Everything you wanted to know about Canada!

Communications
Communications employs 1.8 percent of the country’s workforce and accounts for 4.2 percent of the GDP. It includes radio and television, telecommunications, and print media.

Radio and Television
There are some 480 privately owned radio stations and 110 television stations across the country. Virtually every Canadian (99 percent of homes) has access to both a radio and a television set. The publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) provides radio and television broadcasts in English and French throughout Canada; 99 percent of Canadians have access to CBC services. In 1996 the CBC began to broadcast its two major radio stations on the Internet. At the peak of its operations in the mid-1980s, the CBC network included 65 radio stations (AM, FM, and shortwave) and 30 television stations, including a station serving indigenous peoples in Canada’s north. However, the government announced a reduction of C$350 million (from C$1.5 billion) in the CBC budget, and parts of this extensive system are being dismantled. About 35 percent of the staff has been laid off, and many smaller regional stations have been consolidated with larger ones. Cable television systems serve just over 75 percent of Canadian households, providing a range of Canadian and American stations. Pay television services were introduced in 1984 and have been expanding.

Telecommunications
Nearly all Canadian households (over 99 percent) have at least one telephone, which connects them to a sophisticated telecommunications network. Most domestic service is provided by The Stentor Alliance, a consortium of nine provincial telephone corporations (seven private, two public); Québec-Téléphone is an associate member.

The consortium also includes Telesat Canada, a corporation established in 1969 by Ottawa and private firms to provide commercial communications via satellite. In 1972 Telesat launched the world’s first stationary communications satellite designed for domestic commercial use. Called Anik I, from an Inuit word for “brother,” the satellite helped provide television and telephone service to remote northern Canada. Numerous satellites have been put into orbit since that time. Teleglobe Canada, another corporation with mixed public and private ownership, provides international telephone service.

Recent changes have seen the growth of cellular telephone systems and greater competition from other privately owned long-distance telephone companies. The Stentor group is attempting to become the spine of an information superhighway by acquiring the right to offer television cable services in the short term and a wide variety of interactive (two-way) communication systems in the longer term.

Canadians are increasingly embracing new communication systems. In 1995, 4 percent of Canadian homes owned a fax machine, some 30 percent had a computer, and 12 percent were linked to other computer systems via a modem. A survey in the same year found that 17 percent of Canadians used the Internet and that the percentage was rapidly growing.

Print Media
In 1995 Canada had 106 daily newspapers, with an aggregate daily circulation of 5.3 million copies. Some 70 percent of the total circulation was owned by five large corporations, four of which operate internationally. Widely read newspapers include the Calgary Herald and the Edmonton Journal, published in Alberta; the Province and the Vancouver Sun in British Columbia; the Winnipeg Free Press in Manitoba; the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, and the Toronto Sun in Ontario; the Halifax Chronicle-Herald in Nova Scotia; and Le Devoir, the Gazette, La Presse, and Le Journal de Montréal in Québec. Of these, only the Globe and Mail is regularly distributed nationally.

The political orientation of these newspapers ranges from conservative to the center of the political spectrum. For example, in Toronto, the city with the largest circulation, the Sun has conservative views, while the Globe and Mail generally is seen as liberal on social issues but conservative on financial ones, and the Star is liberal on most issues.

The country is also served by many other publications, including Maclean’s, a weekly news magazine; Châtelaine, a women’s journal published in English and French; and the Canadian Geographic, a pictorial magazine about places and people in Canada.

Most mail is transported and delivered throughout the country by Canada Post, a public corporation. However, there are also private postal services and a number of private courier companies.

Tourism
The exact impact of tourism on the Canadian economy is difficult to ascertain, but it is estimated that it generates between 3.5 and 4.0 percent of jobs and about 5 percent of the GDP. Canada’s variety of seasons and scenic attractions draws large numbers of tourists. There are many festivals, including spring blossom festivals in the Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia and the Okanogan Valley in British Columbia, the Ottawa Festival of Spring, and the Calgary Exhibition and Stampede. The Niagara Grape and Wine Festival and color tours in central Ontario and the Laurentian Mountains of Québec are autumn attractions. Visitors are also drawn to Canadian wilderness areas. In the winter the abundant snowfall has been exploited, and a number of skiing centers, especially in the Cordillera region, are considered world class. About 485,000 sq km (about 187,000 sq mi) of terrestrial and marine areas have been preserved in their natural state as national parks, and each of the provinces and territories also has set aside land as provincial or territorial parks.

Some 60,000 Canadian businesses cater to tourists. More than two-thirds of tourist revenues come from Canadians themselves. Americans were the most frequent foreign tourists, making 80 percent of overnight trips in 1995; following them are the British at 4.5 percent and the Japanese at 4.1 percent.

Government
Canada is a federation, where governmental powers are divided between the central or federal government and the provincial and territorial governments. Territories have less autonomy from the federal government than provinces have. Canada is governed under the constitution of 1982, which gathered the previous constitutional acts into a single framework and added a charter of rights and freedoms. It also provided for what Canadians call “patriation”—giving the Canadian government total authority over its own constitution. Previously, the British North America Act of 1867 and subsequent laws had given the British government some authority over Canada’s constitution.

With the exception of electoral officers and individuals convicted of a crime, all Canadian citizens over the age of 18 are eligible to vote and to run in elections. They must be resident in the riding (electoral district) where they cast their ballot. Voter turnout for general elections is quite high; in 1993 just under 70 percent of eligible voters cast ballots, and in 1984 the turnout was 76 percent, compared to 54 percent in the United States.

The head of state is the monarch of Great Britain, who is represented in Canada by the governor-general, who has no political power. The chief executive is the prime minister, who is answerable to a legislature (Parliament). Parliament is answerable to the citizens at elections that are held, at most, five years apart. Judges are appointed by the federal and provincial governments.

Traditionally there have been two dominant national political parties, the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Party. They stand for the liberal and conservative sides, respectively, of political thought, although their positions have varied widely. Each has a counterpart in provincial government, but these are loosely connected and may differ with the national party on major issues. The two parties were of comparable strength, with one forming the government and the other the official opposition in Parliament, until 1993. In that year the Progressive Conservatives were defeated so resoundingly that their future was in doubt. A sectional party, the Bloc Québécois of Québec, won the second highest number of seats in Parliament and became the official opposition. In 1997 they were replaced in that role by another sectional party, the Reform Party, all of whose strength was in the west.

Since World War II, the federal government has greatly increased the social services, such as subsidized medical care, pensions, and family allowances, that it provides its citizens. The provincial governments have generally cooperated, but not without fear that the traditional powers exercised by the provinces are being eroded. That fear is especially great in Québec, where it is compounded by fear of domination by the English-speaking majority of the country.

In foreign policy, Canada was allied with the non-Communist powers during the period of world tension called the Cold War and contributed troops to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), an alliance formed to counter the threat of Communist aggression. However, Canada has not aspired to be a major military power. A strong supporter of the United Nations, it devotes its military largely to providing peacekeeping forces for that body in hot spots around the world.

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