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The Canadian Bill of Rights was the country’s first federal law to protect human rights and freedoms. It was groundbreaking when it was passed in 1960. But it proved too limited and ineffective. It applies only to federal statutes and not provincial ones. This is because the Bill did not receive provincial consent. The Bill is still in effect. But it was overridden by the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982. Unlike the Charter, the Bill of Rights is not part of the Constitution.

This article is a plain-language summary of the Canadian Bill of Rights. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry, Canadian Bill of Rights.

The Canadian Forces School of Music was established as the Royal Canadian Navy School of Music (École de musique de la Marine royale du Canada) in Esquimalt, BC, in 1954 to provide musicians for Canadian Navy bands. In 1961, it expanded to accommodate trainees for Army and Air Force bands. With the unification of the Armed Forces in 1968, it became the Canadian Forces School of Music (CFSM). Now known as the Canadian Forces Logistics Training Centre Music Division, the school has been located at CFB Borden near Barrie, Ontario, since 1987.

Canada has seven primary vegetation regions, in addition to the marine flora found along the country’s coasts. Vegetation regions are geographical areas characterized by distinct plant communities. Community composition, determined primarily by climate (e.g., temperature, precipitation and sunlight), may be affected by factors such as geology, soil composition and erosion, water drainage patterns and human interference. Each vegetation region supports a characteristic animal community that may also affect its composition.

This is a full-length entry about Vegetation Regions. For a plain-language summary, please see Vegetation Regions (Plain-Language Summary).

COVID-19 vaccines were the first vaccines to be developed, tested, produced and delivered amid a global pandemic (see Covid-19 Pandemic in Canada). As the typical vaccine development, testing and regulatory approval process can take anywhere from 10 to 15 years, several distinctive strategies, coupled with previous research work in key areas, combined to expedite the approval of COVID-19 vaccines, especially messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA)-based vaccines. Among the most significant of this previous work was the research undertaken by the team of Pieter Cullis, Michael Hope and Thomas Madden at the University of British Columbia that began in the early 1980s. Their work, which focused on studying and developing lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), as well as pioneering the technology to produce them, provided the key to making COVID-19 mRNA vaccines possible.

An astronaut is an individual involved in flight beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. Since the National Research Council of Canada held its first recruitment campaign in 1983, 14 Canadians have completed astronaut training and nine have participated in 17 missions to space. Specifically, they have flown as payload specialists, mission specialists, and flight engineers on NASA shuttle flights and expeditions to the International Space Station (ISS). Canadian astronauts have played key roles in repairing satellites and building the ISS using the Canadarm and Canadarm2 robotic technologies, and have advanced scientific knowledge by conducting a variety of experiments in space. (See also Robotics in Canada; Space Technology.)

Established in 1990, the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) promotes the peaceful use and development of space for the social and economic benefit of Canadians. It also coordinates federal government contributions to the CSA’s various partners in Canada and abroad. The agency’s current mandate includes the Canadian astronaut program, satellite development, space science and technology programs, space stations and robotics.

Click here for definitions of key terms used in this article.

Ville-Marie was a French colony founded on 17 May 1642 on the Island of Montreal by the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal to bring Christianity to local Indigenous peoples. The colony was located in a key region for the development of agriculture and the fur trade. The colony became the modern-day city of Montreal.

The Fowler’s toad (Anaxyrus fowleri) is a medium-sized, earthen-coloured toad that is native to Eastern North America. In Canada, Fowler’s toads are only found in a few small areas along the north shore of Lake Erie. This species lives in places with sandy or gravelly soils into which individuals can burrow; Fowler’s toads spend much of their time underground. Due to small and declining populations, the Fowler’s toad is endangered in 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 100 episodes.

The Canadian International Council is a public policy think tank dedicated to the discussion and analysis of Canada’s international affairs. It was founded as the Canadian Institute of International Affairs (CIIA) in 1928 by Sir Robert Borden, Sir Arthur Currie, John W. Dafoe and Sir Joseph Flavelle. The organization investigates the important and relevant issues of the day. It seeks to present a diversity of opinions on subjects such as Canada's participation in conflict, relations with the United States, and responsible citizenship in a global community.

