The Statute of Westminster|publisher=Marianopolis College|first1=Claude |last1=Bélanger|year=2001|access-date = April 10, 2010}}</ref><ref>[https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1931/4/pdfs/ukpga_19310004_en.pdf ''Statute of Westminster, 1931''], 22 Geo. V, c. 4 (UK).</ref> Although the United Kingdom retained formal authority over certain Canadian constitutional changes, it relinquished this authority with the passing of the [[Canada Act 1982]] which was the final step in achieving full sovereignty.

===Second World War===
{{Main|Canada in World War II}}
[[File:QF 2 pounder HMCS Assiniboine a104057-v6.jpg|thumb|A [[HX convoys|convoy from Halifax]] en route to the UK, taken from {{HMCS|Assiniboine|I18|6}} in 1940]]

[[Military history of Canada during the Second World War|Canada's involvement in the Second World War]] began when Canada declared war on [[Nazi Germany]] on September 10, 1939, delaying it one week after Britain acted to symbolically demonstrate independence. Canada played a major role in supplying food, raw materials, munitions and money to the hard-pressed British economy, training airmen for the Commonwealth, guarding the western half of the [[North Atlantic Ocean]] against German [[U-boat]]s, and providing combat troops for the invasions of Italy, France and Germany in 1943–45.

Of a population of approximately 11.5&nbsp;million, 1.1&nbsp;million Canadians served in the armed forces in the Second World War.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=David |last1=Littlewood |title=Conscription in Britain, New Zealand, Australia and Canada during the Second World War |journal=History Compass |year=2020 |volume=18 |issue=18#4 (2020) |article-number=e12611 |doi=10.1111/hic3.12611 |doi-access=free }}</ref> Many thousands more served with the [[Canadian Merchant Navy]].<ref name="Johnston2008">{{cite book |first1=Mac |last1=Johnston|title=Corvettes Canada: Convoy Veterans of WWII Tell Their True Stories|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ig-A36yZ4rMC&pg=PT24|year=2008|publisher=John Wiley and Sons|isbn=978-0-470-15698-8|page=24}}</ref> In all, more than {{formatnum:45000}} died, and another {{formatnum:55000}} were wounded.<ref name=Sandler>{{cite book|first1=Stanley |last1=Sandler|title=Ground Warfare: H-Q|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=L_xxOM85bD8C&pg=PA159|year=2002|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-1-57607-344-5|page=159}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |author=Office of the Premier |url=http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/archive/2001-2005/2003OTP0034-000464.htm |title=PROVINCE DONATES $1&nbsp;Million TO HONOUR WW II VETERANS |publisher=.news.gov.bc.ca |year=2003 |access-date=August 8, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120528020035/http://www2.news.gov.bc.ca/archive/2001-2005/2003OTP0034-000464.htm |archive-date=May 28, 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref> Building up the [[Royal Canadian Air Force]] was a high priority; it was kept separate from Britain's [[Royal Air Force]]. The [[British Commonwealth Air Training Plan]] Agreement, signed in December 1939, bound Canada, Britain, New Zealand, and Australia to a program that eventually trained half the airmen from those four nations in the Second World War.<ref>C. P. Stacey, ''Arms, Men and Governments: The War Policies of Canada, 1939–1945'' (1970) pp 17–31</ref>

The [[Battle of the Atlantic]] began immediately, and from 1943 to 1945 was led by [[Leonard W. Murray]], from Nova Scotia. German U-boats operated in Canadian and Newfoundland waters throughout the war, sinking many naval and merchant vessels.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://naval.review.cfps.dal.ca/archive/1131599-7568616/vol1num1art5.pdf|title=The Battle of the Atlantic|publisher=Canadian Naval Review|year=2005|access-date=August 24, 2010 |url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091229133644/http://naval.review.cfps.dal.ca/archive/1131599-7568616/vol1num1art5.pdf|archive-date=December 29, 2009}}</ref> The [[History of the Canadian Army|Canadian army]] was involved in the failed [[Battle of Hong Kong|defence of Hong Kong]], the unsuccessful [[Dieppe Raid]] in August 1942, the [[Allied invasion of Italy]], and the highly successful [[Invasion of Normandy|invasion of France and the Netherlands]] in 1944–45.<ref>{{cite book|first1=Brereton |last1=Greenhous |first2=W. A. B. |last2=Douglas|title=Out of the Shadows: Canada in the Second World War|url=https://archive.org/details/outofshadowscana0000doug_u2z6|url-access=registration |year=1996|publisher=Dundurn Press Ltd.|isbn=9781554882601}} chapters 4, 6–9</ref>

[[File:William Lyon Mackenzie King voting on the introduction of conscription for overseas military service - 1942 - MIKAN 3193315.jpg|thumb|Canadian prime minister, [[William Lyon Mackenzie King|Mackenzie King]] voting on a plebiscite to introduce conscription for overseas service in 1942]]

On the political side, Mackenzie King rejected any notion of a government of national unity.<ref>{{cite book|first1=J. L. |last1=Granatstein|title=Canada's war: the politics of the Mackenzie King government, 1939–1945|url=https://archive.org/details/canadaswarpoliti0000gran|url-access=registration|year=1975|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=[https://archive.org/details/canadaswarpoliti0000gran/page/206 206–7]|isbn=978-0-19-540228-5}}</ref> The [[1940 Canadian federal election|1940 federal election]] was held as normally scheduled, producing another majority for the Liberals. The [[Conscription Crisis of 1944]] greatly affected unity between French and English-speaking Canadians, though was not as politically intrusive as that of the First World War.<ref name="FrancisFrancis2009c">{{cite book|first1=R. D. |last1=Francis |first2=Richard |last2=Jones |first3=Donald B. |last3=Smith|title=Journeys: A History of Canada|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GbbZRIOKclsC&pg=PA428|year=2009|publisher=Cengage Learning|isbn=978-0-17-644244-6|page=428}}</ref> 

During the war, Canada became more closely linked to the U.S. The Americans took virtual control of Yukon in order to build the [[Alaska Highway]], and were a major presence in the British colony of Newfoundland with major airbases.<ref>{{cite book |first=Galen Roger |last=Perras |title=Franklin Roosevelt and the Origins of the Canadian-American Security Alliance, 1933–1945: Necessary, but Not Necessary Enough |year=1998 |edition=online |url=https://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=27381179}}</ref> After the start of the war with Japan in December 1941, the government, in cooperation with the U.S., began the [[Japanese-Canadian internment]], which sent {{formatnum:22000}} British Columbia residents of Japanese descent to relocation camps far from the coast. The reason was intense public demand for removal and fears of espionage or sabotage.<ref name="Barman2007">{{cite book|first1=Jean |last1=Barman|title="The" West Beyond the West: A History of British Columbia|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JbYe6fCOSTAC&pg=PA266|access-date=May 21, 2013|year=2007|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-9309-7|pages=346–}}</ref> The government ignored reports from the RCMP and Canadian military that most of the Japanese were law-abiding and not a threat.<ref>Major General Ken Stuart told Ottawa, "I cannot see that the Japanese Canadians constitute the slightest menace to national security." quoted in Ann Gomer Sunahara, ''The Politics of Racism: The Uprooting of Japanese Canadians During the Second World War,'' (1981) pg. 23.</ref>

