Signing up enhances your TCE experience with the ability to save items to your personal reading list, and access the interactive map.
Create AccountIn R v. Drybones (1970), the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a provision of the Indian Act was “inoperative” — meaning no longer valid or in effect — because it violated section 1(b) of the Canadian Bill of Rights, which guarantees equality before the law.
The Canadian Alliance party was created from the remains of the former Reform Party of Canada at a convention in Ottawa in January of 2000 in an attempt to merge conservative opposition to the Liberal Party.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on April 24, 1995. Partner content is not updated.
Even for a fish tale, the story had started to strain the bounds of credulity. Victory is at hand, federal Fisheries Minister Brian Tobin repeated like a mantra last week.Nunavut — meaning "our land" in the Inuit language Inuktitut — entered Confederation in 1999 as Canada's third territory and newest member of the country.
The National Flag of Canada, also known as the Canadian Flag or the Maple Leaf Flag (l’Unifolié in French), consists of a red field with a white square at its centre in which sits a stylized, 11-pointed red maple leaf. A joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons voted for the present flag in 1964 against formidable odds. After months of debate, the final design, adopted by Parliament and approved by royal proclamation, became Canada’s official national flag on 15 February 1965.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on March 28, 2005. Partner content is not updated.
"IN THE EARLY morning hours of June 23, 1985, two bomb-laden suitcases detonated half a world apart," began B.C. Supreme Court Justice Ian Bruce Josephson, reading a verdict that set two men free and left hundreds more shackled to a 20-year-old tragedy that now seems beyond hope of resolution.
Medical ethics are concerned with moral questions raised by the practice of medicine and, more generally, by health care.
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.
Treaties 1 and 2 were the first of 11 Numbered Treaties negotiated between 1871 and 1921. Treaty 1 was signed 3 August 1871 between Canada and the Anishinabek and Swampy Cree of southern Manitoba. Treaty 2 was signed 21 August 1871 between Canada and the Anishinaabe of southern Manitoba (see Eastern Woodlands Indigenous Peoples). From the perspective of Canadian officials, treaty making was a means to facilitate settlement of the West and the assimilation of Indigenous peoples into Euro-Canadian society (see Treaties with Indigenous Peoples in Canada). Indigenous peoples sought to protect their traditional lands and livelihoods while securing assistance in transitioning to a new way of life. Treaties 1 and 2 encapsulate these divergent aims, leaving a legacy of unresolved issues due to the different understandings of their Indigenous and Euro-Canadian participants.
This is a product of a series of meetings on constitutional reform involving the federal, provincial and territorial governments and representatives of Aboriginal peoples.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on October 2, 1995. Partner content is not updated.
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a particular group through killing, serious physical or mental harm, preventing births and/or forcibly transferring children to another group. The Canadian government has formally recognized five instances of genocide abroad: the Armenian genocide, the Holodomor, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide and the ethnic cleansing in Bosnia. Within Canada, some historians, legal scholars and activists have claimed that the historical, intergenerational and present treatment of Indigenous peoples are acts of genocide.
Responsible government refers to a government that is responsible to the people. In Canada, responsible government is an executive or Cabinet that depends on the support of an elected assembly, rather than a monarch or their representatives. A responsible government first appeared in Canada in the 1830s. It became an important part of Confederation. It is the method by which Canada achieved independence from Britain without revolution.
On 6 February 2022, Queen Elizabeth II marked the 70th anniversary of her accession to the thrones of the United Kingdom and Commonwealth realms in 1952. In the spring of 2022, there were Platinum Jubilee tours of the Commonwealth by members of the royal family and a four-day holiday weekend of Platinum Jubilee celebrations in the United Kingdom from 2 to 5 June 2022. The Queen is the only British and Commonwealth monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee. The Queen is currently the second-longest reigning monarch in world history, her record exceeded only by the 72-year reign of King Louis XIV of France.
The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated.
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on March 18, 1996. Partner content is not updated.
If Martin has his way, there will be one more budget - if only because he could then announce the virtual elimination of the federal deficit by the turn of the century.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on November 17, 1997. Partner content is not updated.
Robert Latimer watches in detached amusement as a kitten plays with his shoelaces. It is the day after a second jury has found him guilty of second-degree murder, and he is relaxing with half a dozen relatives on the deck in front of his modest farmhouse in Wilkie, Sask.This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on April 3, 2000. Partner content is not updated.
Sitting in his wood-panelled office at the Alberta legislature, Ralph Klein contemplates the political fire storm raging outside his door.In 1987, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney attempted to win Quebec’s consent to the revised Canadian Constitution. The result was the Meech Lake Accord. It was an agreement between the federal and provincial governments to amend (change) the Constitution. The Accord proposed strengthening provincial powers and declaring Quebec a “distinct society.” The Accord was never put into effect. Political support for it unravelled in 1990. Many Québécois saw the Accord’s failure in English Canada as a rejection of Quebec. Support for separatism soared in Quebec and led to the 1995 Quebec Referendum.
