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Prior to colonization, Indigenous peoples possessed rich and diverse healing systems. Settlers’ introduction of new and contagious diseases placed these healing systems under considerable strain. Europeans also brought profound social, economic and political changes to the well-being of Indigenous communities. These changes continue to affect the health of Indigenous peoples in Canada today. (See also Social Conditions of Indigenous Peoples in Canada and Economic Conditions of Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

This entry presents an overview of Quebec cinema, from the explosion that followed Denys Arcand’s Le déclin de l’empire américain (1986) to the setback that followed 10 years later and the new wave of filmmaking that emerged at the beginning of the 21st century. It highlights the most important films, whether in terms of box office success or international acclaim, and covers both narrative features and documentaries. It also draws attention to an aspect of filmmaking that still has difficulty finding its place: women's cinema.

Gifts of silver were presented and traded to Indigenous peoples in Canada by European fur traders. Trade silver was made by silversmiths in Quebec City, Montreal, London and various American cities, including New York, Philadelphia and Detroit. (See also Fur Trade in Canada and Trade Goods of the Fur Trade.)

Of all Christmas music Handel's Messiah has been the major work most frequently performed during the Christmas season across Canada.

The Heritage Minutes collection is a bilingual series of history-focused public service announcements. Each 60-second short film depicts a significant person, event or story in Canadian history. They are produced by Historica Canada, the not-for-profit organization that also publishes this encyclopedia. First released in 1991, the Heritage Minutes have been shown on television, in cinemas and online. They have become a recognizable part of Canadian culture. The collection currently includes 99 episodes.

Michif is a language spoken by Métis peoples mostly in parts of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, North Dakota and Montana. Michif is mainly a combination of Cree and French, but the language also borrows from English and other Indigenous languages, including Ojibwe. Michif is considered an endangered language. In 2016 Statistics Canada reported that 1,170 people identified as Michif speakers. While Michif is the most commonly spoken Métis language, it is not the only one; others include: French Cree, French Michif, Bungi and Brayet.

In Canadian English, the term "ethnic" has been used to designate those immigrants who do not belong to Canada's founding European cultures: the Catholic French and the Protestant Anglo-Celtic.

Music festivals generally consist of two types: competition and non-competition festivals; and opera or concert festivals.

Residential schools were government-sponsored religious schools created to assimilate Indigenous children into Euro-Canadian culture. Schools in the North were run by missionaries for nearly a century before the federal government began to open new, so-called modern institutions in the 1950s. This was less than a decade after a Special Joint Committee (see Indigenous Suffrage) found that the system was ineffectual. The committee’s recommendations led to the eventual closure of residential schools across the country.

With roots in the Indigenous community, Idle No More began in November 2012 as a protest against the introduction of Bill C-45 by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government. Formally known as the Jobs and Growth Act, this omnibus legislation affected over 60 acts, including the Indian Act, Navigable Waters Protection Act and Environmental Assessment Act. Idle No More activists argued that the Act’s changes diminished the rights and authority of Indigenous communities while making it easier for governments and businesses to push through projects without strict environmental assessment. The movement quickly gained supporters from across Canada (and abroad), and grew to encompass environmental concerns and Indigenous rights more generally.

Urban design can be applied to the whole city (as in KITIMAT), to well-defined units of the city (as in Don Mills in Toronto) and to individual streets and clusters of buildings. The earliest extant examples of urban design in Canada are designs for the whole city.

​The ex-gay movement, commonly referred to in popular culture by the phrase “pray the gay away,” is a predominantly conservative Christian movement that operates worldwide but is most prominent in the United States, Canada, Britain, and Australia.

In Canada, rural society has been shaped by geographic and cultural diversity and by population mobility.

“Hippies” is a term used to describe young people who participated in the 1960s counterculture movement, which originated in the United States and spread throughout Canada in the second half of that decade. As a noun, “hippie” was a play on the adjective “hip,” which was used to describe young bohemians who lived in Greenwich Village in New York City, and in San Francisco, in the 1950s and early 1960s. Hippies were part of the “baby boom” generation, born immediately following the end of the Second World War (see Baby Boomers in Canada). This demographic wave was significant enough to transform Canadian society; by the mid-1960s more than half of Canada’s population of 20 million was under the age of 25.

In 1982, Canada fully broke from its colonial past and “patriated” its Constitution. It transferred the country’s highest law, the British North America Act (which was renamed the Constitution Act, 1867), from the authority of the British Parliament to Canada’s federal and provincial legislatures. The Constitution was also updated with a new amending formula and a Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These changes occurred after a fierce, 18-month political and legal struggle that dominated headlines and the agendas of every government in the country.

The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.

Prime Minister Lester Pearson and John Matheson, one of his Liberal Members of Parliament, are widely considered the fathers of the Canadian flag. Their names were front and centre in 2015 during the tributes and celebrations to mark the 50th anniversary of the flag’s creation. But the role played by George Stanley is often lost in the story of how this iconic symbol came to be.

Family and relationships are important to most people, yet because they seem "natural" or are taken for granted, many people rarely think of them as an area of study and professional practice.

The Canadian disability rights movement arose in the latter half of the 20th century. It includes multiple social movements that take a similar but distinct approach advocating civil rights for almost four million people with physical, sensory and cognitive impairments — nearly 14 per cent of the Canadian population.

Marxism was brought to Canada by British worker intellectuals in the first years of the 20th century. It was the dominant ideology in the earliest socialist parties of Canada and was fully adopted by the COMMUNIST PARTY OF CANADA when it formed in 1921.