==Post-war era (1945–1960)==
{{Main|History of Canada (1945–1960)}}
[[File:St. Laurent and Walsh shake hands.jpg|thumb|Prime Minister [[Louis St. Laurent]] shakes hands with [[Albert Walsh]], after delegates from Canada and Newfoundland sign the agreement to admit the latter into Confederation]]

Prosperity returned to Canada during the Second World War and continued in the following years, with the development of [[Healthcare in Canada|universal health care]], [[Canada Pension Plan|old-age pensions]], and [[Veterans Affairs Canada|veterans' pensions]].<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |first1=C.P. |last1=Stacey |first2=Richard |last2=Foot |date=May 13, 2015 |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/second-world-war-wwii |title=World War II: Cost and Significance|encyclopedia=[[The Canadian Encyclopedia]] |publisher=[[Historica Canada]] |edition=online |access-date=January 17, 2016}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/i11/2 |title=Migration &#124; Multicultural Canada |publisher=Multicultural Canada |year=2008 |access-date=August 23, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://archive.today/20120904072655/http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/i11/2 |archive-date=September 4, 2012 }}</ref> The financial crisis of the Great Depression had led the Dominion of Newfoundland to relinquish responsible government in 1934 and become a [[Crown colony|crown colony ruled]] by a British governor.<ref>{{cite web|title=Dominion of Newfoundland|url=http://fcinternet.hwdsb.on.ca/~nathan.tidridge/S010EAA85.48/Dominion%20of%20Newfoundland.pdf|publisher=Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board|year=1999|access-date=April 13, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110810022941/http://fcinternet.hwdsb.on.ca/~nathan.tidridge/S010EAA85.48/Dominion%20of%20Newfoundland.pdf|archive-date=August 10, 2011}}</ref> In 1948, the British government gave voters three [[1948 Newfoundland referendums|Newfoundland Referendum]] choices: remaining a crown colony, returning to Dominion status (that is, independence), or joining Canada. The British and Canadian governments collaborated to ensure that joining the United States was not an option.<ref>Gwynne Dyer, [https://www.gov.nl.ca/publicat/royalcomm/research/Dyer.pdf "The Strategic Importance of Newfoundland and Labrador to Canada"], pp. 323–324 (research paper for the ''Royal Commission on Renewing and Strengthening Our Place in Canada'' (Government of Newfoundland, March, 2003).</ref> After bitter debate Newfoundlanders voted to join Canada in 1949 as a province.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Karl Mcneil | first1 = Earle | year =1998 | title = Cousins of a Kind: The Newfoundland and Labrador Relationship with the United States | journal = American Review of Canadian Studies | volume = 28 }}</ref>

The foreign policy of [[Canada in the Cold War|Canada during the Cold War]] was closely tied to that of the United States. Canada was a founding member of [[NATO]] (which Canada wanted to be a transatlantic economic and political union as well<ref>The Economist, May 9–15, 2009, pg 80, "A 60-year-old dream
"</ref>). In 1950, Canada sent combat troops to Korea during the [[Canada in the Korean War|Korean War]] as part of the United Nations forces. The federal government's desire to assert its [[territorial claims in the Arctic]] during the Cold War manifested with the [[High Arctic relocation]], in which Inuit were moved from [[Nunavik]] (the northern third of Quebec) to barren [[Cornwallis Island (Nunavut)|Cornwallis Island]];<ref name="McGrath2009">{{cite book|first1=Melanie |last1=McGrath|title=The Long Exile: A Tale of Inuit Betrayal and Survival in the High Arctic|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=7p3rBU6aDb0C|access-date=May 21, 2013|date=March 12, 2009|publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group|isbn=978-0-307-53786-7|pages=??}}</ref> this project was later the subject of a long investigation by the [[Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The High Arctic Relocation: A Report on the 1953–55 Relocation (Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples) |first1=René |last1=Dussault |first2=George |last2=Erasmus |publisher=Canadian Government Publishing |year=1994 |page=190 |url=http://www.fedpubs.com/subject/aborig/arctic_reloc.htm |access-date=June 20, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091001232453/http://www.fedpubs.com/subject/aborig/arctic_reloc.htm |archive-date=October 1, 2009 }}</ref>

In 1956, the [[History of United Nations peacekeeping|United Nations responded]] to the [[Suez Crisis]] by convening a [[United Nations Emergency Force]] to supervise the withdrawal of invading forces. The peacekeeping force was initially conceptualized by the Secretary of External Affairs and future Prime Minister [[Lester B. Pearson]].<ref name=nobel>{{cite web |url=http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1957/pearson.html |title=The Nobel Peace Prize 1957 |access-date=April 12, 2010|publisher=Nobel Foundation}}</ref> Pearson was awarded the [[Nobel Peace Prize]] in 1957 for his work in establishing the peacekeeping operation.<ref name=nobel/>
[[File:Bomarc on launch erector.jpg|thumb|A [[Royal Canadian Air Force]] [[CIM-10 Bomarc]] missile. Acquired as an alternative to the defunct [[Avro Arrow]] program, its adoption garnered controversy given its nuclear payload.]]
Throughout the mid-1950s, prime ministers [[Louis St. Laurent]] and his successor [[John Diefenbaker]] attempted to create a new, highly advanced jet fighter, the [[Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow|Avro Arrow]].<ref name=Avro>{{cite web|title=ADA-Avro Arrow Archives-AVRO CF-105 ARROW|url=http://www.avroarrow.org/AvroArrow/index.html|publisher=Arrow Digital Archives|year=2009|access-date=April 13, 2010|archive-date=February 20, 2010|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100220093241/http://www.avroarrow.org/AvroArrow/index.html|url-status=dead}}</ref> The controversial aircraft was cancelled by Diefenbaker in 1959. Diefenbaker instead purchased the [[BOMARC]] missile defence system and American aircraft. In 1958 Canada established (with the United States) the [[North American Aerospace Defense Command]] (NORAD).<ref>{{cite web|title=North American Aerospace Defence (NORAD)|url=http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/v2/hst/page-eng.asp?id=614|archive-url=https://archive.today/20120716194409/http://www.airforce.forces.gc.ca/v2/hst/page-eng.asp?id=614|url-status=dead|archive-date=July 16, 2012|publisher=Canada's Air Force (National Defence)|year=2009|access-date=April 13, 2010}}</ref>

There were voices on both left and right that warned against being too close to the United States. Few Canadians listened before 1957. Instead, there was wide consensus on foreign and defence policies from 1948 to 1957. Bothwell, Drummond and English state:

:That support was remarkably uniform geographically and racially, both coast to coast and among French and English. From the CCF on the left to the Social Credit on the right, the political parties agreed that NATO was a good thing, and communism a bad thing, that a close association with Europe was desirable, and that the Commonwealth embodied a glorious past.<ref name=bothwell>{{cite book|first1=Robert |last1=Bothwell |first2=Ian M. 
 |last2=Drummond |first3=John |last3=English|title=Canada Since 1945: Power, Politics, and Provincialism|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=DMaS5cb7s8QC&pg=PA131|year=1989|publisher=U of Toronto Press|page=131|isbn=9780802066725}}</ref>

However, the consensus did not last. By 1957 the Suez crisis alienated Canada from both Britain and France; politicians distrusted American leadership, businessmen questioned American financial investments; and intellectuals ridiculed the values of American television and Hollywood offerings that all Canadians watched. "Public support for Canada's foreign policy came unstuck. Foreign policy, from being a winning issue for the Liberals, was fast becoming a losing one."<ref name=bothwell/>

In 1960, the Government under John Diefenbaker passed the [[Canadian Bill of Rights]]. While this only applied to the federal government, it provided the groundwork for what became the [[Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms]] that was added to the Constitution in 1982.

