Browse "Politics & Law"

The Boundary Waters Treaty, 11 January 1909, between Canada and the US, resulted from a need to settle and prevent disputes regarding the uses and apportionment of waters along the international boundary.

Bourgeois, according to an 18th-century writer, were not nobles, ecclesiastics or magistrates, but city dwellers who "nevertheless by their properties, by their riches, by the honorable employments which adorn them and by their commerce are above the artisans and what is called the people.

Parliamentary Procedure and Practice with an Introductory Account of the Origin and Growth of Parliamentary Institutions in the Dominion of Canada, by Sir John George Bourinot, Clerk of the Canadian House of Commons, was published in 1884, with 3 later editions in 1892, 1903 and 1916.

Brandy Parliament, an assembly of 20 notables of New France, who on 10 October 1678 were asked their opinion of the sale of brandy to the Indigenous peoples. The title was bestowed in 1921 by historian W.B. Munro.

JENNIFER STODDART IS A DEDICATED public servant who has spent years - first working for the province of Quebec, and since 2003 as the federal privacy commissioner - trying to protect Canadians' personal information from prying governments and greedy businesses.

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

British Columbia Provincial Police had its origin in the police forces established in the colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia in 1858 to provide law and order following an influx of gold miners and settlers.

British Columbia Research Council, formerly a nonprofit society incorporated in 1944 to provide facilities for technological research and industrial development in BC. BC Research, a technical wing of the council, comprised scientific, engineering and technical laboratory facilities.

British Columbia Woodworkers' Strike, 15 May - 20 June 1946, the first strike of BC District 1 of the International Woodworkers of America (IWA) after coast-wide bargaining rights were won in 1943.

Statute enacted 29 March 1867 by the British Parliament providing for Confederation. In April 1982 it was renamed the Constitution Act, 1867, as part of the movement toward "patriation" of the Constitution.

Canada's federal and provincial governments follow a budgetary process, designed to ensure control, accountability and planning in the spending of public money.

Bureaucracy may be defined as a formal organizational arrangement characterized by division of labour, specialization of functions, a hierarchy of authority and a system of rules, regulations and record keeping. In common usage, it refers to the administrative branch of government.

The term bureaucracy is traditionally associated with the administration of government and its various agencies.

The term "burglary" no longer names a Criminal Code offence, although the activities formerly so labelled remain crimes. Burglary and related activities were recognized as offences early in the development of English COMMON LAW.

The C.D. Howe Institute (formerly the Howe Research Institute), is a nonprofit policy research organization established in 1973 by a merger of the Private Planning Association of Canada, formed in 1958, and the C.D. Howe Memorial Foundation. It is located in Toronto.

In Canada's parliamentary system of government, the Cabinet is the committee of ministers that holds executive power. Cabinets are chaired by the Prime Minister (or in the provinces, by a premier) and ministers are most often elected politicians drawn from the party holding the most seats in the House of Commons (or the provincial legislature). Cabinets are traditionally strong, consensus-driven institutions, although some believe their influence is waning in the face of powerful prime ministers and their advisers.

Originally modeled on the Canada Pension Plan, the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec was established on July 15, 1965, to manage funds deposited by the Régie des rentes du Québec, the province's pension board, which was created one month earlier.

The Calder case (1973) — named for politician and Nisga’a chief Frank Calder, who brought the case before the courts — reviewed the existence of Aboriginal title (i.e., ownership) claimed over lands historically occupied by the Nisga’a peoples of northwestern British Columbia. While the case was lost, the Supreme Court of Canada’s ruling nevertheless recognized for the first time that Aboriginal title has a place in Canadian law. The Calder case (also known as Calder et al. v. Attorney General of British Columbia) is considered the foundation for the Nisga’a Treaty in 2000 — the first modern land claim in British Columbia that gave the Nisga’a people self-government.

Canadian courts are open to any member of the public if there is the space, if the court is near enough to them and if they can find the time to attend. For years Canadian media have argued for television camera access to court proceedings.