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The Chinese head tax was enacted to restrict immigration after Chinese labour was no longer needed to build the Canadian Pacific Railway. Between 1885 and 1923, Chinese immigrants had to pay a head tax to enter Canada. The tax was levied under the Chinese Immigration Act (1885). It was the first legislation in Canadian history to exclude immigration on the basis of ethnic background. With few exceptions, Chinese people had to pay at least $50 to come to Canada. The tax was later raised to $100, then to $500. During the 38 years the tax was in effect, around 82,000 Chinese immigrants paid nearly $23 million in tax. The head tax was removed with the passing of the Chinese Immigration Act in 1923. Also known as the Chinese Exclusion Act, it banned all Chinese immigrants until its repeal in 1947. In 2006, the federal government apologized for the head tax and its other racist immigration policies targeting Chinese people.

This is the full-length entry about the Chinese Head Tax. For a plain-language summary, please see Chinese Head Tax in Canada (Plain-Language Summary).

Language policy is comprised of a body of theory, principles, laws, programs and measures designed to manage one or more languages in a country. In monolingual societies, language policy is usually concerned with promoting an approved, standardized grammar of the common language. In bilingual or multilingual societies, it is intended to manage situations in which two or more languages are in contact and/or conflict, and to enhance the use and status of certain languages over others. Language policy in Canada has been designed to manage historical relationships among multiple languages – notably French, English and Indigenous languages - and their various communities. While it has evolved over time, Canadian language policy has not always been marked by positive or just measures.

The earliest settlers of Upper Canada were normally American immigrants, free to take up land and enjoy the privileges of British subjects upon giving an oath of allegiance to the Crown.

Wat Yanviriya was the first Thai BUDDHIST temple in Canada (wat means temple-monastery). In 1992 Lord Abbot Luang Phor Viriyang Sirintharo established Wat Yanviriya in a converted Christian church in East Vancouver.

The Ashkenaz Foundation is a community-based non-profit organization dedicated to fostering an increased awareness of Yiddish and Jewish culture through the arts. Ashkenaz places equal emphasis on the need for preservation and innovation within this cultural milieu.

Bannock is a form of bread that served as a staple in the diets of early settlers and fur traders. Most Indigenous nations in North America have some version of bannock. Inuit call it palauga, Mi’kmaq luskinikn, and Ojibwe ba‘wezhiganag. The word derives from the Gaelic bannach, meaning morsel, which in turn likely came from the Latin panis, which means bread. Bannock is usually unleavened, oval-shaped and flat. The version that we know today came from Scotland. In its most rudimentary form, it is made of flour, water, and fat or lard. Milk, salt, and sugar are often added, depending on the recipe. It is traditionally cooked by mixing the ingredients into a large, round biscuit and baked in a frying pan. Today, most often, bannock is baked in the oven, making it heavy and dense; or it is pan-fried, light and fluffy; or it is deep-fried.

Evangelism is an English word derived from the combination of the 2 Greek words euangelion and euangelizomai, meaning "good news," or "gospel"] and "to announce, proclaim, or bring good news.

The Knights of Labor, the leading labour reform organization in the late 19th century, played a key role in the development of the working-class consciousness in Canada. It was also an important player in the development of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and interceded with authorities to improve living standards for the working class. The movement fell victim to internal conflict and the successes of other unions, and began fading out at the end of the 1890s.

Religious music may be said to have begun in Canada with the arrival of the first settlers, though the indigenous peoples used music in a religious context prior to the 16th century.

The totem pole (also known as a monumental pole) is a tall structure carved out of cedar wood, created by Northwest Coast Indigenous peoples to serve variously as a signboard, genealogical record and memorial. Some well-known carvers include Mungo Martin, Charles Edenshaw, Henry Hunt, Richard Hunt and Stanley Hunt.

Founded in the United States in 1882 and arriving in Canada in 1897, the Knights of Columbus are a lay Catholic fraternal service organization committed to charity, unity, fraternity and patriotism. They are devoted to mutual aid through an internal insurance system, to the promotion of the Catholic Church, and to social welfare through community voluntarism and charitable public works.

It is the sign of a people's maturity when they begin to study their own history, language and culture.

Women’s movements (or, feminist movements) during the period 1985–present — sometimes referred to as third- or fourth-wave feminism — engaged in multiple campaigns, from employment equity and daycare, to anti-racism and ending poverty and violence against women.

Canadian Bible Society, was founded in 1904 to publish and distribute biblical scriptures and to make the bible available to all who could read it.

Named after Jakob Hutter, they were Anabaptists from Austria and south Germany who began to live communally in Moravia in 1529. After much persecution they emigrated to Russia in 1770 and thence to the USA ca 1870.

The Wartime Elections Act of 1917 gave the vote to female relatives of Canadian soldiers serving overseas in the First World War. It also took the vote away from many Canadians who had immigrated from “enemy” countries. The Act was passed by Prime Minister Robert Borden’s Conservative government in an attempt to gain votes in the 1917 election. It ended up costing the Conservatives support among certain groups for years to come. The Act has a contentious legacy. It granted many women the right to vote, but it also legitimized in law many anti-immigrant sentiments.

The word Eskimo is an offensive term that has been used historically to describe the Inuit throughout their homeland, Inuit Nunangat, in the arctic regions of Alaska, Greenland and Canada, as well as the Yupik of Alaska and northeastern Russia, and the Inupiat of Alaska. Considered derogatory in Canada, the term was once used extensively in popular culture and by researchers, writers and the general public throughout the world. ( See also Arctic Indigenous Peoples and Inuit.)

Pacifism is an outlook based upon religious or humanitarian belief that condemns war and social violence as inhuman and irrational, if not absolutely and always morally wrong, and therefore demands personal nonparticipation in war or violent revolution as well as a commitment to nonviolent methods of resolving conflicts. 

The first Buddhists to set foot in Canada were likely Japanese and Chinese labourers who came to work on the railroads and in the mines in the 19th century. However, it was Japanese Canadians who first established institutional Buddhism in this country. In 2006, the Parliament of Canada voted unanimously to make His Holiness the Dalai Lama an honorary Canadian citizen. In the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS), 366, 830 Canadians identified as Buddhist.