Canada State of North America. Second state in the world by extension after Russia , it occupies just under half of North America, approximately between 41 ° and 83 ° N latitude and between 52 ° and 141 ° W longitude, including numerous large islands (Newfoundland to the E; Baffin, Ellesmere , Vittoria and the other islands of the American Arctic Archipelago to the N; Vancouver to the West). It borders the United States only: to the S, the border line is relatively articulated in its easternmost section, where the first European settlers settled; then for a stretch it follows the parallel of 45 ° N; then it shares four of the five Great Lakes ( Michiganfalls entirely within US territory); finally follows the parallel of 49 ° to the Pacific coast. Also to the West the land border is with the United States ( Alaska ), and here too the southernmost stretch has an irregular course, subparallel to the coast, in correspondence with the area affected by the Russian expansion that gave rise to the constituency of Alaska. then sold to the USA; from the summit of the Gulf of Alaska (Sant’Elia Mountains), the border follows the meridian of 141 ° W to the Arctic Ocean .
- PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS
1.1 Morphological elements . – Most of the Canadian territory is included in the so-called Canadian (or Laurentian ) shield , extending over just under 7 million km 2 , all around the Hudson Bay and in the Arctic Archipelago; Precambrian and Paleozoic crystalline formations emerge in the area, corrugated and leveled in several phases, the last of which is that of the Würm glaciation which has scattered it with moraines and depressions (now occupied by numerous lakes); covered by coniferous forests and, in the north, by the tundra, it has considerable mining importance, minimal from an agricultural point of view, very scarce as regards settlements.
At the southwestern and southeastern edges of the Canadian shield stretch two flat bands, of different extent: the western one, called the Great Plains or the Prairies, is very wide , just slightly undulating, which continues towards the N the analogous US region elongated E of the Mountains Rocky and, like that, it is limited towards the Pacific by the great mountain system; the sedimentary rocks (paleozoic and mesozoic) that are the basis have produced fertile soils that allow an extensive agricultural and zootechnical exploitation of the region. The strip, also flat and hilly, that borders the Canadian shield to the SE, to the left of the lower course and the San Lorenzo estuaryand up to Labrador, it hosts the area of greatest density of population and activity of the whole country .
Further outside, two mountain ranges border the territory of the C.: to the W the imposing northern section of the Rocky Mountains, a bundle of relatively recent (Cretaceous) corrugations that have given rise to several parallel chains that follow one another from the Great Plains towards Or, up to an inland plateau, beyond which rises the Coastal Range on the Pacific coast. Very high in the east (with peaks such as Robson, 3954m; Columbia , 3747m) and at the northern end of the Coast Range ( Logan, 5959 m), this range of mountains acts as a watershed between the Pacific and Atlantic (Hudson Bay) and the Arctic Ocean; its climatic conditions depend on exposure to peaceful winds. A further chain, further W of the Coastal Range, was partially submerged and formed the islands facing the shore from the Alexander Archipelago (part in Alaska, part in C.) to Vancouver Island.
SE of the San Lorenzo lowlands are the northernmost parts of the Appalachians , affecting the C. only for a very small part, even if both the Nova Scotia peninsula and the Prince Edward, Cape Breton and Newfoundland islands can be considered the continuation. ; from the altimetric point of view the reliefs are very modest (Monte Jacques Cartier , 1277 m, in the Gaspé Peninsula), but the climatic and pedological qualities have made it a rather dense settlement area, and the abundance of landings along a coast jagged and protected, it has favored port development.
1.2 Climate. – A cold continental climate, with little rain (400-750 mm per year, with a summer-autumn distribution) is completely prevalent, with average low and minimum winter temperatures that can be extraordinarily low (in the valley of the Yukon riverdown to -60 ° C), while the averages of the hottest month range between 15 and 20 ° C. In relation to position and altitude, climatic conditions actually vary from region to region, but almost only in terms of rainfall, and not also in terms of temperatures: in the southeastern C., annual rainfall reaches 1500 mm, which tend to diminish as you go westward to the Rocky Mountains; here the precipitations are more abundant, but immediately to the W, in the highland region, it drops below 300 mm. On the Pacific coast there is a cold maritime climate, with more abundant rains proceeding towards the N, up to over 2500 mm. The northernmost and innermost area ( Mackenzie basin, Northern Labrador, islands of the American Arctic Archipelago) has a distinctly polar climate, with average temperatures of the coldest month below -20 ° C, and in the hottest month between 5 and 10 ° C; the permafrost has a great extension there; the summer thaw, with the long insolation of the polar summer, produces a rapid growth of vegetation.
