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Representation by population is a political system in which seats in a legislature are allocated on the basis of population. It upholds a basic principle of parliamentary democracy that all votes should be counted equally. Representation by population was a deeply divisive issue among politicians in the Province of Canada (1841–67). Nicknamed “rep by pop,” it became an important consideration in the lead up to Confederation. (See also: Representative Government; Responsible Government.)

​Representative government is a political system in which an elected assembly governs. Members of the assembly act as the people's representatives in government.

The Reform Party was a right-wing, populist, western political protest movement that grew to become the official opposition in Parliament in 1997. Reform played a role in the creation of the Canadian Alliance, as well as the demise of the federal Progressive Conservative Party — and the eventual merger of those two groups into today's Conservative Party.

See CONSERVATIVE PARTY.

The Rand Formula is a feature of Canadian labour law requiring workers covered by collective bargaining contracts to pay union dues — whether or not those workers are union members. The Formula was a victory for unions struggling for recognition and security after the Second World War, and became a standard part of labour contracts, and union power, in the decades that followed.

Privy Council is a common name for the Queen's Privy Council of Canada, established under the CONSTITUTION ACT, 1867, to advise the Crown.

The public sector is highly unionized in Canada. Approximately 80% of those public-sector employees eligible for collective bargaining are covered by collective agreements, compared with only 25% in the private sector.

In a primarily rural society, such as 19th-century Canada, privacy was basically a territorial concept. Today, privacy tends to be defined not only territorially but as the right of individuals to determine when, how and to what extent information about themselves is to be communicated to others.

For many economic purposes, however, the total size of government expenditures is less significant than the components of these expenditures.

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.

The Civil Service Commission was established in 1908 under the Civil Service Amendment Act, which introduced the principle of merit as established by competition.

From 10–27 October 1864, politicians from the five British North American colonies gathered in Quebec City to continue discussing their unification into a single country. These discussions began at the Charlottetown Conference the previous month. The most important issues decided in Quebec City were the structure of Parliament and the distribution of powers between the federal and provincial governments. The broad decisions from the Charlottetown and Quebec conferences were made into 72 resolutions, known as the Quebec Resolutions. These formed the basis of Confederation and of Canada’s Constitution.

In 1838 Lord DURHAM established a municipal police force for Montréal and Québec, and a rural force with jurisdiction over the rest of the province. Its structure was reorganized in 1938 by Maurice Duplessis, who at the time was both premier and solicitor general of the province.

The Red River Rebellion (also known as the Red River Resistance) was an uprising in 1869–70 in the Red River Colony.  The uprising was sparked by the transfer of the vast territory of Rupert’s Land to the new Dominion of Canada. The colony of farmers and hunters, many of them Métis, occupied a corner of Rupert’s Land and feared for their culture and land rights under Canadian control. The Métis mounted a resistance and declared a provisional government to negotiate terms for entering Confederation. The uprising led to the creation of the province of Manitoba, and the emergence of Métis leader Louis Riel — a hero to his people and many in Quebec, but an outlaw in the eyes of the Canadian government.

A referendum is the asking of a political question to an electorate, for direct decision by general vote. Although federal referendums are rare in Canada, there have been numerous provincial referendums and plebiscites since Confederation.

In 1927 the Department of National Revenue Act established the Department of National Revenue by renaming the Department of Customs and Excise.

The Supreme Court, by a 5-4 majority, upheld (1953) the province of Québec's power, challenged by JEHOVAH'S WITNESS Laurier Saumur, to authorize municipalities to prohibit distribution, without police permission, of all publications in the streets.

Softwood Lumber Dispute first arose in 1982 with a complaint by the US lumber industry that low Canadian stumpage rates constituted an unfair advantage. In Canada, provinces own most of the forest resource and administer the rates whereas in the US rates are set at an auction.

Public Policy generally denotes both the general purpose of government action and the views on the best or preferred means of carrying it out; more specifically it refers to government actions designed to achieve one or more objectives.