Search for "south asian canadians"

"The Americans are our best friends whether we like it or not." This statement, uttered in the House of Commons by  Robert Thompson, the leader of the Social Credit Party early in the 1960s, perhaps best captures the essence of Canada's complex relationship with its nearest neighbour.

The document called the “Book of Negroes” is a British naval ledger that lists the names of Black Loyalists who fled to Canada during the American Revolutionary War (1775–83). It is also the title of Lawrence Hill’s third novel, which was published in 2007. (It was released in the United States, Australia and New Zealand under the title Someone Knows My Name.) A work of historical fiction, The Book of Negroes tells the story of Aminata Diallo, who is captured by slave traders in Africa and brought to America. Aminata’s story illustrates the physical, sexual, emotional, psychological, religious and economic violations of the slave trade. The novel has been translated into more than eight languages and has sold more than 800,000 copies worldwide. It won the Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and the Commonwealth Prize for Best Book. It was also the first book to win both CBC Radio’s Canada Reads and Radio Canada’s Combat des livres.

In December 1943, as part of the Allied advance through Italy during the Second World War, Canadian forces fought one of their toughest battles of the war in a bid to capture the town of Ortona. The month-long campaign — first at the Moro River outside Ortona, then with vicious street fighting in the town itself — cost more than 2,300 Canadian casualties, but eventually won Ortona for the Allies.

Holly, common name for shrub of the holly family Aquifoliaceae. The true hollies belong to genus Ilex, comprising some 400 species worldwide, mostly in Central and South America.

The decolonization of the European empires after WWII produced many "new nations" and revealed how little economic and social development the colonial system had permitted its wards. The problem of the "Third World" and its "underdevelopment" was thus placed firmly on the global agenda.

At 1:24 p.m. on 23 April 2018, a 25-year-old man who identified as an incel (involuntary celibate), drove a rented van onto the sidewalk on Yonge Street in Toronto’s North York business district. He proceeded to drive south, intentionally running over pedestrians. When he was stopped by police 10 minutes later, 10 people (eight of them women) were dead and 16 injured. It was the biggest mass murder in Toronto history and the worst in Canada since the Montreal massacre in 1989. On 3 March 2021, the driver was found guilty of 10 counts of first-degree murder and 16 counts of attempted murder. His sentencing process is scheduled to begin on 11 January 2022.

When the First World War began in August 1914, the Royal Canadian Navy (RCN) was unprepared to fight a war at sea. Founded only in 1910, it consisted of two obsolete cruisers, HMCS Niobe and HMCS Rainbow, and about 350 regular sailors, augmented by 250 reservists. During the war, it was assigned a growing number of tasks, which it was ill-equipped to perform. This included protecting Canadian coastal waters against German U-boats. The RCN scrambled to find ships and sailors but was ill-equipped to fight enemy submarines, which sank several vessels in Canadian waters in 1918.

Canada played an important role in the Second World War. It did much to help the allies win the war. Canadians fought on land, in the air and on sea. More than 1 million Canadians served in the military. Over 43,000 Canadians died. Approximately 50,000 Canadians were wounded. The war changed Canada forever. By the end of the war Canada had a very large military force. The Canadian economy was one of the strongest in the world. Canada paid more attention to world affairs than before. Canadians helped to create NATO and the United Nations.

(This article is a plain-language summary of the Second World War. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry, Second World War.)

The Underground Railroad was a secret network of abolitionists (people who wanted to abolish slavery). They helped African Americans escape from enslavement in the American South to free Northern states or to Canada. The Underground Railroad was the largest anti-slavery freedom movement in North America. It brought between 30,000 and 40,000 fugitives to British North America (now Canada).

This is the full-length entry about the Underground Railroad. For a plain language summary, please see The Underground Railroad (Plain-Language Summary).

​Most adult Canadians earn their living in the form of wages and salaries and are therefore associated with the definition of "working class." Less than a third of employed Canadians typically belong to unions. Unionized or not, the struggles and triumphs of Canadian workers are an essential part of the country's development.

Aquaculture is the human-controlled cultivation and harvest of freshwater and marine plants and animals. Synonyms include fish farming, fish culture, mariculture, fish breeding and ocean ranching.

​The spectacular suspension bridge across the Peace River south of Fort St. John, British Columbia, was opened in the summer of 1943, replacing a ferry crossing on the Alaska Highway.

The North American heartland, linked by rivers running from the north, west, and south and flowing eastwards via the St Lawrence River, saw intense fighting during the War of 1812.

Canada is a constitutional monarchy. As such, there is a clear division between the head of state and the head of government. The head of government is the prime minister, an elected political leader. The head of state is the Canadian monarch. Their duties are carried out by the governor general, who acts as the representative of the Crown — currently Elizabeth II — in Canada. (Lieutenant-Governors fulfill the same role in provincial governments.) The governor general performs a wide array of ceremonial duties. They also fulfill an important role in upholding the traditions of Parliament and other democratic institutions. Inuk leader Mary Simon was formally installed as Canada’s 30th Governor General on 26 July 2021. She is the first Indigenous person to hold Canada’s vice-regal position.

The French came to the North-West from Montréal in search of furs and an overland route to the Mer de l'Ouest which would lead to a short route to China (see coureurs de bois).