1.3 Hydrography . – Inland waters cover a very large surface, corresponding to 7.5% of the country, with an impressive amount of lake basins. For the most part, the waters gravitate rather uncertainly (given the very slight slope of the land) towards Hudson Bay. River bifurcations and the formation of expansions along the courses, in lakes and stagnations are frequent, from which more emissaries can originate. Many of the Canadian lakes have very considerable surfaces: the largest are the Great Bears Lake (31,792 km 2 ), the Great Slave Lake (28,438 km 2 ) and Winnipeg (24,514 km 2)); more extensive, but only partially in Canadian territory, are the Upper and Huron lakes, which together with Erie and Ontario (and with Michigan in the USA) form the Great Lakes system, in turn included in the San Lorenzo River basin. This constitutes the most interesting hydrographic system from an economic and settlement point of view, representing as a whole the most frequented waterway in the world, although the river gels at its mouth for several months a year; both to overcome the ice obstacle and to connect larger regions to the Great Lakes, the San Lorenzo system is connected by canals with both the Mississippi Basin and the rivers of New England, one and the other in the United States, but also important for Canadian traffic. Including the lakes, the San Lorenzo is credited with a total length of 3058 km, for a basin of over 1.5 million km 2 . Longer is the Mackenzie, which flows for 4240 km entirely in Canadian territory, draining a basin of 1.8 million km 2 in which some large lakes fall ( Athabasca , Great Lake of the Slaves, Great Lake of the Bears) and flowing into the Arctic Glacial; however, its economic importance is very low. It flows partly in C., where it has its spring branches, and partly in Alaska, the Yukon (2897 km). Also relevant are the Nelson- Saskatchewan (2575 km), the Churchill(1609 km) and Albany (980 km), which flow into Hudson Bay. Among those that pay tribute to the Pacific Ocean, the main one is the Fraser (1360 km).
1.4 Biogeography– In the polar climate zones the tundra extends; in those of the prairie and the plateau of British Columbia , grasses predominate, which also cover the highest areas of the mountainous region. The rest of the country, apart from the vast cultivated areas, is covered by immense coniferous forests, with a prevalence of Picea alba , interrupted only along the rivers and around the lakes by poplar, willow and birch forests. The forest cover covers an area of 3.3 million km 2. The fauna is relatively poor: only about seventy families of terrestrial vertebrates are represented (among which the most numerous are the birds), but not one of them is peculiar to the region. Mammals include the wapiti, the reindeer, the elk, the sheep with big horns, the American marten, several Pinnipeds, the polar bear, the polar fox and the wolf. In northern C. the musk ox is common. Other common mammals in the country are the rock goat, the Canadian beaver, the American flying squirrel, the hedgehog, the arboreal porcupine, two species of hares ( Lepus americanus and Lepus groenlandicus ), the Canadian lynx, the grizzly bear and the raccoon. The birds are less characteristic and the other vertebrates are even less characteristic.
- POPULATION
The population of the C. is still very scarce, if compared to the extension of the country: just over 3 inhabitants / km 2 on average; even excluding the vast, substantially uninhabitable areas of the Arctic, negligible average values are obtained. The most densely populated of the provinces, the small Prince Edward Island , barely reaches 24 inhabitants / km 2. Since the date of the first census (1871), however, the C. only natural increase is weakly positive, according to the trend common to advanced Western countries. The demographic trend is differentiated according to the various regions: the Atlantic maritime provinces (especially Newfoundland) are decreasing or stationary, while the western ones (especially British Columbia) are increasing significantly.
Considering that the indigenous population of the Canadian territory was very weak and very dispersed, and that the descendants of the original peoples are now just about 2% of the total, after wars, spread of diseases, poor living conditions, marginalization and even express interventions of demographic containment (such as forced sterilization) had depressed this percentage to even lower values, it is evident that the population of C. is an almost integral effect of immigration. Immigration flows have been significant since the mid-nineteenth century, even if they show a discontinuous trend. A first, long phase that saw small numbers of French, at first, then also of British, settling mainly in the south-eastern regions, was followed by the start of massive immigration, from the 1880s to the beginning of theWorld War I ; resumed after the war, interrupted by the Great Depression, resumed until the new arrest caused by the Second World Warimmigration, which once again returned to considerable dimensions in the immediate post-war period, to then slow down with the 1970s and stabilize, as a whole largely came from the British Isles; the population of British origin, however, today constitutes just over a third of the total, while less than a quarter is that of French origin: the two main components, whose languages have official value in the country, together make up not even 57%, while about 40% of the population comes from a variety of regions; among these, the Asian-Pacific area (from where almost half of the new immigrants arrive today) is becoming increasingly important to the detriment of the European area. The propensity of new immigrants for urban areas is strong (primarily Torontoand Vancouver, which respectively absorb immigrants from the east and those from the west), so that the main cities have the greatest ethnic diversity. However, integration is proceeding quite rapidly, as evidenced by the increase in the number of those who consider themselves ‘Canadians’ without further ethnic specifications (over a third), while people who recognize themselves as having only one ethnic background are very fewer than those who recognize themselves in several groups, as they belong to mixed families. There are just over 720,000 Italians, rising to almost 1.3 million even taking into account descendants from mixed families. Among the least integrated groups are the Chinese (over one million) and Asians in general, among the most integrated the inhabitants of British and French origin, Irish, German, and Europeans in general,
La dinamica migratoria ha fortemente influito sulla composizione religiosa, portando negli ultimi decenni a una netta prevalenza dei cattolici (44%) rispetto ai protestanti (29%); seguono coloro che non professano alcuna religione (16,5%) e piccole quote di popolazione che praticano una varietà di culti diversi. La positiva situazione economica ha, per altro verso, contribuito a fare del C. uno dei paesi con più alto livello di vita al mondo, in termini sia di reddito sia di sviluppo umano, condizione che certo favorisce la soluzione dei problemi di convivenza.