==1960–1981==
{{Main|History of Canada (1960–1981)}}

In the 1960s, the [[Quiet Revolution]] took place in Quebec, overthrowing the old establishment which centred on the [[Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Quebec]] and led to modernizing of the economy and society.<ref name="AlexanderYoung2003">{{cite book|last1=Dickinson |first1=John Alexander |first2=Brian J. |last2=Young|title=A short history of Quebec|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=kRHmr-rDFrwC&pg=PA372|year=2003|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-7033-7|page=372}}</ref> [[Quebec nationalism|Québécois nationalists]] demanded independence, and tensions rose until violence erupted during the 1970 [[October Crisis]]. John Saywell says, "The two kidnappings and the murder of Pierre Laporte were the biggest domestic news stories in Canada's history."<ref>{{cite book|editor-first=John |editor-last=Saywell |title=Canadian Annual Review for 1970|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=B7cWPwAACAAJ|year=1971|publisher=University of Toronto Press|pages=3–152|isbn=9780802001528}}, quote on page 3.</ref><ref name=october>{{cite web |url=http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/chronos/october.htm |title=Chronology of the October Crisis, 1970, and its Aftermath – Quebec History |access-date=April 13, 2008}}</ref> In 1976 the [[Parti Québécois]] was elected to power in Quebec, with a nationalist vision that included securing [[Charter of the French Language|French linguistic rights]] in the province and the pursuit of some form of [[Quebec sovereignty movement|sovereignty for Quebec]]. This culminated in the [[1980 Quebec independence referendum|1980 referendum in Quebec]] on the question of [[sovereignty-association]], which was turned down by 59% of the voters.<ref name=october/>

[[File:Proclamation of the National Flag of Canada (January 1965).jpg|thumb|left|The proclamation for the national flag of Canada, issued in 1965.]]

In 1965, Canada adopted the [[flag of Canada|maple leaf flag]], although not without [[Great Canadian Flag Debate|considerable debate and misgivings]] among large number of English Canadians.<ref name="first flags">{{cite web|url=http://www.pch.gc.ca/pgm/ceem-cced/symbl/df5-eng.cfm|title=First "Canadian flags"|date=September 24, 2007|publisher=[[Department of Canadian Heritage]]|access-date=December 16, 2008}}</ref> The [[World's Fair]] titled [[Expo 67]] came to Montreal, coinciding with the [[Canadian Centennial]] that year. The fair opened on April 28, 1967, with the theme "Man and His World" and became the best attended of all [[Bureau of International Expositions|BIE]]-sanctioned [[List of world expositions|world expositions]] until that time.<ref>{{cite web
 |title        = Bid to hold the world's fair in Montreal |work = Expo 67 Man and His World |publisher= [[Library and Archives Canada]] |year= 2007 |url= http://www.collectionscanada.ca/expo/0533020101_e.html |access-date  = June 14, 2007 |archive-date = March 31, 2007 |archive-url  = https://web.archive.org/web/20070331230530/http://www.collectionscanada.ca/expo/0533020101_e.html |url-status   = dead }}</ref>

Legislative restrictions on Canadian immigration that had favoured British and other European immigrants were amended in the 1960s, opening the doors to immigrants from all parts of the world.<ref name="Shalla2006">{{cite book|first1=Vivian |last1=Shalla|title=Working in a global era: Canadian perspectives|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VQ1mvurCyTIC&pg=PA223|year=2006|publisher=Canadian Scholars' Press|isbn=978-1-55130-290-4|page=223}}</ref> While the 1950s had seen high levels of immigration from Britain, [[Irish-Canadian|Ireland]], [[Italian-Canadian|Italy]], and northern continental Europe, by the 1970s immigrants increasingly came from [[Indo-Canadian|India]], [[Chinese Canadian|China]], [[Vietnamese Canadian|Vietnam]], [[Jamaican Canadian|Jamaica]] and [[Canadians of Haitian ancestry|Haiti]].<ref name=Multicultural>{{cite web|title=Immigration Policy in the 1970s |url=http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/i2/10 |publisher=Canadian Heritage (Multicultural Canada) |year=2004 |access-date=April 12, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091105062130/http://multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/i2/10 |archive-date=November 5, 2009 }}</ref> [[Ethnic origins of people in Canada|Immigrants of all backgrounds]] tended to settle in the [[List of census metropolitan areas and agglomerations in Canada|major urban centres]], particularly Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.<ref name=Multicultural/>

During his long tenure in the office (1968–1979, 1980–1984), Prime Minister [[Pierre Trudeau]] made social and cultural change his political goals, including the pursuit of [[official bilingualism in Canada]] and plans for significant [[Amendments to the Constitution of Canada|constitutional change]].<ref name="Tushnet2009">{{cite book|first1=Mark |last1=Tushnet|title=Weak Courts, Strong Rights: Judicial Review and Social Welfare Rights in Comparative Constitutional Law|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OJ04DIfeTjUC&pg=PA52|year=2009|publisher=Princeton University Press|isbn=978-0-691-14320-0|page=52}}</ref> The west, particularly the [[Petroleum production in Canada|petroleum-producing provinces]] like Alberta, opposed many of the policies emanating from central Canada, with the [[National Energy Program]] creating considerable antagonism and growing [[western alienation]].<ref>
{{cite journal | first1 = Mary Elizabeth | last1 = Vicente | title = The National Energy Program | journal=Canada's Digital Collections | year = 2005 | url = http://www.abheritage.ca/abpolitics/events/issues_nep.html | access-date = April 26, 2008}}</ref> [[Multiculturalism in Canada]] was adopted as the official policy of the Canadian government during the prime ministership of Pierre Trudeau.<ref name="S.David1993">{{cite book|last1=Duncan |first1=James S. |last2=Ley |first2=David |title=Place, Culture, Representation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XsINAAAAQAAJ&pg=PA205|year=1993|publisher=Routledge|isbn=978-0-415-09451-1|page=205}}</ref>

