Canada

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Indigenous Peoples

Indigenous peoples, designated in the census as “Aboriginal,” made up about 3.3 percent of Canada’s inhabitants at the beginning of the 21st century. They live across Canada in every province and territory, with about 45 percent concentrated in the Prairie provinces, according to the 2001 census. Less than half of Canada’s indigenous peoples live on reservations (or reserves). In the Arctic and sub-Arctic, where the climate has discouraged permanent European settlement, indigenous peoples are the majority. They divide themselves into nations, each with a traditional territory, language, and culture. The groupings and homelands have changed over time. For example, the Bearlake only became a nation in the 20th century; the Neutral and several neighboring nations were broken up in the 17th century; and the Sioux did not arrive in Canada until the 19th century.

The federal Indian Act recognizes four categories of indigenous people: Status Indians, who are registered on an official roll; Inuit; Métis, people of mixed European and indigenous heritage; and non-Status Indians, people of indigenous descent who are not on the official roll. For administrative purposes, indigenous peoples in Canada are also divided according to band. A band is the smallest indigenous political unit; there are about 600 bands in Canada, corresponding roughly to local indigenous communities.

The indigenous peoples speak many different languages, engage in different cultural processes, pursue economic well-being in diverse ways, and have created a variety of governing systems. Yet they have historically shared many characteristics and conditions of life. The land continues to have social and cultural significance for a large proportion of them. Their relation to the land has not been well understood by European Canadians.

Land and resource development has had social costs for indigenous people, particularly those living in the north. In the first place, it often destroys fragile physical environments. With the loss or reduction of traditional hunting and fishing lifestyles comes damage to indigenous identities and self-esteem. Furthermore, the economic benefits of development mostly accrue to developers rather than local people. Even where indigenous Canadians have negotiated a share in the profits, economic benefits tend to be only temporary while the social problems associated with a rapid influx of people and money are often of longer duration.

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Tensions have sometimes erupted into violence. The most serious confrontations have occurred in Oka, Québec, and Gustafson Lake, British Columbia, where armed standoffs with police lasted many days. Smaller incidents, such as blockades across access roads to resource sites, are becoming more common. Problems are generally related to disagreements over land use and ownership. The situation is unlikely to improve until land negotiations between governments and indigenous peoples are complete.

The Canadian government, through the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND), administers the Indian Act and other legislation relating to Status Indians. The department is responsible for meeting the federal government’s treaty obligations, negotiating with Status Indian communities regarding increased autonomy for these communities, supporting indigenous people’s economic development and self-sufficiency, and negotiating with them to resolve their land claims.

DIAND has begun transferring to indigenous reserves the responsibility of managing their own affairs. These communities now control the majority of all funding from Indian and Inuit Affairs, one of the four programs within DIAND. The program provides funds for housing; education; economic development; child, family, and adult care services; and other social services, including initiatives to prevent family violence and substance abuse.

Since 1986 the Canadian government has negotiated with indigenous communities to develop self-government. The first communities to do so created their own local political entities, which have municipal status and are accountable to an indigenous electorate. This model, however, is not accepted by all indigenous peoples. Some indigenous organizations have demanded a much broader set of powers that would recognize their inherent right to be self-governing, independent of the jurisdiction of the provinces.

In November 1992 Ottawa and the Inuit of the eastern Arctic signed a comprehensive agreement to resolve outstanding grievances. This agreement also authorized the new territory of Nunavut, which was created in 1999 from the eastern part of the Northwest Territories. In 2001 almost 90 percent of the people in Nunavut were Inuit (Nunavut is the Inuit word for “our land”). The territory became the first large political unit in North America with an indigenous majority. It is governed by its own legislative assembly, territorial court, and civil service.

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Blacks

Blacks, or African Canadians, have never been a major segment of the country’s population, but their history is interesting. Although King Louis XIV of France authorized the importation of slaves from the West Indies in 1689, few were brought to Canada or Acadia. Some refugees from the American Revolution (1775-1783) brought slaves north with them, and a greater number of blacks came as free persons, many of them having won their freedom by fighting for the British side in that conflict. Nova Scotia abolished slavery in 1787, as did Upper Canada (Ontario) six years later; their actions set precedents for the British Empire. When British troops burned Washington, the U.S. capital, in the War of 1812 (1812-1815), they brought back to Halifax many slaves who had sought refuge with them. Escape to Canada meant freedom, and thus it was a major destination of the so-called Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes by which U.S. abolitionists spirited slaves out of the American South. They transported many slaves into Canada, particularly to Chatham and Sarnia in Ontario. See also Slavery.

Blacks in Canada have generally been equal under the law, although Nova Scotia and Ontario formerly had legally segregated public schools, and the schools for blacks were often poorly funded. Traditionally, blacks have been employed in jobs that pay low wages. They remain among the poorest and worst educated of Canada’s citizens. Since an upsurge of civil rights activism in the 1960s, blacks have pressed for improvement of their condition, and their leadership has been enhanced by the addition of educated black immigrants from the Caribbean and Africa. Some urban black communities in Canada have had protests over police mistreatment of black people in recent decades, including in Toronto, Montréal, and Halifax.