The distribution of the population remains highly unbalanced: between the eastern provinces ( Québec and Ontario alone are home to almost two thirds of Canadians) and the western ones (essentially for reasons of historical origin, linked to the variable antiquity of the occupation, which O; between the S and the N of the country), where obviously environmental reasons prevail; and then between urban areas (over 80% of the inhabitants) and countryside. The large urban agglomerations are essentially reduced to three: long established are the eastern ones of Toronto, with 5.3 million inhabitants, and Montréal, with 3.6 million; on the west coast, that of Vancouver has seen a very rapid growth that has led it to host 2.2 million inhabitants. But it is clearly still quite small in size. In the rest of the country, only Calgary and Edmonton , in Alberta , exceed one million inhabitants and differ from the average size that characterizes almost all the major Canadian cities: Québec, Hamilton and Winnipeg have, in their respective agglomerations, just over 700,000 inhab. ; under half a million are London and Kitchener.
The detachment of Nunavut (“our land” in the Inuit language) from the North-West Territories is the most recent territorial modification of the C.: defined in 1991, delimited in 1993, with a capital (Iqaluit) in 1995, the new the territory came into operation in 1999, to respond to the requests of the Inuit population in terms of autonomy and the restoration of traditional living conditions, endangered by the invasion, in particular, of mining exploitation.
- ECONOMIC CONDITIONS
Even without having passed through the production cycles often typical of colonial economies, even C. has suffered from the protracted condition of political subordination. For a few centuries (with the exception of the rural and commercial settlements of the eastern area) based on hunting for fur animals and fishing, logging and mining (gold), the Canadian economy only from in the late nineteenth century, with the demographic increase and the maturation of a more defined political-territorial structure, it began to diversify. But it was above all in the twentieth century, and mainly after independence and the consequent strong influx of US capital, that intense industrialization began (always only in the southern regions and, in particular, in the south-eastern ones) and, subsequently, a considerable diversification of the production structure. Today the tertiary sector is absolutely prevalent, both for its contribution to GDP (almost 70%) and for the number of employees (about 75%); but industrial production continues to have a very considerable weight, as well as, on the other hand, agricultural, forestry and, for some decades, mining. Certainly declined (but not disappeared) the production of furs, now supplied by farms, among the traditional activities the fishing, maritime and river, retains local importance, both on the Atlantic coast, where it still characterizes the settlement, dispersed in villages with small ports and dedicated to fishing, above all, cod and its processing, as well as the peaceful one (salmon). The forestry potential is enormous, carefully managed:
3.1 Agriculture Agricultural production received an extraordinary boost in the second half of the twentieth century, in particular with the progressive enhancement of the lands of the Great Prairies and those N of the Great Lakes, as well as with the intensification of crops in the Great Lakes region itself, in the Appalachian and the Pacific coast, where conditions exist for the production of fruit and vegetables. To the west of the Great Lakes, massive irrigation works and the adoption of fast-growing, high-yielding crop varieties have made it possible to extend the land suitable for the cultivation of cereals (wheat, barley, oats) towards the W and especially towards the N C. one of the main exporters of wheat. Agricultural management follows a model similar to the US one, with large company extensions, strong mechanization, intense use of capital, very high returns per employee; the situation for breeding is similar (cattle, pigs, poultry).
3.2 Industry The availability of abundant and low cost energy has been one of the determining conditions for the industrial development of the country, together with the very wide range of minerals. Industrialization began in the Great Lakes region at the beginning of the twentieth century, leveraging the minerals present in the region, coal and hydroelectric energy; the first to develop were the basic industry (metallurgy, mechanics, chemicals) and wood processing, greatly boosted by international demand during the Second World War. Metallurgy and mechanics continue to have great importance, especially for the production of capital goods required by the internal market and for means of transport; chemistry also continued its development, focusing in particular on agricultural products. Still very important is the sector of wood and derivatives, in the past for a long time the main voice of the Canadian economy; in addition to the production of wood for work, wood pulp and paper, the Canadian industry has turned to processes with higher added value (furniture, laminated). Finally, the entire agri-food sector is remarkable. As a whole, industrial production is not adequate to the internal demand for consumer goods, given the prevalent orientation towards basic products, but it is largely integrated with that of the United States and, in general, feeds important export flows. C. has renounced to further diversify its industry and the use of international trade (of which C. holds over 3%) is therefore an indispensable condition; its high-tech industrial productions, however,
3.3 Mineral resources. – In the second half of the twentieth century, C. has established itself as a large producer of minerals, also due to the initiative of some companies that have rapidly internationalized, despite having previously known the cultivation of gold deposits (especially in the North-West, still very productive), of coal and iron. Currently, C. is the first world producer of uranium and one of the very first of natural gas, and then again of nickel, cobalt, molybdenum, zinc, copper, all of strategic importance for contemporary industry, as well as of almost all metals. rare, of diamonds (recently discovered in Nunavut), of precious metals.
Coal production, already intense, is in decline as everywhere; that of oil, supplied above all by the Alberta fields, despite being substantial is absorbed by the internal market; the production of gas feeds an important flow towards the United States (given the distance from the places of consumption, it was necessary to install a network of pipelines that reaches a total of 50,000 km). The production of energy, moreover, is entrusted in the first place to the exploitation of water potential and not to fossil fuels; with over 70 million kWh installed and over 330 billion kWh produced (2004), C. ranks first in the world for the production of electricity, which is also exported; major producer of uranium and cobalt, moreover, C. has also equipped itself with about twenty thermonuclear power plants.