==1982–2000==
{{Main|History of Canada (1982–present)}}
[[File:Every Canadian Needs A Copy.jpg|thumb|Printed copies of the ''[[Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms]]'' being handed out. The charter was enacted as a part of the ''[[Constitution Act, 1982]]''.]]
In 1981, the Canadian House of Commons and Senate passed a resolution requesting that the British Parliament enact a package of constitutional amendments which would end the last powers of the British Parliament to legislate for Canada and would create an entirely Canadian process for constitutional amendments. The resolution set out the text of the proposed Canada Act, which also included the text of the ''[[Constitution Act, 1982]]''.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3635&context=lcp|title=Text of the Resolution respecting the Constitution of Canada adopted by the House of Commons on December 2, 1981.}}</ref> The British Parliament duly passed the Canada Act 1982, the Queen granting [[Royal Assent]] on March 29, 1982, 115 years to the day since Queen Victoria granted Royal Assent to the ''Constitution Act, 1867''. On April 17, 1982, the Queen signed the Proclamation on the grounds of Parliament Hill in Ottawa bringing the ''Constitution Act, 1982'' into force, thus patriating the [[Constitution of Canada]].<ref>{{cite web |title=Constitution Acts, 1867 to 1982 |url=http://laws.justice.gc.ca/eng/Const/Const_index.html |publisher=Department of Justice Canada |year=2010 |access-date=April 10, 2010}}</ref> 

Previously, the main portions of the constitution had existed only as an act passed of the British parliament, though under the constitutional convention recognized in the [[Balfour Declaration of 1926]], it could not be altered without Canadian consent. Canada had established complete sovereignty as an independent country, with the Queen's role as monarch of Canada separate from her role as the British monarch or the monarch of any of the other Commonwealth realms.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.revparl.ca/27/2/27n2_04e_trepanier.pdf |title=Some Visual Aspects of the Monarchical Tradition |last1=Trepanier |first1=Peter |date=2004 |website=Canadian Parliamentary Review |access-date=February 10, 2017}}</ref>

In addition to the enactment of a constitutional amending formula, the ''Constitution Act, 1982'' enacted the ''[[Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms]]''. The Charter is a constitutionally entrenched [[bill of rights]] which applies to both the federal government and the provincial governments, unlike the earlier ''[[Canadian Bill of Rights]]''.<ref>{{cite news |title=The Night of Long Knives |work=Canada: A People's History |publisher=CBC |access-date=April 8, 2006 |url=http://www.cbc.ca/history/EPISCONTENTSE1EP17CH1PA3LE.html}}</ref> The [[Patriation|patriation of the constitution]] was Trudeau's last major act as Prime Minister; he resigned in 1984.
[[File:Air india 182.jpg|thumb|Memorial for [[Air India Flight 182]] in Toronto. The bombing of Air India Flight 182 is the largest mass killing in Canadian history]]
On June 23, 1985, [[Air India Flight 182]] was destroyed above the Atlantic Ocean by a bomb on board exploding; all 329 on board were killed, of whom 280 were [[Canadian nationality law|Canadian citizens]].<ref>{{cite news |title=In Depth: Air India: The Victims |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/airindia/victims.html |work=[[CBC News]] |year=2005 |access-date=April 14, 2010 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090413180825/http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/airindia/victims.html |archive-date=April 13, 2009}}</ref> The Air India attack is the largest mass [[Crime in Canada|murder in Canadian history]].<ref name="Gairdner2011s">{{cite book |first1=William D. |last1=Gairdner |title=The Trouble with Canada ... Still! a Citizen Speaks Out |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=mJpvibLL3RgC&pg=PA418 |year=2011 |publisher=BPS Books |isbn=978-1-926645-67-4 |page=418}}</ref>

The [[Progressive Conservative Party of Canada|Progressive Conservative]] (PC) government of [[Brian Mulroney]] began efforts to gain Quebec's support for the ''Constitution Act, 1982'' and end western alienation. In 1987, the [[Meech Lake Accord]] talks began between the provincial and federal governments, seeking constitutional changes favourable to Quebec.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Brian L. |last1=Scarfe |journal=Canadian Public Policy |title=The Federal Budget and Energy Program, October 28, 1980: A Review |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=1–14 |date=Winter 1981 <!--|pp=1–14--> |jstor=3549850 |doi=10.2307/3549850 }}</ref> The failure of the Meech Lake Accord resulted in the formation of a separatist party, [[Bloc Québécois]].<ref name="HarrisonFriesen2010">{{cite book|first1=Trevor W. |last1=Harrison |first2=John W. |last2=Friesen |title=Canadian Society in the Twenty-first Century: An Historical Sociological Approach|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EVGDUAP3LjAC&pg=PA73|year=2010|publisher=Canadian Scholars' Press|isbn=978-1-55130-371-0|page=73}}</ref> The constitutional reform process under Prime Minister Mulroney culminated in the failure of the [[Charlottetown Accord]] which would have recognized Quebec as a "[[distinct society]]" but was rejected in 1992 by a narrow margin.<ref name="BoschEspasa2010">{{cite book |first1=Núria |last1=Bosch |first2=Marta |last2=Espasa |first3=Albert |last3=Solé Ollé |title=The Political Economy of Inter-regional Fiscal Flows: Measurement, Determinants and Effects on Country Stability |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3fHMeJFikYkC&pg=PA374 |year=2010 |publisher=Edward Elgar Publishing |isbn=978-1-84980-323-6 |page=374}}</ref>

[[File:President Bush, Canadian Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and Mexican President Carlos Salinas participate in the... - NARA - 186460.jpg|thumb|Mexican President [[Carlos Salinas]], U.S. President [[George H. W. Bush]], and Canadian Prime Minister [[Brian Mulroney]] standing during the initial signing ceremony for the [[North American Free Trade Agreement]] in 1992]]

Under Brian Mulroney, [[Canada – United States relations|relations with the United States]] began to grow more closely integrated. In 1986, Canada and the U.S. signed the "Acid Rain Treaty" to reduce acid rain. In 1989, the federal government adopted the [[Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement]] (Agreement) with the United States despite significant animosity from the Canadian public who were concerned about the economic and cultural impacts of close integration with the United States.<ref name="Blake2007">{{cite book |first1=Raymond B. |last1=Blake |author-link1=Raymond B. Blake |title=Transforming the Nation: Canada and Brian Mulroney |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=f6KiHZe3KVgC&pg=PT42 |year=2007 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-7570-7 |pages=22–42}}</ref> The Agreement would later be replaced with the [[North American Free Trade Agreement]] (NAFTA) and its side agreement, the [[North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation]] in 1994.

