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There are more than 75 000 charities in Canada. They range in size from low-budget, neighbourhood-centred Meals on Wheels services to national healthcare and educational institutions with budgets of almost $1 billion. The majority of registered charities, some 40%, are places of worship.

The first significant attempt to organize on an industrial basis was undertaken in the 1880s by the KNIGHTS OF LABOR, which advocated unity of the producing classes and opposed employer blacklists and discrimination.

Based on the Lower Canadian Frères Chasseurs, Hunters’ Lodges were American secret societies that aimed to liberate the Canadian colonies from the tyranny of British thralldom. With estimates ranging from 15,000 to 200,000 members, lodges counted on much support from borderlanders, from Maine to Wisconsin, who were disillusioned and frustrated with the social, economic and political changes that shook 1830s America. Though they failed to liberate Canada, losing key military encounters near Prescott and Windsor in November and December 1838, their importance was significant enough that they had forced the American president, Martin Van Buren, to send a military force to the American-Canadian border to ensure that the neutrality between the United States and Britain was strictly followed. For months, Hunter activities dominated American foreign and internal policy.

Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul, Catholic organization dedicated to works of charity. It was founded in 1833 by Frederic Ozanam, a 20-year-old Sorbonne student in Paris.

“Hippies” is a term used to describe young people who participated in the 1960s counterculture movement, which originated in the United States and spread throughout Canada in the second half of that decade. As a noun, “hippie” was a play on the adjective “hip,” which was used to describe young bohemians who lived in Greenwich Village in New York City, and in San Francisco, in the 1950s and early 1960s. Hippies were part of the “baby boom” generation, born immediately following the end of the Second World War (see Baby Boomers in Canada). This demographic wave was significant enough to transform Canadian society; by the mid-1960s more than half of Canada’s population of 20 million was under the age of 25.

Two societies, one formed in Montreal and the other in Toronto in the mid-1930s, for the purpose of presenting recitals by the best Canadian and foreign organists. The name was chosen in honour of Casavant Frères, the noted organ builders.

Vancouver Women's Musical Society (formerly the Vancouver Woman's Musical Club). Founded in 1905 by Mrs B.T. Rogers, Mrs J.J. Banfield, Mrs C.M. Beecher, (first president 1905-7), and others and incorporated in 1916 under the guidance of Esther Beecher Weld and Mrs Walter Coulthard.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was founded 1915 in The Hague, the Netherlands, by women active in the Women's Suffrage movement in Europe and North America. These women wished to end WWI and seek ways to ensure that no more wars took place.

In Canada, rural society has been shaped by geographic and cultural diversity and by population mobility.

Separatism refers to the advocacy of separation or secession by a group or people from a larger political unit to which it belongs. In modern times, separatism has frequently been identified with a desire for freedom from perceived colonial oppression.

The Social Science Federation of Canada (SSFC) was established in 1940 as the Social Science Research Council of Canada. It and the Canadian Federation of the Humanities (CFH) were amalgamated into a new body, the HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCE FEDERATION OF CANADA (HSSFC), in 1996.

Sisters of the Holy Names of Jesus and Mary, a religious congregation of women founded in LONGUEUIL, Québec, by the blessed Eulalie Durocher (Mother Marie-Rose) to educate young girls. The spirituality of the congregation is Ignatian (Jesuit).

A female religious congregation founded in 1844 in Montréal by the widow Marie-Émilie Gamelin, née Tavernier, under the name of Daughters of Charity, Servants of the Poor (the present name has been in official usage since 1970).

Sisters of St Anne, a female religious congregation founded in 1850 in Vaudreuil, Qué, by the Servant of God Marie-Esther Sureau, dit Blondin (Mother Marie-Anne), for the education of young rural girls and some activities of mercy.

Greenpeace originated in Vancouver (1971) as a small group opposed to nuclear testing in the Pacific, and has blossomed into one of the largest and best-known environmental organizations in the world

Sulpicians, society of diocesan priests founded in Paris in 1641 by Jean-Jacques Olier de Verneuil to put into practice the decisions of the Council of Trent (1545-1563) concerning the formation of diocesan clergy.

Socialism is a political doctrine that criticizes the existence of social, economic and political inequality in society. Seeking to lessen class inequality, socialists call for a redistribution of power from the affluent owners to the working class.

The United Farmers of Canada was a militant farmers' organization established 1926 as the United Farmers of Canada (Saskatchewan Section). It combined the radical Farmers' Union of Canada and the more conservative Saskatchewan GRAIN GROWERS' ASSOCIATION.

Vegetarianism describes the diet (eg, green vegetables, cereals, seeds, fruit and nuts, roots and perhaps eggs and dairy products) of those who abstain from food of animal sources. Many Canadians have chosen a vegetarian diet for economic, religious, moral or health reasons.

In 1915 it organized the United Farm Women of Alberta, which energetically campaigned for WOMEN'S SUFFRAGE (gained in Alberta in 1916) and struggled to secure better education and health services in rural Alberta.