3.4 Routes of communication A necessary condition for enhancing the Canadian territory and preventing its fragmentation is a continental-scale communications and transport system. The problem was faced and solved already in the nineteenth century, as in the United States, by opening railway lines from coast to coast, from which penetration lines branch off towards the North and others connecting towards the USA, for a total ( 2004) of approximately 58,000 km in operation. Another direction in which the C. stood out was the enhancement of inland waterways: if the San Lorenzo waterway (3769 km navigable without interruption, after the great canalization works completed in 1959) is certainly the most impressive , the navigable fluvial and lacustrine stretches are extraordinarily extensive and affect almost the entire C .; to the navigation is added, however, the floating of the timber.New Brunswick ; Port Hawkesbury in Nova Scotia; in Québec, Sept-Îles, specialized in iron ore, and Québec-Lévis). The most recent and relevant developments, however, are those of the road and motorway network (1,042,300 km in 2005), also in this case innervated by a coast-to-coast line (7700 km of motorway section); and air transport, which can count on just under a thousand airports and landing fields and on a large transport capacity. It should also be emphasized that the complex of maritime, river, lake, land and air infrastructures is highly integrated.
- DEVELOPMENT OF THE PROVINCES
Overall, the production potential still sees Ontario prevailing among the various provinces, characterized by a highly developed industrial sector integrated with the US one, despite the not all positive repercussions of the entry into force of NAFTA (1994); the region enjoys not only considerable natural potential (mineral resources), but above all settlement conditions that have allowed the densification of population, access to low-cost and very extensive communication routes (waterways), and finally the level of relatively high urbanization in the Great Lakes region, and therefore the presence of advanced services.
Characteristics not very dissimilar, but to a more tenuous extent , also presents the southern Québec, in the band on the sides of the San Lorenzo. The maritime provinces as a whole have not participated in the most recent economic modernization, rather maintaining their traditional characteristics, both in terms of productive propensities, and of settlement and infrastructural model, of cultural system, of social relations.
Where the effects of the economic progression have marked the Canadian space most conspicuously, is in the Great Plains, which clearly bear the consequences of the extensive cultivation of land and the opening of enormous extraction plants, despite the vastness of the areas still covered. from forests or in any case not reached by anthropization: within a few decades an area similar to that of Italy was made productive, uniformly cultivated with cereals or soybeans.
The consequences of modernization are also noteworthy on the peaceful front, although almost only in Vancouver and its metropolitan area, where the whole range of advanced urban activities has begun to develop, making the city the metropolitan reference point for the entire Canadian West.
The regions to the N, roughly, of the parallel of 50 ° have an economic weight that cannot be compared, although they are going through a phase of intense valorisation; but this hinges on mineral resources, the cultivation of which has a significant local impact, which is inevitably limited to the less positive and less desirable effects (deforestation, waste production, pollution and so on), but at the same time it cannot activate in places of extraction of further activities: minerals are processed, that is, elsewhere, not the least reason for the lively opposition of indigenous populations who consider the activities started in the North to be ‘predatory’ and complain of almost non-existent positive effects, compared to the negative ones that are too numerous and conspicuous .
Finally, a large part of the Canadian territory (almost all of the North, almost the entire region of the western mountains), is either not susceptible to economic use or has been protected in various ways and destined to the preservation of natural balances. Furthermore, after the establishment of Nunavut, the infrastructural interventions and the start-up of modern productive activities are subject to the prior agreement of the indigenous peoples and to forms of safeguarding and compensation that make their development even more burdensome, up to the inconvenience of economic , according to the companies concerned; the exploitation of the resources of the North could thus remain interrupted, however guaranteeing the country the preservation of reserves that are largely known, to be used for exploitation, if necessary,
HISTORY
- THE EXPLORATIONS
During the 11th century. Viking expeditions touched the Canadian coast in several places, founding settlements that had a short life and of which nothing was known in Europe . In 1497 Giovanni and Sebastiano Caboto , with an English expedition, went down to Capo Bretone; the Cortereal brothers, Portuguese, recognized the coasts of Newfoundland and Labrador; later (1509), it seems that S. Caboto, also on behalf of the English, reached Hudson Bay. With a French expedition, Giovanni da Verrazzano (1524) carried out a systematic exploration of the coasts south of Cape Breton, repeated the following year by Estevão Gomeson behalf of the Spaniards. Jacques Cartier then made three trips (1534, 1535 and 1541) exploring the Gulf of San Lorenzo and going up the river to the site of Montréal; in the name of France he took possession of the country, since then known as C. (perhaps from the Iroquois kanata “village”). Land exploration began at the beginning of 1600, with Samuel de Champlain, who between 1603 and 1615 traveled the San Lorenzo basin to Lake Huron , also founding in 1608 the city of Québec (future capital of New France), in which Richelieu imposed the government of the Company of New France. Étienne Brulé discovered Lake Superior(1621) and Jean Nicollet of Michigan (1634). The French explorations then continued N of the lakes, up to touch (1672) the coast of Hudson Bay, which from 1668 (after maritime explorations, including those of Martin Frobisher and William Baffin) the crown of England had granted to the Company of the same name; Thus began a period of close Anglo-French competition between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the analogous French commercial companies engaged in the attempt to anticipate each other in the exploration of the O, through both specially organized expeditions and the individual action of hunters. of furs and traders. In the early decades of the 1700s, Lake Winnipeg and the Saskatchewan River were reached, later the Coppermine River and the Arctic coast, the Great Slave Lake, the Mackenzie River (1789) and finally,James Cook (1778), Spanish by Alessandro Malaspina (1791) and English by George Vancouver (1791-94). In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the systematic exploration of the West continued and above all of the Arctic which, in some ways, is still ongoing.