On July 11, 1990, the [[Oka Crisis]] [[land rights|land dispute]] began between the [[Mohawk people]] of [[Kanesatake, Quebec|Kanesatake]] and the adjoining town of [[Oka, Quebec]].<ref>{{cite news |title=The Oka Crisis |url=http://archives.cbc.ca/politics/civil_unrest/topics/99/ |format=Digital Archives |publisher=[[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]] |year=2000 |access-date=April 16, 2010}}</ref> The dispute was the first of a number of well-publicized conflicts between First Nations and the Canadian government in the late 20th century. In August 1990, Canada was one of the first nations to condemn [[Iraq]]'s [[invasion of Kuwait]], and it quickly agreed to join the [[Operation FRICTION|U.S.-led coalition]]. Canada deployed destroyers and later a [[CF-18 Hornet]] squadron with support personnel, as well as a [[Canada Dry (Persian Gulf War)|field hospital]] to deal with casualties.<ref>{{cite web |title=Canada and Multilateral Operations in Support of Peace and Stability |url=http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/news/article.page?doc=canada-and-multilateral-operations-in-support-of-peace-and-stability/hnlhlxfi |publisher=National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces |date=February 27, 1998 |access-date=January 28, 2016 |archive-date=March 6, 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140306101200/http://www.forces.gc.ca/en/news/article.page?doc=canada-and-multilateral-operations-in-support-of-peace-and-stability%2Fhnlhlxfi |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Following Mulroney's resignation as prime minister in 1993, [[Kim Campbell]] took office and became Canada's first female prime minister.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/women/030001-1314-e.html |title=Kim Campbell |website=Celebrating Women's Achievements – Canadian Women in Government |publisher=[[Library and Archives Canada]] |date=September 16, 2010 |access-date=January 17, 2016}}</ref> Campbell remained in office for only a few months: the 1993 election saw the collapse of the Progressive Conservative Party from government to two seats, while the Bloc Québécois became the [[Official Opposition (Canada)|official opposition]].<ref>{{cite web |title=The Roots of Quebec Separatism |first1=Charles |last1=Moffat |url=http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/canada/quebec/The-Roots-of-Quebec-Separatism.html |publisher=The Lilith Gallery of Toronto |date=November 2007 |access-date=April 16, 2010 |archive-date=April 26, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150426232649/http://www.lilith-ezine.com/articles/canada/quebec/The-Roots-of-Quebec-Separatism.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Prime Minister [[Jean Chrétien]] of the Liberals took office in November 1993 with a [[majority government]] and was re-elected with further majorities during the [[1997 Canadian federal election|1997]] and [[2000 Canadian federal election|2000 elections]].<ref name="Dyck2011dfg">{{cite book |first1=Rand |last1=Dyck |title=Canadian Politics |edition=Concise fifth |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BUOoN8e5Ps0C&pg=PA211 |year=2011 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-0-17-650343-7 |page=211}}</ref>
{{Multiple image
| align             = left
|total_width=330
| image1            = Non au référendum 1995.png
| alt1              = 
| caption1          = "No" side
<!--image 2-->
| image2            = Oui1995referendum.jpg
| alt2              = 
| link2             = 
| thumbtime2        =
| caption2          = "Yes" side
| footer            = Campaign signs for both sides of the [[1995 Quebec referendum|1995 Quebec sovereignty referendum]]
}}
In 1995, the government of Quebec held a [[1995 Quebec referendum|second referendum on sovereignty]] that was rejected by a margin of 50.6% to 49.4%.<ref name="DickinsonYoung2008">{{cite book |first1=John A. |last1=Dickinson |first2=Brian |last2=Young |title=A Short History of Quebec |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=M4xttSld0noC&pg=PT21 |year=2008 |publisher=McGill-Queen's University Press |isbn=978-0-7735-7726-8 |page=21}}</ref> In 1998, the Canadian Supreme Court ruled [[Reference re Secession of Quebec|unilateral secession]] by a province to be unconstitutional, and Parliament passed the ''[[Clarity Act]]'' outlining the terms of a negotiated departure.<ref name="DickinsonYoung2008"/>

==2001–present==
{{main|History of Canada (1982–present)}}
Environmental issues increased in importance in Canada during the late 1990s, resulting in the signing of the [[Kyoto Accord]] on climate change by Canada's Liberal government in 2002. The accord was in 2007 nullified by Prime Minister Stephen Harper's Conservative government, which proposed a "made-in-Canada" solution to climate change.<ref>{{cite report |url=http://www.ec.gc.ca/doc/ed-es/p_123/CC_Plan_2007_e.pdf |title=A Climate Change Plan for the Purposes of the Kyoto Protocol Implementation Act – 2007 |publisher=Environment Canada |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-662-46496-9 |access-date=April 16, 2010}}</ref>

[[File:March of Hearts crowd on Parliament Hill 2004.jpg|thumb|The March of Hearts rally in support of same-sex marriage at [[Parliament Hill]] in 2004. Same-sex marriage was legalized in 2005 with the passage of the ''[[Civil Marriage Act]]''.]]

Canada became the fourth country in the world and the first country in the Americas to legalize [[Same-sex marriage in Canada|same-sex marriage nationwide]] with the enactment of the ''[[Civil Marriage Act]]'' in 2005.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Jason |last1=Pierceson |first2=Adriana |last2=Piatti-Crocker |first3=Shawn |last3=Schulenberg |title=Same-Sex Marriage in the Americas: Policy Innovation for Same-Sex Relationships |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=JbO-AAAAQBAJ&pg=PA169 |year=2010 |publisher=Lexington Books |isbn=978-0-7391-4657-6 |page=169}}</ref> Court decisions, starting in 2003, had already legalized [[same-sex marriage]] in eight out of ten provinces and one of three territories. Before the passage of the act, more than 3,000 same-sex couples had married in these areas.<ref>{{cite news |title=Canada passes bill to legalize gay marriage |url=http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/29/america/web.0629canada.php |publisher=The New York Times Company |year=2005 |access-date=April 10, 2010}}</ref>

The [[Canadian Alliance]] and PC Party merged into the [[Conservative Party of Canada]] in 2003, ending a 13-year division of the conservative vote. The party was elected twice as a minority government under the leadership of [[Stephen Harper]] in the [[2006 Canadian federal election|2006 federal election]] and [[2008 Canadian federal election|2008 federal election]].<ref name="Dyck2011dfg"/> Harper's Conservative Party won a majority in the [[2011 Canadian federal election|2011 federal election]] with the [[New Democratic Party (Canada)|New Democratic Party]] under [[Jack Layton]] forming the Official Opposition for the first time.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://enr.elections.ca/National_e.aspx |title=Preliminary Results |publisher=Elections Canada |access-date=May 3, 2011}}</ref>