The giant beaver (Castoroides ohioensis) is an extinct rodent that lived in North America between 1.4 million and 10,000 years ago. It was a distant cousin to modern beavers, but in many ways may have been more similar to modern capybaras. The giant beaver was one of the largest rodents ever to roam the Earth, and one of approximately 30 extinct genera of beavers. Only two beaver species survive today: the North American beaver and the Eurasian beaver. The giant beaver received its scientific name after remains were found in 1837 in Ohio. In Canada, giant beaver fossils have been found on Indian Island, New Brunswick; in Toronto and near Highgate, Ontario; and in Old Crow Basin, Yukon. They live on in the oral history of many Indigenous peoples, including the Innu, Seneca, eastern Cree, Chippewa and Vuntut Gwitchin.

The American mastodon (Mammut americanum) is an extinct species of proboscidean. Although they likely resembled mammoths and elephants in external appearance, American mastodons belong to the taxonomic family Mammutidae and mammoths and elephants to Elephantidae. The earliest record of the American mastodon dates to about 3.75 million years ago, and comes from south-central Washington in the United States. In Canada, fossil evidence of American mastodons is restricted to the latter portions of the Pleistocene epoch (2.68 million–10,000 years ago). American mastodons lived across much of Canada. Paleontologists have found fossils in Yukon, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick. Later records of mastodons in Canada overlap in time with archaeological records of Indigenous people. However, while there is evidence that people hunted American mastodons at the Manis Site in Washington, to-date no similar evidence has been found in Canada. American mastodons went extinct around 10,000 years ago.

The Fossmobile was invented by George Foote Foss in 1897. It is the first successful Canadian example of an automobile built with an internal combustion engine. While the Fossmobile was never mass-produced for the Canadian automotive market (see automotive industry), it is an example of ingenuity and innovation. Through Fossmobile Enterprises, the descendants of George Foote Foss have researched and built a tribute/replica of the Fossmobile prototype. The tribute/replica vehicle was donated and inducted into the Canadian Automotive Museum in Oshawa, Ontario in 2022.

Unlike most immigrants to Canada, Jews did not come from a place where they were the majority cultural group. Jews were internationally dispersed at the time of the ancient Roman Empire and after unsuccessful revolts against it lost their sovereignty in their ancient homeland. Subsequently, Jews lived, sometimes for many centuries, as minorities in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. In the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS), 329,495 Canadians identified as Jewish when responding to the census question on religion, and 309,650 identified as being of Jewish ethnic origin (115,640 single and 194,010 multiple responses).

Albertonectes (pronounced al-BER-toe-NEK-teez) is a genus of plesiosaur in the family Elasmosauridae. Plesiosaurs were not the same as dinosaurs, though they are sometimes mistakenly placed in the same category. Dinosaurs lived on land, while plesiosaurs were air-breathing reptiles that flourished in the world’s oceans during the same era. Specifically, Albertonectes lived during the Late Cretaceous period (100.5 million–66 million years ago). To date, Albertonectes fossils have only been found in Alberta, south of Lethbridge. Albertonectes had 76 neck bones, the most of any animal.

Mammuthus is an extinct genus of proboscideans closely related to living elephants. Two species of mammoth lived in Canada: the Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) and the woolly mammoth (M. primigenius). The earliest record of Mammuthus is from the Pliocene epoch (5.3–2.6 million years ago). Most mammoth populations were extinct by the end of the Pleistocene epoch (about 10,000 years ago). In Canada, mammoth fossils have been found in Yukon, the Northwest Territories, British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Ontario. Later records of mammoths in Alberta overlap in time with archaeological records of Indigenous people. However, while there is evidence that people hunted mammoths elsewhere in North America, to date no similar evidence has been found in Canada.

The movement of individuals of one country into another for the purpose of resettlement is central to Canadian history. The story of Canadian immigration is not one of orderly population growth; instead, it has been — and remains one — about economic development as well as Canadian attitudes and values. It has often been unashamedly economically self-serving and ethnically or racially discriminatory despite contributing to creating a multicultural society (see Immigration Policy in Canada; Refugees to Canada). Immigration has also contributed to dispossessing Indigenous peoples of their ancestral lands.

First Nation is one of three groupings of Indigenous people in Canada, the other two being Métis and Inuit. Unlike Métis and Inuit, most First Nations hold reserve lands. Members of a First Nation may live both on and off these reserves. While the term First Nation can describe a large ethnic grouping (e.g. the Cree Nation), in other cases it is synonymous with the term band. The term band was originally chosen by the federal government and used in the Indian Act. The word band describes smaller communities. Many First Nations prefer the term First Nation over band.