- THE CONFLICT BETWEEN BRITISH AND FRENCH CANADIANS
After 1713 France had planned to join Québec with a line of forts with New Orleans . The threat to the English colonies was averted with the conclusion of the Seven Years War which sanctioned the passage of New France to England (Treaty of Paris , 1763). The Quebec Act of 1774 guaranteed the rights of Franco-Canadians by defining the legal-administrative status of the colony. Increased the number of English following the American War of Independence, in 1791 the Constitutional Act divided C. into the two provinces of Upper C. (English) and Lower C. (French). In 1840 the Reunion Actestablished the union of the two provinces into a single autonomous political entity with an Assembly in which they were represented equally . After the choice of Ottawa as the capital (1858), in 1867 the British North America Act marked the birth of the Dominion of C .: having ascertained the inadequacy of the unitary solution for coexistence between Canadians of English and French origin, the country became a federation formed by the provinces of Québec (formerly Lower C.), Ontario (formerly Upper C.), Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, each with ample local autonomy, while the federal government maintained the care of general matters.
In 1869 the Hudson’s Bay Company ceded its rights to the Northwest Territories; the Red River settlement became the province of Manitoba in 1870, British Columbia became the province of C. in 1871 and Prince Edward Island in 1873. The last decades of the century were characterized by an expansion also towards French-speaking territories and from a notable economic development that transformed C. and led, at the beginning of 1900, to new contrasts between the two linguistic groups.
- THE 20TH CENTURY
Also thanks to the participation in the First World War (opposed by Québec), C. in 1919 was admitted to the Peace Conference and to the League of Nations as an original member. In 1931 the Statute of Westminster sanctioned the independence of the dominionswithin the Commonwealth. The great depression of the 1930s caused the growth of social tensions and the birth of new political formations of socialist, moderately progressive or conservative inspiration that joined the two dominant parties: the Conservative party of C. (since 1942 Progressive conservative party of C. ) and the Liberal party of C., who alternated at the helm of the country since 1867. The Second World War gave an impetus to the industrial development of C. (which in 1949 bought Terranova) which since then established close military and economic dependence ties with the USA (joining NATO in 1949).
In Québec, meanwhile, a new radical nationalism was developing, inclined to separatism, which led to the birth (1963) of a Front de libération du Québec, author of attacks and kidnappings (1970), and the growth of the Parti québécois (founded in 1968 with an independent and progressive program), which came to the provincial government following the electoral victory of 1976. After the advent of the new liberal leader P. Trudeau at the head of the federal government (1968), the C. adopted a foreign policy and more autonomous economy from the USA (recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1970, growth of relations with socialist countries and with those of the Third World, decrease of the military presence in Europe). Internally, Trudeau implemented a policy of protecting the French language and culture and promoting bilingualism. Québec’s separatist tendencies were defeated in a referendum held in the province in 1980. After lengthy negotiations, Trudeau managed to get the British Parliament to approve a constitutional reform ( Constitution Act , 1982) which contained a charter of rights and freedoms, with provisions in matters of protection of the country’s cultural pluralism and of the rights of indigenous peoples, of control of the provinces over their natural resources, etc.
The economic difficulties that had arisen from the mid-1970s and the recession of the early 1980s favored the clear victory of the Conservatives in the 1984 elections (confirmed in 1988). The new government, chaired by B. Mulroney , relaunched the policy of close alliance and collaboration with the USA. Following the failure (1992) of the proposed modification of the Constitution that would have favored the autonomy of Québec, there was the resumption of separatist tendencies in the province which, together with the growth of the claims of Indians and Inuit, put federation. The 1993 elections recorded the return to government of the Liberal party with J. Chrétien, which had supported the reduction of unemployment through a policy of public works and cuts in military spending. The most significant datum of the consultations was, however, the clear affirmation of the Bloc québécois that it became the official opposition party. When NAFTA came into force in 1994 , the Canadian political scene continued to be dominated by the question of Québec, where a referendum was held (1995) which sanctioned the defeat of the secessionists.
Federal government action focused on the country’s significant economic problems, while a large part of public opinion grew mistrust of US influence in the name of defending national identity. The liberal government, after sending troops to Afghanistanin the campaign against the Taliban regime (2001), he dissociated himself from US policy with respect to further military interventions in the Middle East. The 2006 elections saw the defeat of the liberals, involved in various financial scandals; the conservative minority government was formed, led by Prime Minister S. Harper, which strengthened its parliamentary representation in the early elections of 2008 but without achieving a self-sufficient majority. The early elections in May 2011 instead gave the Conservatives an absolute majority of seats (165 out of 308 in the House of Commons), while the consultations held in October 2015 brought the left back to the government after nine years, recording the clear victory of the party liberal, which hasobtained an absolute majority of seats (184 out of 338 against 102 for the conservatives), and whose leader J. Trudeau took over from Harper as premier, reconfirmed following the general elections in October 2019, in which the liberals obtained 156 seats (14 fewer than the absolute majority and 28 fewer than in 2015), against the 122 awarded by the conservatives.
LITERATURE
The diversity of language and religion of the two English and French groups and the proximity of the very influential American civilization, contribute to the persistence of two literatures, different not only in language, but in spirit and tendencies. They are joined by a new literature: the Indian one, which from the oral tradition has been recovering its cultural and literary heritage.
