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Electoral reform is the process of reviewing and reconfiguring the structure of electoral politics, i.e., the way in which voters elect their representatives. In Canada, electoral reform has historically occurred through reconfigurations of electoral ridings, or the extension of the right to vote to previously disenfranchised groups of people. Attempts have been made to change electoral systems on a number of occasions, at both the provincial and federal level. The matter was of specific interest throughout 2016 due to the Liberal Party’s pledge during the 2015 federal election campaign to enact reform by 2019. However, the Trudeau government abandoned this in February 2017, citing a lack of consensus on the issue.

The Gladue case (also known as R. v. Gladue) is a landmark Supreme Court of Canada decision, handed down on 23 April 1999, which advises that lower courts should consider an Indigenous offender’s background and make sentencing decisions accordingly, based on section 718.2 (e) of the Criminal Code.

Streets, avenues, roads and parks are named according to criteria set by the municipal council concerned.

​Between 1838 and 1841, Lower Canada was governed by an “authoritarian” political body known as the Special Council.

​Canada operated prison camps for interned civilians during the First and Second World Wars, and for 34,000 combatant German prisoners of war (POWs) during the Second World War.

Omar Khadr is a Toronto-born Canadian, captured by American soldiers after a firefight in Afghanistan in 2002, when he was 15 years old. The only minor since the Second World War to be convicted of purported war crimes, Khadr was imprisoned in Guantanamo Bay and Canada for almost 13 years in total. In 2010, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that Khadr’s detainment violated “the principles of fundamental justice” and “the most basic Canadian standards about the treatment of youth suspects.” Despite repeated attempts by the Canadian government to keep him in prison, Khadr was released on bail in May 2015. In July 2017, he received $10.5 million in compensation from the government for Canada’s role in violating his constitutional rights. In March 2019, an Alberta judge declared that Khadr had completed his war crimes sentence, making him a free man.

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) was established by an act of the National Assembly on 15 July 1965. The CDPQ was created to  manage funds deposited by the Québec Pension Plan (QPP), a public insurance plan similar to the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP). The CDPQ is a global investment group with 10 international offices. As of 30 June 2021 the CDPQ’s net assets totaled $390 billion.

The Québec Pension Plan (QPP) came into effect in 1966. It is the counterpart of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP). Similar to the CPP, the QPP is a compulsory public insurance plan for the Quebec labour force. The QPP provides persons who have worked in Quebec and their families with a retirement pension, disability benefits and survivors’ benefits. The QPP is financed by payroll contributions made from employees and employers. The QPP is administered by Retraite Québec and contributions are managed by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ).

In 1837 and 1838, French Canadian militants in Lower Canada took up arms against the British Crown in a pair of insurrections. The twin rebellions killed more than 300 people. They followed years of tensions between the colony’s anglophone minority and the growing, nationalistic aspirations of its francophone majority. The rebels failed in their campaign against British rule. However, their revolt led to political reform, including the unified Province of Canada and the introduction of responsible government. The rebellion in Lower Canada, which is also known as the Patriots' War (la Guerre des patriotes), also gave French Canadians one of their first nationalist heroes in Louis-Joseph Papineau.

The League of Nations was an organization of 63 countries established in 1919, after the First World War. Canada was a founding member. The League ultimately failed in its aim of collective security. It was replaced by the United Nations at the end of the Second World War. However, the League of Nations did establish a new model for international organizations. League membership brought Canada its first official contact with foreign governments and helped to establish its position as a sovereign state. It also introduced Canada to the opportunities and challenges of international co-operation and peacekeeping.

The October Crisis refers to a chain of events that took place in Quebec in the fall of 1970. The crisis was the culmination of a long series of terrorist attacks perpetrated by the Front de libération du Québec (FLQ), a militant Quebec independence movement, between 1963 and 1970. On 5 October 1970, the FLQ kidnapped British trade commissioner James Cross in Montreal. Within the next two weeks, FLQ members also kidnapped and killed Quebec Minister of Immigration and Minister of Labour Pierre Laporte. Quebec premier Robert Bourassa and Montreal mayor Jean Drapeau called for federal help to deal with the crisis. In response, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau deployed the Armed Forces and invoked the War Measures Act — the only time it has been applied during peacetime in Canadian history.

The McIvor v. Canada case was about gender discrimination in section 6 of the 1985 Indian Act, which deals with Indian status. Sharon McIvor — a woman who regained status rights after the passing of Bill C-31 in 1985 — was not able to pass on those rights to her descendants in the same way that a man with status could. In her case against the federal government, the British Columbia Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that section 6 did, in fact, deny McIvor’s equality rights under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. In response to this case, the federal government introduced new legislation (Bill C-3) in 2011 to counter gender discrimination in the Indian Act.

Although rich in occupational songs, Canada has not produced many trade union songs.

The Cuban Missile Crisis lasted from 16 to 28 October 1962. The Soviet Union had stationed nuclear missiles in Cuba, which posed a threat to the United States and Canada. It brought the world to the edge of nuclear war. Canadian armed forces were placed on heightened alert. Prime Minister John Diefenbaker’s hesitant response to the crisis soured already tense relations between Canada and the US and led to the downfall of his government in 1963.

​More than a century ago, francophones in Ontario established an organization that has claimed and defended their rights in nearly every sector: education, arts and culture, economy, health and legal services.

Monarchism is support for Canada’s system of government as a constitutional monarchy. Monarchism is distinct from royalism in that it is support for monarchy as a political institution, rather than for an individual monarch. Monarchism played a key role in the development of Canada and continues to be part of political and popular discourse.

Missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada (MMIWG) refers to a human rights crisis that has only recently become a topic of discussion within national media. Indigenous women and communities, women’s groups and international organizations have long called for action into the high and disproportionate rates of violence and the appalling numbers of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls in Canada. Prior to the launch of the national public inquiry on 8 December 2015, these calls were continually ignored by the federal government. Described by some as a hidden crisis, Dawn Lavell-Harvard, former president of the Native Women’s Association of Canada, refers to MMIWG as a national tragedy and a national shame. In 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada supported the call for a national public inquiry into the disproportionate victimization of Indigenous women and girls. The National Inquiry’s Final Report was completed and presented to the public on 3 June 2019.

The context for Indigenous women and the franchise has been framed by colonialism as much as by gender discrimination. Indigenous women (First Nations, Métis, and Inuit) have gained the right to vote at different times in Canadian history. The process has been connected to enfranchisement — both voluntary and involuntary — which means that Indigenous women were afforded political participation and Canadian citizenship rights at the cost of Indigenous rights (see Indigenous Suffrage).