Quebec was first called Canada between 1534 and 1763. It was the most developed colony of New France as well as New France's centre, responsible for a variety of dependencies. Common themes in Quebec's early history as Canada include the fur trade — because it was the main industry — as well as the exploration of North America, war against the English, and alliances or war with Native American groups.
Religion in Canada encompasses a wide range of beliefs and customs. While Christianity was once central and integral to Canadian culture and daily life, Canada has become a secular and post-Christian state. Although the majority of Canadians consider religion to be unimportant in their daily lives, they still believe in God. The practice of religion is generally considered a private matter throughout society and the state. The constitution of Canada refers to God and the monarch carries the title of Defender of the Faith, however Canada has no official church and the government is officially committed to religious pluralism.
Irish Canadians are Canadian citizens who have full or partial Irish heritage including descendants who trace their ancestry to immigrants who originated in Ireland. 1.2 million Irish immigrants arrived from 1825 to 1970, and at least half of those in the period from 1831 to 1850. By 1867, they were the second largest ethnic group, and comprised 24% of Canada's population. The 1931 national census counted 1,230,000 Canadians of Irish descent, half of whom lived in Ontario. About one-third were Catholic in 1931 and two-thirds Protestant.
From 1942 to 1949, Canada forcibly relocated and incarcerated over 22,000 Japanese Canadians—comprising over 90% of the total Japanese Canadian population—from British Columbia in the name of "national security". The majority were Canadian citizens by birth and were targeted based on their ancestry. This decision followed the events of the Japanese Empire's war in the Pacific against the Western Allies, such as the invasion of Hong Kong, the attack on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, and the Fall of Singapore which led to the Canadian declaration of war on Japan during World War II. Similar to the actions taken against Japanese Americans in neighbouring United States, this forced relocation subjected many Japanese Canadians to government-enforced curfews and interrogations, job and property losses, and forced repatriation to Japan.
Ukrainian Canadians are Canadian citizens of Ukrainian descent or Ukrainian-born people who immigrated to Canada.
Canadian Jews, whether by culture, ethnicity, or religion, form the fourth largest Jewish community in the world, exceeded only by those in Israel, the United States and France. As of 2021, Statistics Canada listed 335,295 Jews in Canada. This total would account for approximately 1.4% of the Canadian population.
The Demographics of Montreal concern population growth and structure for Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The information is analyzed by Statistics Canada and compiled every five years, with the most recent census having taken place in 2021.
Italian Canadians are Canadian-born citizens who are fully or partially of Italian descent, whose ancestors were Italians who migrated to Canada as part of Italian diaspora, or Italian-born people in Canada. According to the 2021 Census of Canada, 1,546,390 Canadians claimed full or partial Italian ancestry. They comprise a subgroup of Southern European Canadians which is a further subgroup of European Canadians. The census enumerates the entire Canadian population, which consists of Canadian citizens, landed immigrants and non-permanent residents and their families living with them in Canada. Residing mainly in central urban industrial metropolitan areas, Italian Canadians are the seventh largest self-identified ethnic group in Canada behind French, English, Irish, Scottish, German and Chinese Canadians.
The Chinese Immigration Act, 1885 was an act of the Parliament of Canada that placed a head tax of $50 on all Chinese immigrants entering Canada. It was based on the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Chinese Immigration, which were published in 1885.
This is a bibliography of major works on the History of Canada.
Guernica Editions is a Canadian independent publisher established in Montreal, Quebec, in 1978, by Antonio D'Alfonso. Guernica specializes in Canadian literature, poetry, fiction and nonfiction.
Christl Verduyn is Professor of English Literature and Canadian Studies at Mount Allison University. She is the 2006 recipient of the Governor General's International Award for Canadian Studies, awarded by the International Council for Canadian Studies. She is cited in particular for the integration of her scholarship with the larger community and for exceptional contributions to the study of Canadian women's writing, in both English and French.
Canadians are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being Canadian.
Christianity is the most adhered-to religion in Canada, with 19,373,330 Canadians, or 53.3%, identifying themselves as of the 2021 census. The preamble to the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms refers to God. The French colonization beginning in the 17th century established a Roman Catholic francophone population in New France, especially Acadia and Lower Canada. British colonization brought waves of Anglicans and other Protestants to Upper Canada, now Ontario. The Russian Empire spread Orthodox Christianity in a small extent to the tribes in the far north and western coasts, particularly hyperborean nomads like the Inuit. Orthodoxy would arrive in mainland Canada with immigrants from the eastern and southern Austro-Hungarian Empire and western Russian Empire starting in the 1890s; then refugees from the Soviet Union, Eastern Bloc, Greece and elsewhere during the last half of the 20th century.
Giuseppe Sciortino is a lawyer and political activist in the Canadian province of Quebec. He has run for both the National Assembly of Quebec and the House of Commons of Canada.
Joseph Pivato is a Canadian writer and academic who first established the critical recognition of Italian-Canadian literature and changed perceptions of Canadian writing. From 1977 to 2015 he was professor of Comparative Literature at Athabasca University, Canada. He is now Professor Emeritus.
Toronto has a large Italian Canadian community, with 30.3 per cent of the ethnic Italians in Canada living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) as of 2021. Toronto is home to the fourth largest population of people of Italian descent after Buenos Aires, São Paulo and New York City, respectively. As of the Canada 2021 Census, there were 468,970 Italian Canadians located in the Greater Toronto Area, with 444,755 located within the Toronto CMA.
The history of Chinese Canadians in British Columbia began with the first recorded visit by Chinese people to North America in 1788. Some 30–40 men were employed as shipwrights at Nootka Sound in what is now British Columbia, to build the first European-type vessel in the Pacific Northwest, named the North West America. Large-scale immigration of Chinese began seventy years later with the advent of the Fraser Canyon Gold Rush of 1858. During the gold rush, settlements of Chinese grew in Victoria and New Westminster and the "capital of the Cariboo" Barkerville and numerous other towns, as well as throughout the colony's interior, where many communities were dominantly Chinese. In the 1880s, Chinese labour was contracted to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Following this, many Chinese began to move eastward, establishing Chinatowns in several of the larger Canadian cities.
Montreal's Jewish community is one of the oldest and most populous in the country, formerly first but now second to Toronto and numbering about 82,000 in Greater Montreal according to the 2021 census. The community is quite diverse and is composed of many different Jewish ethnic divisions that arrived in Canada at different periods of time and under differing circumstances.
Raymond Filip is a Lithuanian-Canadian poet and writer who was born in a displaced persons camp in Lübeck, Germany after World War II. He teaches in the English department at John Abbott College in Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec.