- LITERATURE IN ENGLISH
Anglo-Canadian literature gave its first vital manifestations in travel books ( Account of a journey from … the Hudson Bay to the Northwest , 1795, by S. Hearne ; Travels through Canada , 1807, by G. Heriot) and historical studies ( Account of Nova Scotia , 1829, by TC Haliburton; History of Canada , 1887-98, by W. Kingsford). The poem was originally lyrical in character with IV Crawford, A. Lampman , WH Drummond. The not very widespread narrative prose is represented above all by Wacousta (1823), a historical picaresque novel by J. Richardson . TC Haliburton (The clockmaker, or the sayings and doings of Sam Slick of Slickville , 1837), whose Dickensian comic character Sam Slick crossed national borders. J. de Mille was the most widely read among the romantic writers of his time.
The end of the First World War marked a reaction to Victorianism, a new social awareness with the application of modern poetic techniques. An important anthology, New Provinces (1936), collected the poems of the new generation (FR Scott, L. Kennedy, AM Klein, AJM Smith, R. Finch and EJ Pratt, the dean of the group). For fiction, the humorist S. Leacock should be remembered above all; among others, FP Grove, M. Callaghan and M. de la Roche.
The post-World War II generation, open to a cosmopolitan experience of poetry and fiction, showed less interest in the creation of a national literature. In lyricism, a symbolist current (A. Wilkinson, W. Watson , M. Avison, D. Le Pan, D. Hine) took place following the critical direction of N. Frye , the most authoritative Canadian critic, alongside a current anti-academic aimed at a more immediate rendering of reality (R. Souster, L. Dudek, I. Layton). Among the novelists we note A. Klein ( The second scroll , 1951), A. Wiseman ( The sacrifice , 1956), S. Watson ( The double hook , 1959), H. MacLennan ( The watch that ends the night, 1959). In the 1960s, a new impulse to a national literary consciousness arose from the Canadian Literature magazine , founded by the critic and narrator G. Woodcock and, around it, the number of storytellers grew. S. Ross, M. Richler , E. Buckler, WO Mitchell , R. Wiebe, M. Engel, R. Kroetsch and F. Mowat analyze different, sometimes regional, aspects of the Canadian reality. L. Cohen , narrator and poet, tackles the theme of the Indian past and relations between races, issues still present in the fiction and poetry of the last generations.
Since 1970, the debate on the cultural and literary identity of C. has developed following, or vice versa fighting, the interpretative lines drawn by Frye, for which the relationship with nature, uncontaminated space and mythical place of Arcadia is central. . Already in 1972, in Survival: a thematic guide to Canadian literature , the writer M. Atwood overturned Frye’s pastoral perspective by recovering the notion of ” garrison mentality ” to interpret the reaction of those who, having to measure themselves with an environment alien, finds the only possible condition that of the survivor (the colonizer) or the victim (the woman or the Indian).
In the poetic field, the same tension towards the achievement of a national literary consciousness is manifested in the search for one’s roots (A. Purdy, CJ Newlove) with the rediscovery, also, of the oral heritage of the Indians promoted by S. Virgo, A. Suknaski , C. Lillard. The poetry of the prairies by R. Kroetsch, G. Bowering, D. Zieroth is matched by the mythical reinterpretation of the landscape by D. Marlatt and S. Musgrave, while mythological-symbolic visions illuminate the work of E. Mandel, which, together to the most famous narrator M. Richler, he is one of the leading exponents of the Jewish-Canadian minority. Other trends are E. Birney’s ‘archaic’ experimentalism, D. Livesay’s feminist poetry, B. Bissett’s visual poetry, bp Nichol’s breakdown of linguistic structures (pseud. by Barrie Phillip Nichol), R. Bringhurst’s philosophical-meditative poetry, with the deities of local mythology and the voices of the shamans alongside those of Western culture (the Bible, the schools of thought of ancient Greece ) and Eastern culture (Islam, India). The dimension of multiculturalism is expressed thanks to the voices of the Indians B. Abel, G. Kenny and D. Redbird, the aforementioned Mandel, the Italian-Canadians PG Di Cicco and M. Di Michele , the Viet-Canadian T. Vuong-Riddick .
However, it is fiction that best expresses the new sense of collective identity, and often many writers, after starting out as poets, have dedicated themselves to prose. Numerous writers move around small avant-garde magazines: Bowering, which uses all the procedures of postmodern fiction, T. Findley, Kroetsch, who uses the symbolic potential of the myth, R. Wiebe, who saves stories from anonymity the Mennonite minority and Indians or mestizos; J. Hodgins, who opts instead for a comic register; M. Ondaatje , who in his characters tells a condition of irreducible diversity. Of considerable interest and scope is the impetus given to fiction by the writers: the nineteenth-century tradition started by S. Moodieit continues and affirms itself with the works of M. Laurence, who then chooses fiction for children, M. Gallant, author above all of short stories, A. Munro , J. Kulick Keefer and many others. In the 1990s the literary climate recorded a notable change: the relationship between narrative and representation of reality increasingly openly reflects the existence of a collective imagination in which memories of different ethnicities, cultures and religions converge. Among the exponents of this multi-ethnic literature: the Indian B. Johnston , the inuit P. Markoosie, the Japanese-Canadian J. Kogawa, B. Mukherjee, originally from Bengal, and R. Mistry, who emigrated to C. from his native Mumbai . And again: N. Ricci, of Italian origin; N. Bissoondath, from Trinidad.