Under Harper, Canada and the United States continued to integrate state and provincial agencies to strengthen security along the Canada–United States border through the [[Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative]].<ref name="KonradNicol2008">{{cite book |first1=Victor |last1=Konrad |first2=Heather N. |last2=Nicol |title=Beyond Walls: Re-inventing the Canada-United States Borderlands |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FqyaQJtAsDsC&pg=PA189 |year=2008 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing |isbn=978-0-7546-7202-9 |page=189}}</ref> From 2002 to 2011, [[Canada's role in the Afghanistan War|Canada was involved in the Afghanistan War]] as part of the [[War in Afghanistan (2001–2021)|U.S. stabilization force]] and the NATO-commanded [[International Security Assistance Force]]. In July 2010, the largest purchase in [[Military history of Canada|Canadian military history]], totalling {{CAD|9}}&nbsp;billion for the acquisition of 65 [[Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II|F-35 fighters]], was announced by the federal government.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-10667633 |title=Row over Canada F-35 fighter jet order |publisher=BBC News |date=July 16, 2010 |access-date=July 20, 2010}}</ref> Canada is one of several nations that assisted in the [[Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II#Canada|development of the F-35]] and has invested over {{CAD|168&nbsp;million}} in the program.<ref>{{cite news |first1=Laura |last1=Stone |url=https://vancouversun.com/business/Conservatives+purchase+fighter+jets/3286911/story.html |title=Conservatives announce $9B purchase of military fighter jets |work=Vancouver Sun |location=Canada |date=July 16, 2010 |access-date=July 20, 2010 |archive-date=July 19, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100719214633/http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Conservatives+purchase+fighter+jets/3286911/story.html |url-status=dead }}</ref>
[[File:TRC in the Community (Map 1) without captions.svg|thumb|Map with areas labelled where the [[Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada|Truth and Reconciliation Commission]] held outreach and statement-gathering events over the impact of [[Canadian residential schools|residential schools]] with the indigenous peoples]]
In 2008, the Government of Canada formally apologized to the indigenous peoples of Canada for the residential school system and the damage it caused.<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.cbc.ca/archives/entry/a-long-awaited-apology-for-residential-schools |title = A long-awaited apology for residential schools – CBC Archives}}</ref> The government set up the [[Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada]] that year to document the damage caused by the residential school system and the reconciliation needed to proceed into the future. It provided a "call to action" report in 2015.<ref name="calltoaction-pdf">{{Cite report|url=http://www.trc.ca/websites/trcinstitution/File/2015/Findings/Calls_to_Action_English2.pdf|title=Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: Calls to Action|publisher=Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012|quote=In order to redress the legacy of residential schools and advance the process of Canadian reconciliation, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission makes the following calls to action.|access-date=June 14, 2015}}</ref>

On 19 October 2015, Stephen Harper's Conservatives were defeated by a newly resurgent Liberal party under the leadership of [[Justin Trudeau]] and which had been reduced to third-party status in the 2011 elections.<ref>{{cite news |first1=Mark |last1=Gollom |url=http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canada-election-2015-voting-results-polls-1.3278537 |title=Justin Trudeau pledges 'real change' as Liberals leap ahead to majority government |work=[[CBC News]] |date=October 19, 2015 |access-date=November 13, 2015}}</ref>

Multiculturalism (cultural and ethnic diversity) has been emphasized in recent decades. Ambrose and Mudde conclude that: "Canada's unique multiculturalism policy&nbsp;... which is based on a combination of selective immigration, comprehensive integration, and strong state repression of dissent on these policies. This unique blend of policies has led to a relatively low level of opposition to multiculturalism".<ref name="Ambrose">{{cite journal |title=Canadian Multiculturalism and the Absence of the Far Right |journal=Nationalism and Ethnic Politics |volume=21 |issue=2 |page=213 |doi=10.1080/13537113.2015.1032033 |date=2015 |first1=Emma |last1=Ambrose |first2=Cas |last2=Mudde <!--|pp=213–236-->|s2cid=145773856 }}</ref><ref name="polls">{{cite web |url=http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/research/por-multi-imm/sec02-1.asp |title=A literature review of Public Opinion Research on Canadian attitudes towards multiculturalism and immigration, 2006–2009 |publisher=Citizenship and Immigration Canada |date=2011 |access-date=December 18, 2015}}</ref>

In 2013, the consumption of [[cannabis]] for medical reasons was legalized. In October 2018, the Canadian government under Justin Trudeau passed the ''[[Cannabis Act (Canada)|Cannabis Act]]'', legalizing the recreational use and sale of cannabis. Under the [[Cannabis in Canada|new law]], Canadians could consume cannabis and cannabis products in public, grow limited numbers of plants themselves, pardons for simple possession convictions were promised, while drivers could not have any traces of THC in their blood.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/marijuana-legalization-in-canada |publisher=The Canadian Encyclopedia |title=Cannabis Legalization in Canada |first1=John |last1=Tattrie |first2=Eli |last2=Yarhi |date= |accessdate=January 30, 2025}}</ref>

From January 2020 to May 2022, Canada was greatly impacted by the [[COVID-19 pandemic in Canada|COVID-19 pandemic]],<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Marchand-Senécal |first1=Xavier |last2=Kozak |first2=Rob |last3=Mubareka |first3=Samira |last4=Salt |first4=Natasha |last5=Gubbay |first5=Jonathan B |last6=Eshaghi |first6=Alireza |last7=Allen |first7=Vanessa |last8=Li |first8=Yan |last9=Bastien |first9=Natalie |last10=Gilmour |first10=Matthew |last11=Ozaldin |first11=Omar |date=March 9, 2020 |title=Diagnosis and Management of First Case of COVID-19 in Canada: Lessons applied from SARS |journal=Clinical Infectious Diseases |volume=ciaa227 |doi=10.1093/cid/ciaa227 |doi-access=free |last12=Leis |first12=Jerome A|issue=16 |pages=2207–2210 |pmid=32147731 |pmc=7108147 }}</ref> which caused over 40,000 deaths in the country, the third highest mortality toll in North America (behind the United States and Mexico).<ref>{{Cite news |date=June 23, 2022 |orig-date=First published March 13, 2020 |title=Tracking every case of COVID-19 in Canada |work=[[CTV News]] |publisher=[[Bell Media]] |url=https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/tracking-every-case-of-covid-19-in-canada-1.4852102 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200314034336/https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/coronavirus/tracking-every-case-of-covid-19-in-canada-1.4852102 |url-status=dead |archive-date=March 14, 2020 |access-date=June 24, 2022}}</ref>

On 28 April 2025, [[Mark Carney]]'s Liberals secured a third consecutive minority government, beating [[Pierre Poilievre]]'s Conservatives, a Liberal upset largely attributed to a rise in Canadian patriotism following United States President [[Donald Trump]]'s [[Movements for the annexation of Canada to the United States|threats to annex Canada]] and [[2025 United States trade war with Canada and Mexico|announcement of tariffs against the country]].

