Who became Canada's first woman MP, and in what year?

Agnes Macphail, in 1921 — Agnes Macphail, a farmer and teacher, in 1921.

How many Allied air crew were trained in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan?

Over 130,000 — Over 130,000. Canada contributed more to the Allied air effort than any other Commonwealth country.

Which battle did the Germans call "the black day of the German Army"?

The Battle of Amiens — The Battle of Amiens, on August 8, 1918.

On what date did the First World War end in Armistice?

November 11, 1918 — November 11, 1918, with Germany and Austria's surrender.

Who does Discover Canada call Canada's greatest soldier?

General Sir Arthur Currie — General Sir Arthur Currie, who commanded the Canadian Corps in the last hundred days of 1918.

In what year was the Bank of Canada created, and why?

1934, to manage the money supply and stabilize the financial system — 1934, as a central bank to manage the money supply and bring stability to the financial system.

In which battle did the Royal Canadian Navy see its finest hour?

The Battle of the Atlantic — The Battle of the Atlantic, protecting convoys of merchant ships against German submarines.

In what year did British Columbia join Canada?

1871 — 1871, after Ottawa promised to build a railway to the West Coast.

Canada's History

NotesQuestions

Aboriginal peoples

Europeans called the native peoples Indians because the first explorers thought they had reached the East Indies.
The Huron-Wendat of the Great Lakes region, like the Iroquois, were farmers and hunters.
The Cree and Dene of the Northwest were hunter-gatherers; the Sioux were nomadic, following the bison herd.
The Inuit lived off Arctic wildlife; West Coast natives preserved fish by drying and smoking.
Warfare was common among Aboriginal groups as they competed for land, resources and prestige.
Large numbers of Aboriginals died of European diseases to which they lacked immunity.
Aboriginals and Europeans formed strong economic, religious and military bonds in the first 200 years of coexistence, which laid the foundations of Canada.

The first Europeans

The Vikings from Iceland who colonized Greenland 1,000 years ago also reached Labrador and Newfoundland; the remains of their settlement, l'Anse aux Meadows, are a World Heritage site.
European exploration began in earnest in 1497 with John Cabot, the first to draw a map of Canada's East Coast.
Cabot, an Italian immigrant to England, set foot on Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island in 1497 and claimed the New Founde Land for England. English settlement did not begin until 1610.
Between 1534 and 1542, Jacques Cartier made three voyages across the Atlantic, claiming the land for King Francis I of France.
Cartier heard two captured guides speak the Iroquoian word kanata, meaning "village". By the 1550s the name Canada began appearing on maps.

Royal New France

In 1604, the first European settlement north of Florida was established by Pierre de Monts and Samuel de Champlain, first on St. Croix Island, then at Port-Royal in Acadia.
In 1608 Champlain built a fortress at what is now Québec City.
Champlain allied the colony with the Algonquin, Montagnais, and Huron, historic enemies of the Iroquois — a confederation of five (later six) First Nations. The French and the Iroquois made peace in 1701.
The French and Aboriginal people collaborated in the vast fur-trade economy, driven by demand for beaver pelts in Europe.
Leaders like Jean Talon, Bishop Laval and Count Frontenac built a French Empire in North America reaching from Hudson Bay to the Gulf of Mexico.

Struggle for a continent

In 1670, King Charles II of England granted the Hudson's Bay Company exclusive trading rights over the watershed draining into Hudson Bay.
The skilled men who travelled by canoe were called voyageurs and coureurs des bois, and formed strong alliances with First Nations.
In 1759 the British defeated the French in the Battle of the Plains of Abraham at Québec City — marking the end of France's empire in America.
Both commanders — Brigadier James Wolfe and the Marquis de Montcalm — were killed leading their troops.

The Province of Quebec

After the war Great Britain renamed the colony the "Province of Quebec". The French-speaking Catholic people were known as habitants or Canadiens.
The Quebec Act of 1774 is one of the constitutional foundations of Canada.
The Quebec Act allowed religious freedom for Catholics and permitted them to hold public office — a practice not then allowed in Britain.
The Quebec Act restored French civil law while maintaining British criminal law.

United Empire Loyalists

In 1776 the 13 British colonies south of Quebec declared independence and formed the United States.
More than 40,000 Loyalists fled the American Revolution to settle in Nova Scotia and Quebec.
Joseph Brant led thousands of Loyalist Mohawk Indians into Canada.
About 3,000 black Loyalists, freedmen and slaves, came north; in 1792 some black Nova Scotians moved on to establish Freetown, Sierra Leone.
Sir Guy Carleton (Lord Dorchester), as Governor of Quebec, defended the rights of the Canadiens, defeated an American invasion of Quebec in 1775, and supervised the Loyalist migration in 1782-83.