The theatrical scene, dominated during the twentieth century by the personality of R. Davies , offered the radical collective experiments of ‘alternative theater’ throughout the 1970s, but also dedicated itself to the recovery of a scenic realism that had not existed in Canadian theater. never imposed with the force of the European bourgeois theater. This is the case of the comic-grotesque production of E. Nicol, of the feminist dramaturgy of S. Pollock, M. Hollingsworth, C. Bolt and E. Ritter, of the committed theater of D. French, D. Freeman and D. Fennario. The experiments of R. Salutin and those of programmatically homosexual theater, with M. Tremblay as his best exponent, were audacious , which became even more extreme during the 1980s and 1990s with the ‘alternative theater’ ( fringe“margin”). The figure of R. Lepage stands out above all , Promethean author, actor and director of shows that have made him famous all over the world ( The Andersen Project , 2005; The blue dragon , 2008).
- LITERATURE IN FRENCH
The first manifestations of French-Canadian literature were collected by E. Gagnon ( Les chansons populaires du Canada , 1865). British rule reinforced nationalistic sentiments. In the poem it is worth mentioning the comedy in verse Anglomanie by J. Quesnel (18th -19th century) and a patriotic current which, inspired by O. Crémazie, lasted throughout the 19th century. and had one of its most illustrious representatives, especially for the love of freedom, in L. Fréchette, author of the Légende d’un peuple (1887). The narrative prose draws on the history and customs of the people, from PJO Chaveau ( Charles de Guérin , 1852) onwards. To remember Jean Rivard (1874) by A. Gérin Lajoie.
Substantially follower of the literary currents born in France from the romantic era onwards, only in the last decades of the 20th century. the French-language literature of C. has acquired self-awareness, as littérature québécoise , a definition that reveals both the need to stand out in an English-speaking context and the need to free oneself from the hegemony of metropolitan French culture. The longing for one’s own autonomy could already be seen in the verses of Les îles de la nuit (1944) by A. Grandbois, and Le vierge incendié (1948) by P.-M. Lapointe and, even more, in the manifesto of the surrealist movement Refus global(1948), which had in the painter P.-L. Borduas and in the poets G. Gauvreau and Lapointe the greatest exponents. In the new socio-realist perspective, which highlights the drama of the urban integration of French Canadians in an Anglophone context, inaugurated by G. Roy in 1945 with Bonheur d’occasion , we should mention R. Lemelin, A. Langevin, J.- J. Richard. At the same time the theatrical pieces are inspired by popular themes and stage characters typical of Québec.
The break with all forms of conservatism began in the 1950s, when the âge de la parole was inaugurated in poetry , in response to the ancient silence. On the literary scene the movement of the Hexagone is imposed , from the publishing house of the same name founded in 1953, which had in G. Miron its animator and among the most active members poets such as G. Hénault, R. Giguère, Lapointe, J. -G. Pilon, F. Ouellette, Y. Préfontaine, all engaged in the political awareness of the national identity that asserted itself starting from the 1960s with the so-called quiet revolution. The poetry magazine Parti pris(1963-68), founded by P. Chamberland, reveals the literary commitment in the struggle for the independence of Québec, also with the attempt to recover the joual , the jargon of the oppressed and the rebel, spoken in the popular neighborhoods of Montréal . From the second half of the 1960s the literary question returned to be pre-eminent: avant-garde magazines gave space to new voices of poets such as J. Brault, G. Godin and emblematic were Brault’s Poèmes des quatre côtés (1975), where it seems possible the reconciliation between the two antagonistic languages. From the innovative ferment is born, with the current nouvelle écriture, a new generation of poets struggling with experiments on language, including M. Beaulieu, N. Brossard, also author of novels and plays, and many others. In the highly diversified framework of narrative production, the voices of L. Caron and V.-L. Beaulieu, while the feminist movement makes itself felt with M. Gagnon, narrator and poetess, and with Y. Villemaire, who makes wise use of the joual .
The contemporary novel combines all possible experiences, between rupture and continuity. Among the various trends, the desire to attract the public by resorting to realistic themes also seems to emerge. Not only is the most intimate reality exposed, through autobiographical works, but also the collective reality, with its most burning and current themes: marginalization, social unease, homosexuality. Among the most significant voices, the female voices of M. Larue, F. D’Amour and M. Proulx emerge.
ARCHITECTURE
Canadian architecture was primarily inspired by the French tradition, sometimes modifying it for environmental reasons (stone houses with steeply sloping, bell-shaped roofs). The most important buildings were built in the various classical styles: first French, then ‘Georgian’ (fine examples of this in Halifax , Toronto, Montreal) and Victorian Gothic (Montreal Cathedral, Ottawa Parliament, University of Toronto). For the colonial period, the wooden sculptures of the churches of the French missionaries (17th-18th century) are characteristic.