==Historiography==
{{main|Historiography of Canada}}
[[Conquest of 1760|The Conquest of New France]] has always been a central and contested theme of Canadian memory. Cornelius Jaenen argues:
:The Conquest has remained a difficult subject for French-Canadian historians because it can be viewed either as economically and ideologically disastrous or as a providential intervention to enable Canadians to maintain their language and religion under British rule. For virtually all Anglophone historians it was a victory for British military, political, and economic superiority which would eventually only benefit the conquered.<ref>Cornelius J. Jaenen, "Canada during the French regime", in D. A. Muise, ed. ''A Reader's Guide to Canadian History: 1: Beginnings to Confederation'' (1982), p.40.</ref>

Historians of the 1950s tried to explain the economic inferiority of the French Canadians by arguing that the Conquest:

{{blockquote|text=destroyed an integral society and decapitated the commercial class; leadership of the conquered people fell to the Church; and, because commercial activity came to be monopolized by British merchants, national survival concentrated on agriculture.<ref>{{cite book |first1=Carl |last1=Berger |title=The Writing of Canadian History: Aspects of English-Canadian Historical Writing Since 1900 |url=https://archive.org/details/writingofcanadia0000berg |url-access=registration |year=1986 |publisher=University of Toronto Press |pages=[https://archive.org/details/writingofcanadia0000berg/page/185 185]–186 |isbn=978-0-8020-6568-1}}</ref>}}

At the other pole, are those Francophone historians who see the positive benefit of enabling the preservation of language, religion, and traditional customs under British rule. French-Canadian debates have escalated since the 1960s, as the Conquest is seen as a pivotal moment in the history of Quebec's nationalism. Historian Jocelyn Létourneau suggested in the 21st century, "1759 does not belong primarily to a past that we might wish to study and understand, but, rather, to a present and a future that we might wish to shape and control."<ref>{{cite book |first1=Jocelyn |last1=Letourneau |chapter=What is to be done with 1759? |editor-first1=Phillip |editor-last1=Buckner |editor-first2=John G. |editor-last2=Reid |title=Remembering 1759: The Conquest of Canada in Historical Memory |publisher=University of Toronto Press |date=2012 |page=279 |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yiOOuORbGpAC&pg=PA279 |isbn=978-1-4426-4411-3}}</ref>

Anglophone historians, on the other hand, portray the Conquest as a victory for British military, political and economic superiority that was a permanent benefit to the French.<ref>Jaenen, "Canada during the French regime"  (1982), p. 40.</ref>

Allan Greer argues that [[Whig history]] was once the dominant style of scholars. He says the:
:interpretive schemes that dominated Canadian historical writing through the middle decades of the twentieth century were built on the assumption that history had a discernible direction and flow. Canada was moving towards a goal in the nineteenth century; whether this endpoint was the construction of a transcontinental, commercial, and political union, the development of parliamentary government, or the preservation and resurrection of French Canada, it was certainly a Good Thing. Thus the rebels of 1837 were quite literally on the wrong track. They lost because they ''had'' to lose; they were not simply overwhelmed by superior force, they were justly chastised by the God of History.<ref>{{cite journal |first1=Allan |last1=Greer |title=1837–38: Rebellion reconsidered |journal=Canadian Historical Review |issue=(1995) 76#1 |pages=1–18, quotation on page 3}}</ref>

==See also==
{{portal|border=no|Canada}}
* [[List of Canadian historians]]
*[[Canadian studies]]
;National historic significance
* [[Events of National Historic Significance]]
* [[National Historic Sites of Canada]]
* [[Persons of National Historic Significance]]
;History by topic
{{Canada provinces map|border=none|align=right|prefix =History of|the=the|map=Canada provinces evolution 2.gif|caption=History by province or territory}}
* [[Constitutional history of Canada]]
* [[Economic history of Canada]]
** [[History of rail transport in Canada]]
** [[Poverty in Canada]]
* [[History of Canadian newspapers]]
* [[History of Canadian sports]]
* [[History of cities in Canada]]
* [[History of education in Canada]]
* [[History of medicine in Canada]]
* [[Social history of Canada]]
* [[Liberalism in Canada]]
* [[Conservatism in Canada]]
* [[Social conservatism in Canada]]
* [[Populism in Canada]]

;Academia
* [[Canadian Journal of History]] 
*[[Canadian Historical Review]]
*[[Journal of Canadian Studies]];:Media
* [[Heritage Minutes]]
* [[History Trek]], Canadian History web portal designed for children
{{Clear right}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==Further reading==
{{main|Bibliography of Canadian history}}
{{further|List of Canadian historians}}
{{refbegin}}
* For an annotated bibliography and evaluation of major books, see  ''Canada: A Reader's Guide,'' (2nd ed., 2000) by J. André Senécal, [http://www.iccs-ciec.ca/pages/z_pdfs/reader_guide/12_hist.pdf online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201128135957/https://www.iccs-ciec.ca/pages/z_pdfs/reader_guide/12_hist.pdf |date=November 28, 2020 }}, 91pp.
* Argyle, Ray, ''Turning Points: The campaigns that changed Canada, 2004 and before.'' (2004) Scholarly analysis of 15 major national and provincial elections from 1866 to 2004. [https://archive.org/details/turningpointscam0000argy  online]

* Black, Conrad. ''Rise to Greatness: The History of Canada From the Vikings to the Present'' (2014), 1120pp [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/077101354X  excerpt]
* Brown, Craig, ed. ''Illustrated History of Canada'' (McGill-Queen's Press-MQUP, 2012), Chapters by experts
* Bumsted, J.M. ''The Peoples of Canada: A Pre-Confederation History''; ''The Peoples of Canada: A Post-Confederation History'' (2 vol. 2014), University textbook
* ''Chronicles of Canada Series'' (32 vol. 1915–1916) edited by G. M. Wrong and H. H. Langton [https://librivox.org/2006/10/14/chronicles-of-canada-series-menu/ online  detailed popular history]
* Conrad, Margaret, Alvin Finkel and Donald Fyson. ''Canada: A History'' (Toronto: Pearson, 2012)
* {{cite book |last1=Crowley |first1=Terence Allan |first2=Terry |last2=Crowley |first3=Rae |last3=Murphy |title=The Essentials of Canadian History: Pre-colonization to 1867—the Beginning of a Nation |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=-HQeJz8NOaMC&pg=PP1 |year=1993 |publisher=Research & Education Assoc. |isbn=978-0-7386-7205-2}}
* {{cite book |last1=Felske |first1=Lorry William |first2=Beverly Jean |last2=Rasporich |title=Challenging Frontiers: the Canadian West |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=tcAikMMDA8sC&pg=PP1 |year=2004 |publisher=University of Calgary Press |isbn=978-1-55238-140-3}}
* Granatstein, J. L. ''Prime ministers: Ranking Canada's leaders'' (1999) [https://archive.org/details/primeministersra0000gran  online] evaluates all 20 prime ministers from 1867 to 1999.

