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Members of the Women’s Division (WD) of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) were wartime pioneers. Thousands of young Canadian women volunteered to serve at home and abroad during the Second World War as part of the air force. By replacing men in aviation support roles, they lived up to their motto — "We Serve that Men May Fly” — and, through their record of service and sacrifice, ensured themselves a place in Canadian history.

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

The 1969 White Paper (formally known as the “Statement of the Government of Canada on Indian Policy, 1969”) was a Canadian government policy paper that attempted to abolish previous legal documents relating to Indigenous peoples in Canada, including the Indian Act and  treaties. It also aimed to assimilate all “Indian” peoples under the Canadian state. The 1969 White Paper was proposed by Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development  Jean Chrétien and Prime Minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau to widespread criticism. The policy proposed to eliminate Indian Status, incorporate First Nations under provincial government responsibilities, and impose land decisions, notions of private property and economic agendas on Indigenous communities. The backlash to the 1969 White Paper was monumental, leading not only to its withdrawal in 1970, but to a wave of activism, academic work and court decisions over the next five decades. (See also Indigenous Political Organization and Activism in Canada and Indigenous Peoples in Canadian Law.)

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.

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The Numbered Treaties were a series of 11 treaties made between the Crown and First Nations from 1871 to 1921. The Numbered Treaties cover the area between the Lake of the Woods (northern Ontario, southern Manitoba) to the Rocky Mountains (northeastern British Columbia and interior Plains of Alberta) to the Beaufort Sea (north of Yukon and the Northwest Territories).

The treaties provided the Crown with land for industrial development and white settlement. In exchange for their traditional territory, government negotiators made various promises to First Nations, both orally and in the written texts of the treaties. These include special rights to treaty lands and the distribution of cash payments, hunting and fishing tools, farming supplies, and the like. These terms of agreement are controversial and contested. To this day, the Numbered Treaties have ongoing legal and socio-economic impacts on Indigenous communities. (See also Treaties with Indigenous Peoples in Canada.)

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

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) was officially launched in 2008 as part of the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. This multi-faceted agreement was intended to compensate survivors for the harms they suffered in residential schools, and to work towards a more just and equitable future for Indigenous peoples. The TRC was also meant to lay the foundation for lasting reconciliation across Canada. The TRC’s six-volume final report was released on 15 December 2015. It argued that the residential school program resulted in cultural genocide and outlined 94 Calls to Action.

Expo 67 was the largest event among the celebrations marking Canada's centenary. It ran from 28 April to 27 October 1967, and its theme was “Man and His World.” The exposition was located on 400 hectares (ha) of man-made islands in the St Lawrence River adjacent to Montréal.

Marriage remains one of the most important social institutions in Canada. It has undergone profound changes since the 1960s. The marriage rate is in decline and the traditional idea of a family is being transformed. After the turn of the millennium, the marriage rate fell to 4.7 marriages per 1,000 people (compared to 10.9 in the 1940s). Married couples are still the predominant family structure. But between 2001 and 2016, the number of common-law couples rose 51.4 per cent; more than five times the increase for married couples over the same period. The definition of what constitutes a married couple also changed in 2005 with the legalization of same-sex marriage. In 2016, 65.8 per cent of Canadian families were headed by married couples; down from 70.5 per cent in 2001. Marriage falls under federal jurisdiction, but the provinces regulate marriage ceremonies and grant marriage licences.

The Indian Shaker Church is an Indigenous religion that began in 1882 near the town of Shelton, Washington, in the United States. Today, there are several active Indian Shaker Church congregations in the Pacific Northwest.

The first Dutch immigrants to Canada arrived via the USA during the late-18th and early-19th centuries as part of the United Empire Loyalist contingent. By 1867 there were 29,000 persons of Dutch origin; in 1986 there were more than 850,000, many of whom arrived soon after World War II.

The old-age pension is a government initiative to help Canadians avoid poverty in retirement. It has changed from a strictly anti-poverty measure, that often humiliated the elderly, into an accepted, mainstream aspect of post-work life.

Banff National Park (established 1885, 6,641 km2) is Canada's first and most visited National Park.

The size of a snowflake is related to how far the snowflake has fallen from the sky and to how well colliding snow crystals stick to each other. The largest snowflakes are usually observed near 0° C because of the increased forces of adhesion at these temperatures.

The Aboriginal population is the most rural in Canada. One-half of a million Aboriginal people are committed to the land by heritage, by rights in a rural land base, and by a broad range of bureaucratic mandates provided by the federal government. These conditions are supported by the Constitution Act, 1982, a legal guarantee that is unique in the world for an Aboriginal population with a predominantly hunting heritage.

At the age of 14, ​Steven Truscott was wrongly convicted of killing his 12-year-old schoolmate Lynne Harper. Five decades later he was exonerated.

​The first Bread and Roses March, an initiative of the Fédération des femmes du Québec, began on 26 May 1995.