From the end of the 19th century. the development of architecture was largely marked by public intervention, especially for metropolitan areas: from the National capital commission (1899) for the realization of the urban plans of the capital, to the establishment of the metropolitan area of Toronto (1953), which followed the international competition for the City Hall of Toronto itself (1957) won by V. Revell. The renovation since 1962 of the center of Montreal has been interesting, which has seen interventions not only by international architects (IM Pei, L. Moretti, PL Nervi), but also by the Canadian studio Affleck, Desbarats, Dimakopoulos, Lebensold & Size). If notable are the achievements of commercial buildings (IBM tower in Montreal, 1966, IM Pei; Toronto Dominion Bank skyscraper, 1970, L. Mies van der Rohe),Simon Fraser in Vancouver (1963, A. Erickson and G. Massey), Scarborough College, Toronto (1966, J. Andrews ), the university of Lethbridge, Alberta (1969-1971, Erickson). Among the cultural institutions created are the Ottawa National Center of the Arts (1969, Affleck and others), the Winnipeg Museum of Art (1971, G. da Roza), the Ontario Science Center (1969, R. Moriyama), the Metro library (1977 Moriyama) and Roy Thomson Hall (Erickson) in Toronto, the civic center of Scarborough, Toronto (1973, Moriyama) and the new complex distr ο Vancouver (1974, Erickson). Other significant achievements are: University of Toronto student residences (2000, Morphosis), Gérald-Godin College in Montréal (2000, Saucier + Perrotte).
ART
Painting began to have importance only in the second half of the 19th century. (1872, Ontario Society of Artists). In 1907 the Canadian Art Club was formed in Toronto: E. Morris(1871-1913), C. Williamson (1867-1944) and some Montreal painters, among which the most significant was JW Morrice (1865-1924), linked variously to the experiences of the French Impressionists and J. Whistler. From 1912 central figures of the group were JEH Macdonald (1873-1932) and LS Harris (1885-1970), also animators, since 1920, of the Group of Seven which, with its romantic images of unspoiled nature, dominated the panorama of Canadian painting until the early 1930s. The Sculptor Society of Canada was born in 1928: the most original personality is that of EW Wood (1903-1966). In 1933 the Canadian Group of Painters was formed which aimed at a greater national representation: its exponents were L. Le Moine Fitzgerald (1890-1956), who tended to a geometric simplification of forms, E. Carr (1871-1945), particularly sensitive to the themes of Indian life and woodland landscapes, and C. Comfort (1900-1994). With thefoundation in Montreal of the Contemporary Art Society (1939) by JG Lyman (1886-1967) and A. Pellan’s return to C. from Paris (1906-1988), the opening towards international artistic currents became more consistent , from abstraction to surrealism. The Automatistes group (JP Riopelle, L. Bellefleur, PE Borduas) was the most advanced point of the avant-garde.
In Toronto the Painters Eleven group imposed, after 1953, an abstract expressionism close to the American one: J. Bush (1909-1977), A. Luke (1901-1967), O. Cahen (1916-1956), K. Nakamura (1926-2002), T. Hodgson (1924-2006). The Regina Five established themselves in the 1960s, followed by K. Lochhead (1926-2006), R. Bloore (b.1925), D. Morton (1926-2004), A. Mckay (1926-2000), T. Godwin (b.1933). The group of Plasticiens (1955) with R. de Repentigny (1926-1959), L. Belzile (b. 1929), JP Jérome (b. 1928) tended towards a geometric abstractionism; more original is the new abstract art by G. Molinari (1933-2004) and C. Tousignant (b. 1932). For an experimental research we should remember G. Curnol (b. 1936) and I. Baxter (b. 1936). Commitment and inventiveness in new techniques and in the use of new materials characterized the sculpture of the second half of the 20th century: L.Murray (b.1936), G. Smith (b.1938). In the last decades of the 20th century. funding and support programs by the state and cultural institutions have contributed to the development of artistic research, characterized by a plurality of trends. An important role is also played by specialized magazines ( Parachute , Canadian Art , C-Magazine , Vanguard), from museums, centers and institutions dedicated to contemporary art (Center international d’art contemporain in Montréal, since 1983; Center for contemporary Canadian art, since 1995), from periodic reviews such as Cent jours d’art contemporain de Montréal ( 1985-96), which became the Montreal Biennale in 1998. During the 1990s there was also a renewed interest in indigenous art, in the organization of exhibitions and in the growing presence of indigenous artists in public and private collections.
Many artists have focused their research on issues such as the body and sexual and physical identity: in addition to V. Frenkel (b.1938), one of the leading exponents of video art also active in the field of sculpture, engraving and poetry , C. Whiten (b. 1945), who critically uses traditional techniques of female works, have established themselves; G. Cadieux (b. 1955), who examines the alterations of identity in photographic installations; S. Keely (b. 1955), with paintings, performances, videos, installations tackles issues of bodily knowledge; J. Sterbak (b. 1955) reflects on female alienation with sculptures and installations. The integration between sculpture, performance, installation, video and photography emerges from the experiences of K. Wodiczko (b.1943), M. Lewis(b.1948), S. Cruise (b.1949), J. Cardiff (b.1957), G. Bures Miller (b.1960).
MUSIC
The development of Canadian music was influenced by historical and geographical conditions, mainly by its proximity to the United States. Except for the Québec ‘chansonniers’, all Canadian folk music is of foreign origin (songs by Indians, French and English immigrants). European music of the 17th and 18th centuries. it reached a notable diffusion thanks to the work carried out in the conservatories of Toronto and the province of Québec and to the symphonic associations which subsequently arose in the various cities. In 1952 J. Weinzweig, J. Papin-Couture, J. Beckwith, M. Adaskin, V. Archer, B. Pentland, P. Mercure, H. Freedman, formed the Canadian league of composers.