*  Granatstein, J. L., and Dean F. Oliver, eds. ''The Oxford Companion to Canadian Military History,'' (2011) [https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=34352 online review]. 
* {{cite book |last1=Francis |first1=R. D. |first2=Richard |last2=Jones |first3=Donald B. |last3=Smith |title=Journeys: A History of Canada |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GbbZRIOKclsC&pg=PP1 |year=2009 |publisher=Cengage Learning |isbn=978-0-17-644244-6}}
* {{cite book |first1=Arthur R. M. |last1=Lower |title=Canadians in the Making: A Social History of Canada |publisher=Longmans, Green |year=1958 |url=https://www.questia.com/library/107385/canadians-in-the-making-a-social-history-of-canada}}
* McNaught, Kenneth. ''The Penguin History of Canada'' (Penguin books, 1988)
*{{cite book |last1=Morton |first1=Desmond |title=A short history of Canada |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=beFgpa6lj-EC&pg=PP1 |year=2001 |publisher=McClelland & Stewart Limited |isbn=978-0-7710-6509-5}}
*{{cite book |last1=Morton |first1=Desmond |title=A Military History of Canada: from Champlain to Kosovo |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ui8ecMckv08C&pg=PP1 |year=1999 |publisher=McClelland & Stewart |isbn=9780771065149}}
* Norrie, Kenneth, Douglas Owram and [[J.C. Herbert Emery]]. (2002) ''A History of the Canadian Economy'' (4th ed. 2007)
* {{cite book |last1=Riendeau |first1=Roger E. |title=A Brief History of Canada |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CFWy0EfzlX0C&pg=PP1 |year=2007 |publisher=Infobase Publishing |isbn=978-1-4381-0822-3}}
* [[Charles Perry Stacey|Stacey, C. P.]] ''Arms, Men and Governments: The War Policies of Canada 1939–1945'' (1970), the standard scholarly history of WWII policies; [https://www.canada.ca/content/dam/themes/defence/caf/militaryhistory/dhh/official/book-1970-policies-ww2-en.pdf online free]
{{refend}}

===Scholarly article collections===
{{refbegin}}
* Bumsted, J. M. and Len Keffert, eds. ''Interpreting Canada's Past'' (2 vol. 2011)
* Conrad, Margaret and Alvin Finkel, eds. ''Nation and Society: Readings in Pre-Confederation Canadian History''; ''Nation and Society: Readings in Post-Confederation Canadian History'' (2nd ed. 2008)
* Francis, R. Douglas and Donald B Smith, eds. ''Readings in Canadian History'' (7th ed. 2006)
{{refend}}

===Primary sources and statistics===
{{refbegin}}
* Bliss, J.W.M. ''Canadian history in documents, 1763–1966'' (1966), 390pp  [https://archive.org/details/canadianhistoryi00blis online free]
* Crowe, Harry S. et al. eds ''A Source-Book of Canadian History: Selected Documents and Personal Papers'' (1964) 508pp  [https://www.questia.com/library/91233269/a-source-book-of-canadian-history-selected-documents online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612143052/https://www.questia.com/library/91233269/a-source-book-of-canadian-history-selected-documents |date=June 12, 2018 }}
* {{cite book |editor=Kennedy, W.P.M. |title=Documents of the Canadian Constitution, 1759–1915 |url=https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.499075 |year=1918 |publisher=Oxford UP }}; 707pp

* Leacy, F.H. ed. ''Historical statistics of Canada'' (2nd ed. Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 1983). 800 p. {{ISBN|0-660-11259-0}} [https://archive.org/details/31761117016865 online]

* Stewart Reid, J.H. ; et al., eds. (1964). ''A Source-book of Canadian History: Selected Documents and Personal Papers'' (Longmans Canada) [https://archive.org/details/sourcebookofcana0000hste/page/n7/mode/2up  online] 484pp; primary sources on more than 200 topics

* Talman, James J. and Louis L. Snyder, eds. ''Basic Documents in Canadian History'' (1959) [https://www.questia.com/library/3749594/basic-documents-in-canadian-history online] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612141604/https://www.questia.com/library/3749594/basic-documents-in-canadian-history |date=June 12, 2018 }} 192 pp
*  Thorner, Thomas ed. '' "A few acres of snow" : documents in pre-confederation Canadian history'' (2nd ed. 2003)  [https://archive.org/details/afewacresofsnowd00thor online free to borrow]
**  Thorner, Thomas ed. ''A country nourished on self-doubt : documents in post-confederation Canadian history'' (2nd ed 2003)  [https://archive.org/details/countrynourished00thor online free]

{{refend}}

===Historiography===
{{Main|Historiography of Canada#Further reading}}
{{refbegin}}
* Berger, Carl. ''Writing Canadian History: Aspects of English Canadian Historical Writing since 1900'' (2nd ed. 1986), 364pp evaluates the work of most of the leading 20th century historians of Canada.
* Careless, J. M. S. "Canadian Nationalism – Immature or Obsolete?" ''Report of the Annual Meeting of the Canadian Historical Association / Rapports annuels de la Société historique du Canada'' (1954) 33#1 pp: 12–19. [http://www.erudit.org/revue/ram/1954/v33/n1/300357ar.pdf online]
* McKercher, Asa, and Philip Van Huizen, eds. ''Undiplomatic History: The New Study of Canada and the World'' (2019) [https://www.amazon.com/Undiplomatic-History-Study-Canada-Rethinking/dp/077355694X/ excerpt].
* Muise D. A. ed. '' A Reader's Guide to Canadian History: 1, Beginnings to Confederation (1982); '' (1982) Topical articles by leading scholars
** Granatstein J.L. and Paul Stevens, ed. ''A Reader's Guide to Canadian History: vol 2: Confederation to the present'' (1982), Topical articles by leading scholars
* {{cite book|last1=Taylor |first1=Martin Brook |first2=Douglas |last2=Owram|title=Canadian History: A Reader's Guide: Beginnings to Confederation|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FamJrJEvymIC&pg=PP1|year=1994|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-6826-2}}; essays by experts evaluate the scholarly literature
** {{cite book|first1=Martin Brook |last1=Taylor |first2=Douglas |last2=Owram|title=Canadian history. 2. Confederation to the present|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HKmAjZJCJFoC&pg=PP1|year=1994|publisher=University of Toronto Press|isbn=978-0-8020-7676-2}}; essays by experts evaluate the scholarly literature
* Rich, E. E. "Canadian History." ''Historical Journal'' 14#4 (1971): 827–52. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638109 online].
{{refend}}

==External links==
{{Sister project links|History of Canada}}
* [http://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/ ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'']
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110605063141/http://www.pc.gc.ca/progs/lhn-nhs/recherche-search_e.asp?s=1 National Historic Sites of Canada] (archived June 5, 2011)
* [http://www.biographi.ca/index-e.html The Dictionary of Canadian Biography]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20140821200252/http://www.iccs-ciec.ca/blackwell.html Canadian Studies] – Guide to the Sources (archived August 21, 2014)
* [http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/QuebecHistory/encyclopedia/ The Quebec History encyclopedia] by Marianopolis College
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120101172721/http://www.histori.ca/default.do?page=.index The Historica-Dominion Institute], includes Heritage Minutes (archived January 1, 2012)
* [https://networks.h-net.org/h-canada H-CANADA, daily academic discussion email list]
* [https://acs-aec.ca/en/social-research/canadian-history-knowledge/ Canadian History & Knowledge] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180831160703/http://www.acs-aec.ca/en/social-research/canadian-history-knowledge/ |date=August 31, 2018 }} – [[Association for Canadian Studies]]
*[https://www.torontopubliclibrary.ca/books-video-music/specialized-collections/historical-baldwin.jsp Baldwin Collection of Canadiana] at [[Toronto Public Library]]

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