Canada after 1950 Since the mid-20th century Canada has been a constitu-tional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy with a federal system of parliamentary government.. Until November 1
Trang 1Canada after 1950
Since the mid-20th century Canada has been a
constitu-tional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy with a
federal system of parliamentary government Canada’s
constitution governs the legal framework of the country
and consists of written text and unwritten traditions
and conventions
Until November 1981 Canada’s government
retained strong ties to the British parliament; the
Cana-dian constitution could only be amended by an act of
Great Britain’s parliament Throughout the 1960s and
1970s negotiations between the provinces and the
fed-eral government that were designed to patriate the
constitution and provide an amending procedure were
unsuccessful These negotiations between the federal
government and the English-speaking provinces finally
bore fruit in 1981, giving Canada full amendment
pow-ers over its own constitution
Prior to this, Queen Elizabeth II of England had
been the chief of state, and despite the patriation of the
constitution, ties between Canada and the
Common-wealth of Nations remain close On September 27,
2005, Michặlle Jean was appointed by the queen, on
the advice of the prime minister, as governor-general of
Canada for a five-year term
In February 2006 Stephen Harper became prime
minister This position belongs to the leader of the
polit-ical party that can obtain the confidence of a majority
in the House of Commons, whose members are
elect-ed by the citizens by simple plurality in one electoral
district General elections are called by the governor- general when the prime minister so advises, and must occur every five years or less
Ever since its founding, Canada has had two official languages, English and French, which are the mother tongues of 56 percent and 28 percent of the population, respectively On July 7, 1969, the Official Languages Act was proclaimed, and French was made commensu-rate to English throughout the federal government This started a process that led to Canada’s redefining itself as
a “bilingual” nation French is mostly spoken in Quebec province, parts of New Brunswick, eastern and north-ern Ontario, Saskatchewan, the south of Nova Scotia, and the southern Manitoba province Several aboriginal languages also have official status in the Northwest Ter-ritories Inuktitut is the majority language in Nunavut and has official status there
Since the mid-20th century religion patterns have not changed much They changed with the arrival of new immigrants, as they did during the country’s early days Seventy-seven percent of Canadians identify themselves as Christians, and of that Catholics make up the largest group (43 percent) The largest Protestant denomination is the United Church of Canada; about
17 percent of Canadians have no religious affiliation; and the remaining 6 or 7 percent practice religions other than Christianity
Canada’s entertainment industry grew alongside the United States’s leading film and music industry, having had a quick development during the 1950s and 1960s, but the most rapid development after the 1990s For
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