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In the mid-1930s, at the height of the Great Depression, Prime Minister R.B. Bennett’s political demise seemed inevitable. He sought to reverse the tide running against his Conservative Party. In January 1935, he began a series of live radio speeches outlining a “New Deal” for Canada. He promised a more progressive taxation system; a maximum work week; a minimum wage; closer regulation of working conditions; unemployment insurance; health and accident insurance; a revised old-age pension; and agricultural support programs. But Bennett’s 11th-hour proposals were seen as too-little, too-late. He lost the 1935 election to William Lyon Mackenzie King and the Liberals.

The council initially comprised the governor, the bishop, the INTENDANT and 5 councillors. In 1703 membership grew to 12, to which 4 associated judges were added in 1742. Members, usually recruited from the French gentry, were nominated initially by the governor and the bishop and later by the king.

Coutume de Paris, the customary law of the Prévoté et Vicomté de Paris (written 1510; revised 1580), was a code of law first introduced to what is now Canada by the COMPAGNIE DES CENT-ASSOCIÉS in 1627.

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

The Royal Proclamation of 1763 was issued by King George III on 7 October 1763. It established the basis for governing the North American territories surrendered by France to Britain in the Treaty of Paris, 1763, following the Seven Years’ War. It introduced policies meant to assimilate the French population to British rule. These policies ultimately failed and were replaced by the Quebec Act of 1774 (see also The Conquest of New France). The Royal Proclamation also set the constitutional structure for the negotiation of treaties with the Indigenous inhabitants of large sections of Canada. It is referenced in section 25 of the Constitution Act, 1982. As such, it has been labelled an “Indian Magna Carta” or an “Indian Bill of Rights.” The Proclamation also contributed to the outbreak of the American Revolutionary War in 1775. The Proclamation legally defined the North American interior west of the Appalachian Mountains as a vast Indigenous reserve. This angered people in the Thirteen Colonies who desired western expansion.

This is the full-length entry about the Royal Proclamation of 1763. For a plain language summary, please see Royal Proclamation of 1763 (Plain Language Summary).

Petitioning is one of the most common tools of political protest accessible to the local population. Limited during the era of New France, the practice of collectively petitioning political authorities became much more frequent in the years following the Conquest by the British. Sanctioned in the 1689 Bill of Rights, petitioning had been a common practice in Britain for centuries, and ever since 1763, Canadians have been sending petitions to their governments (colonial, imperial, federal, provincial, and municipal) for a variety of reasons. With the recent introduction of e-petition, Canadians, more than ever, can have their voices heard in government.

Government has always been the most important patron of ARCHITECTURE in Canada, and this role has increased rapidly over the past few decades. As its duties and responsibilities expand, so do its building needs. Today all levels of government contribute to all aspects of our built environment.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was created on 4 April 1949. It was Canada’s first peacetime military alliance. It placed the country in a defensive security arrangement with the United States, Britain, and Western Europe. (The other nine founding nations were France, Norway, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal, and Italy.) During the Cold War, NATO forces provided a frontline deterrence against the Soviet Union and its satellite states. More recently, the organization has pursued global peace and security while asserting its members’ strategic interests in the campaign against Islamic terrorism. As of 2021, there were 30 member countries in NATO.

Between 1725 and 1779, Britain signed a series of treaties with various Mi’kmaq, Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet), Abenaki, Penobscot and Passamaquoddy peoples living in parts of what are now the Maritimes and Gaspé region in Canada and the northeastern United States. Commonly known as the Peace and Friendship Treaties, these agreements were chiefly designed to prevent war between enemies and to facilitate trade. While these treaties contained no monetary or land transfer provisions, they guaranteed hunting, fishing and land-use rights for the descendants of the Indigenous signatories. The Peace and Friendship Treaties remain in effect today.

In 1867, French Canadians in united Canada (territories covered by present-day Quebec and Ontario), helped create the Canadian Federation. In fact, there were four French Canadians (see Francophone) among the 36 Fathers of the Confederation. Since 1 October 2018, the first fixed election date in Quebec history, the province is led by a majority government. The premier is François Legault and the lieutenant-governor is honourable J. Michel Doyon (see also: New France; Seven Years’ War; Battle of the Plains of Abraham; Treaty of Paris 1763).

Founded in 1961, the New Democratic Party (NDP) is a social democratic political party that has formed the government in several provinces but never nationally. Its current leader is Jagmeet Singh. In 2011, it enjoyed an historic electoral breakthrough, becoming the Official Opposition in Parliament for the first time. Four years later, despite hopes of winning a federal election, the NDP was returned to a third-place position in the House of Commons. It slipped to fourth place in the 2019 federal election, after a resurgence from the Bloc Québécois.

New Brunswick became one of the founding members of the Dominion of Canada on 1 July 1867 when it joined Nova Scotia, Ontario and Quebec in Confederation. Arthur Hamilton Gordon, the lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick, helped organize the Charlottetown Conference (1–9 September 1864), where a federal union of British North American colonies was first discussed. By 1865, however, a majority in the New Brunswick legislature had swung against it. Albert Smith defeated pro-Confederation premier Samuel Tilley in a snap election that year. But the Fenian Raids in 1866 fueled New Brunswick’s sense of insecurity and increased support for Confederation. After Tilley’s party won another election in 1866, the legislature voted 38–1 in favour of Confederation.

The province of New Brunswick has a majority Progressive Conservative government, formed on 14 September 2020. The premier of the province is Blaine Higgs and the lieutenant-governor is Brenda Murphy. New Brunswick’s first premier following Confederation was Andrew Wetmore, who served from 1867 to 1870. New Brunswick politics have been dominated by one of two parties, the Liberals and the Conservatives (eventually Progressive Conservatives), each of which have held power for lengthy periods of time. In 1987, for example, Frank McKenna’s Liberal party won every seat in the legislature. This had only happened once before in Canadian history, when the Prince Edward Island Liberals won every seat in 1935.