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Immigrants

Immigrants accounted for about 18 percent of Canada’s population in 2001, and immigration has been a key force in the country’s growth since the beginning of the colonial era. For most of postcolonial history Canada’s immigration policy favored people of European descent. This practice was replaced in the 1960s by new rules classifying immigrants into three groups: refugees fleeing political persecution, family members of Canadian citizens, and independent immigrants (sometimes called “economic immigrants”). The last group is admitted under a point system, where they are allocated points for level of education, experience in the labor market, facility in one or both official languages, and so on. Those with enough points are allowed to become permanent residents and, three years later, Canadian citizens. The policy is designed so that half of Canada’s immigrants are family members or political refugees and half are economic immigrants.

Immigration to Canada often reflects international developments and trends. During the 1990s, for example, immigrants from Hong Kong accounted for 15 to 20 percent of all immigration to Canada in most of those years. This movement was related to the widespread concern in Hong Kong over the return of the colony to China in 1997. In 2004, 48.6 percent of Canada’s 235,824 new immigrants came from Asia and the Pacific Rim, 21 percent from Africa and the Middle East, 17.8 percent from Europe and the United Kingdom, 9 percent from South and Central America, and 3.2 percent from the United States. During the same year the top ten source countries for immigrants to Canada (in order) were China, India, Philippines, Pakistan, the United States, Iran, the United Kingdom, Romania, Korea, and France.

The federal government is required to consult the provinces each year on immigration policy. The government is also required to set an annual target figure for immigration, although it has been common in recent years to plan in five-year stages. In the early 21st century the targets were set at between 220,000 and 245,000 immigrants annually. Because of Canada’s low birth rate and aging population, some government officials pushed for raising the yearly target up to 1 percent of the Canadian population, or about 325,000 people per year.

Arriving immigrants require settlement services. These are provided by provincial and municipal governments and a variety of nongovernmental organizations. Much of the funding for these programs comes from the federal government. Services include temporary accommodation, language classes, and employment counseling.

The overwhelming majority of newcomers settle in cities, which has altered the ethnic compositions of large Canadian cities such as Toronto, Montréal, and Vancouver. Each of these cities has a different immigrant profile: Persons arriving from French-speaking countries are most likely to settle in Montréal, those from Latin America in Toronto, and those from the Pacific Rim in either Toronto or Vancouver. Certain resources in these cities have become strained, particularly the school systems. It is common, for example, for entire elementary classrooms in some parts of Vancouver to consist of recent immigrants from Asian countries. Beyond the cost of providing instructional programs in English as a second language, these cities are faced with the challenge of integrating diverse cultures. A number of problems have arisen, such as immigrants’ complaints of discrimination. Although some Canadians have pressured the government to cut back the annual immigration target, immigration is generally well supported.

In response to requests by various cultural groups, the Canadian government established a multicultural policy in 1971 that recognizes the changing composition of the Canadian population. This policy was intended to acknowledge the contribution of all groups that make up Canada and to signal that there is no official culture into which everyone is expected to assimilate. In 1972 a new position was added to the federal cabinet: the minister of state for multiculturalism. The federal Human Rights Act, passed in 1977, made discrimination on the basis of race, nationality, or ethnic origin illegal. In 1982 these rights were included in the new constitution, and in 1986 a program was established to ensure that minorities have equal access to federal employment.

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Religion

Most Canadians are Christians (about 75 percent in the 2001 census), although a rapidly growing number have no religious affiliation (16 percent). The remainder practice non-Christian Eastern religions, Judaism, indigenous traditions, or other forms of belief such as the New Age movement. The Roman Catholic Church is by far the largest single denomination, representing 43 percent of the Canadian population in 2001; approximately half of Roman Catholics live in Québec. The great majority of French Canadians are Roman Catholics. The next two largest denominations in 2001 were the United Church of Canada (10 percent), formed in the 1920s through a merger of Methodists, Congregationalists, and most Presbyterians; and the Anglican Church (7 percent). Other significant religious affiliations in Canada were Baptist (3 percent); Muslim (2.0 percent); Lutheran (2.0 percent); Protestant (1.9 percent); Presbyterian (1.4 percent); Pentecostal (1.2 percent); and Jewish (1.1 percent). Immigration from eastern and southern Asia in recent years has also brought increasing numbers of Buddhists, Hindus, and Sikhs.

Most religious groups are widely distributed across Canada, but some communities are concentrated in specific areas. For example, the Mennonites, the Hutterites, and the Ukrainian Orthodox are mainly located in the Prairie provinces, the majority of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) reside in Alberta, most Hindus live in Toronto, and most Sikhs live in Vancouver. In each of these cases, religious communities have created visible landscapes that add to the distinctiveness and variety of Canadian places. In Vancouver, for example, there are several Sikh temples that are each large enough to accommodate more than 1,000 worshippers at a service. The Vancouver area also has thriving Indo-Canadian shopping areas that specialize in traditional products of the Punjab, the district in India where Sikhism originated.

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Education

The educational systems in Canada derive from British, American, and—particularly in the province of Québec—French traditions. Students in Québec are taught in French unless specific conditions apply, for example, if their parents were taught in an English-language school in Québec. English is the principal language of instruction in other provinces and the territories, but there are exceptions. Many of New Brunswick’s schools are French-language schools, reflecting the high proportion of French Canadians in the province as well as the official policy of bilingualism there. French immersion programs, where students are taught almost completely in French, are also popular in many parts of the country.

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