The beginnings of democracy

The first representative assembly was elected in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1758; Prince Edward Island followed in 1773 and New Brunswick in 1785.
The Constitutional Act of 1791 divided the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario) — mainly Loyalist, Protestant and English-speaking — and Lower Canada (later Quebec), heavily Catholic and French-speaking.
The 1791 Act granted the Canadas, for the first time, legislative assemblies elected by the people, and made the name Canada official.
The Atlantic colonies and the two Canadas were known collectively as British North America.

Abolition of slavery

In 1793, Upper Canada, led by Lieutenant Governor John Graves Simcoe, became the first province in the Empire to move toward abolition.
In 1807 the British Parliament prohibited the buying and selling of slaves, and in 1833 abolished slavery throughout the Empire.
Thousands of slaves escaped the United States, followed "the North Star" and settled in Canada via the Underground Railroad, a Christian anti-slavery network.
Simcoe was Upper Canada's first Lieutenant Governor and founder of the City of York (now Toronto).
Mary Ann (Shadd) Carey became the first woman publisher in Canada in 1853, helping found The Provincial Freeman.

A growing economy

The Hudson's Bay Company came to dominate the northwest trade from Fort Garry (Winnipeg) and Fort Edmonton to Fort Langley and Fort Victoria — trading posts that later became cities.
The Montreal Stock Exchange opened in 1832.
For centuries Canada's economy was based mainly on farming and on exporting natural resources such as fur, fish and timber.

The War of 1812

Believing it would be easy to conquer Canada, the United States launched an invasion in June 1812. The Americans were mistaken.
Canadian volunteers and First Nations, including Shawnee led by Chief Tecumseh, supported British soldiers in Canada's defence.
Major-General Sir Isaac Brock captured Detroit but was killed at Queenston Heights, near Niagara Falls — a battle the Americans lost.
In 1813 Lieutenant-Colonel Charles de Salaberry and 460 soldiers, mostly French Canadiens, turned back 4,000 American invaders at Châteauguay.
In 1813 the Americans burned York (now Toronto); in retaliation in 1814 Major-General Robert Ross led an expedition that burned the White House in Washington.
In 1813, Laura Secord made a dangerous 19-mile (30-km) journey on foot to warn Lieutenant James FitzGibbon of a planned American attack, contributing to victory at the Battle of Beaver Dams.
By 1814 the American attempt to conquer Canada had failed. The war ensured that Canada would remain independent of the United States, and the present-day border is partly its outcome.
The Duke of Wellington chose Bytown (Ottawa) as the endpoint of the Rideau Canal, and so played a direct role in founding the national capital.

Rebellions and responsible government

Armed rebellions occurred in 1837-38 outside Montreal and in Toronto; the rebels did not have enough public support and were defeated.
Lord Durham recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be merged and given responsible government — meaning ministers of the Crown must have the support of a majority of elected representatives in order to govern.
Durham also said the Canadiens should assimilate into English-speaking Protestant culture — a recommendation showing a complete lack of understanding of French Canadians.
In 1840 Upper and Lower Canada were united as the Province of Canada.
The first colony to attain full responsible government was Nova Scotia in 1847-48; in 1848-49 Lord Elgin introduced it in United Canada.
Sir Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine, a champion of democracy and French language rights, became the first leader of a responsible government in the Canadas, in 1849.
Under responsible government, if the government loses a confidence vote in the assembly it must resign — the system we have today.

Confederation

From 1864 to 1867, representatives of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada worked to establish a new country. They are known as the Fathers of Confederation.
They created two levels of government: federal and provincial. Each province would elect its own legislature and control areas such as education and health.
The British North America Act was passed in 1867 and the Dominion of Canada was officially born on July 1, 1867.
Until 1982, July 1 was celebrated as "Dominion Day"; today it is officially Canada Day.
Sir Leonard Tilley, a Father of Confederation from New Brunswick, suggested the term Dominion of Canada in 1864, inspired by Psalm 72 — "dominion from sea to sea".
In 1867 Sir John Alexander Macdonald became Canada's first Prime Minister. Born in Scotland on January 11, 1815, his portrait is on the $10 bill.
Sir George-Étienne Cartier was the key architect of Confederation from Quebec, leading Quebec into Confederation and helping negotiate the entry of the Northwest Territories, Manitoba and British Columbia.

Expansion of the Dominion

1867 — Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick.
1870 — Manitoba, Northwest Territories. 1871 — British Columbia. 1873 — Prince Edward Island.
1880 — transfer of the Arctic Islands. 1898 — Yukon Territory. 1905 — Alberta, Saskatchewan.
1949 — Newfoundland and Labrador. 1999 — Nunavut.

Challenge in the West

When Canada took over the northwest from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1869, the 12,000 Métis of the Red River were not consulted. Louis Riel led an armed uprising and seized Fort Garry.
Ottawa retook Fort Garry in 1870, Riel fled to the United States, and Canada established a new province: Manitoba.
A second rebellion in 1885 in present-day Saskatchewan led to Riel's trial and execution for high treason, strongly opposed in Quebec. Many see Riel as a hero and the father of Manitoba.
Macdonald established the North West Mounted Police in 1873; Regina became its headquarters. Today the RCMP are the national police force and one of Canada's best-known symbols.
Gabriel Dumont was the Métis' greatest military leader.

A railway from sea to sea

British Columbia joined Canada in 1871 after Ottawa promised to build a railway to the West Coast.
On November 7, 1885, Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona), director of the Canadian Pacific Railway, drove the last spike.
The railway was built by both European and Chinese labour. Afterwards the Chinese faced discrimination including the Head Tax, a race-based entry fee. Canada apologized in 2006.

Moving westward

One million British and one million Americans immigrated to Canada during the boom of the 1890s and early 1900s.
Sir Wilfrid Laurier became the first French-Canadian prime minister since Confederation and encouraged immigration to the West. His portrait is on the $5 bill.
Before 1914 the railway enabled 170,000 Ukrainians, 115,000 Poles and tens of thousands from Germany, France, Norway and Sweden to settle in the West.

The First World War

Over 7,000 Canadians volunteered in the South African War (1899-1902), the Boer War, and over 260 died.
More than 600,000 Canadians served in the First World War, most of them volunteers, out of a total population of eight million.
The Canadian Corps captured Vimy Ridge in April 1917, with 10,000 killed or wounded, securing the reputation of the "shock troops of the British Empire". April 9 is Vimy Day.
One Canadian officer said of Vimy: "In those few minutes I witnessed the birth of a nation."
From 1914 to 1920, Ottawa interned over 8,000 former Austro-Hungarian subjects, mainly Ukrainian men, as "enemy aliens" in 24 labour camps.
General Sir Arthur Currie, Canada's greatest soldier, commanded the Canadian Corps in the last hundred days, including the Battle of Amiens on August 8, 1918 — "the black day of the German Army".
The war ended in the Armistice on November 11, 1918. In total 60,000 Canadians were killed and 170,000 wounded.

Women get the vote

At Confederation the vote was limited to property-owning adult white males.
The founder of the women's suffrage movement in Canada was Dr. Emily Stowe, the first Canadian woman to practise medicine in Canada.
In 1916, Manitoba became the first province to grant voting rights to women.
In 1917 the federal government of Sir Robert Borden gave women the federal vote — first to nurses at the battle front, then to women related to men in active service.
In 1918, most Canadian female citizens aged 21 and over were granted the right to vote in federal elections.
In 1921 Agnes Macphail, a farmer and teacher, became the first woman MP. Quebec granted women the vote in 1940, thanks to Thérèse Casgrain and others.

Remembrance Day

Canadians remember the fallen each year on November 11: Remembrance Day.
Canadians wear the red poppy and observe a moment of silence at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, honouring over a million who served and the 110,000 who gave their lives.
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae composed "In Flanders Fields" in 1915.

Between the wars

After the First World War the British Empire evolved into the British Commonwealth of Nations; Canada remains a leading member.
The "Roaring Twenties" were boom times; the stock market crash of 1929 led to the Great Depression or the "Dirty Thirties".
Unemployment reached 27% in 1933. Farmers in Western Canada were hit hardest by low grain prices and a terrible drought.
The Bank of Canada, a central bank to manage the money supply, was created in 1934.
Immigration dropped and many refugees were turned away, including Jews fleeing Nazi Germany in 1939.

The Second World War

The war began in 1939 when Adolf Hitler, the Nazi dictator of Germany, invaded Poland.
More than one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served, out of a population of 11.5 million; 44,000 were killed.
Canadians suffered losses in the unsuccessful defence of Hong Kong (1941) and in the failed raid on Dieppe (1942).
On D-Day, June 6, 1944, 15,000 Canadian troops stormed and captured Juno Beach. Approximately one in ten Allied soldiers on D-Day was Canadian.
The Canadian Army liberated the Netherlands in 1944-45 and helped force the German surrender of May 8, 1945.
Over 130,000 Allied air crew were trained in Canada under the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.
The Royal Canadian Navy saw its finest hour in the Battle of the Atlantic. At the end of the war Canada had the third-largest navy in the world.
Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945 — the end of four years of war in the Pacific.
The war led to the forcible relocation of Canadians of Japanese origin and the sale of their property without compensation. The Government of Canada apologized in 1988 and compensated the victims.

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