Canada

Canada

Canada / is a country in North America consisting of 10 provinces and three territories. It is located in the northern part of the continent and extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and extends north in the Arctic Ocean. Canada is the second largest country in the world in terms of total area

The territory of Canada has been inhabited for thousands of years by various groups of indigenous people. By the late fifteenth century British and French campaigns began to explore the region and then settle it along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British colonies in North America across a confederation Canada was formed as a sovereign federal entity comprising four provinces. This started a process in which Canada expanded and expanded its self-rule over the United Kingdom. This independence was manifested by Westminster legislation in 1931 and culminating in Canada's 1982 law that cut Canada's legal dependence on the British Parliament

Canada is a federal state ruled by a representative democracy and a constitutional monarchy where Queen Elizabeth II is the head of state. The Canadian nation is a bilingual nation where English and French are two official languages ​​at the federal level. Canada is one of the most developed countries in the world, with a diversified economy and dependent on its abundant natural resources, and on trade, especially with the United States, which have a long and complex relationship

Canada is a member of the Group of Seven industrialized nations, the Group of Eight, the Group of Twenty, NATO, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the World Trade Organization, the Commonwealth and Francophone countries, the Organization of American States, APEC and the United Nations. Canada has one of the highest standards of living in the world where the Human Development Index ranks it eighth in the world

In the past century, the growth of the manufacturing, mining and services sectors has transformed the country from a largely rural economy into one of the most industrialized and urbanized countries. Like other first-world countries, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs about three-quarters of Canadians. Canada is distinguished among the developed countries in its interest in the first sector of the economy, as the logging and oil industry is one of the most important industries in Canada

Canada is one of the richest countries in the world with a high per capita income. It is also a member of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and the Group of Eight. Moreover, it is on the list of top ten trading countries. Canada's economy is a mixed economy and ranks above the United States and most of Western Europe, according to the Heritage Foundation's Index of Economic Freedom. The largest foreign importers of Canadian goods are the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan

Canada is one of the few developed countries with net energy exports. The Atlantic Canada region possesses large quantities of natural gas as well as the major sources of oil and gas in the province of Alberta. While the Athabasca Sands oil zone makes Canada the second largest country in the world in oil reserves after Saudi Arabia

Canada is one of the most important countries in the world in supplying agricultural products, as the Canadian prairie is one of the most important places for wheat, canola and other grains. Moreover, Canada is the world's largest producer of zinc and uranium, and has a leading global position in many other natural resources such as gold, nickel, aluminum and lead. Life in many northern cities, where agriculture is difficult, is based on the presence of a nearby mine or source of wood. In addition, Canada has a huge industrial sector concentrated in southern Ontario and Quebec, where the auto and air navigation industries are particularly important industries

Economic integration with the United States has increased dramatically since World War II. The auto products trade agreement concluded in 1965 opened the frontiers of trade in the auto industry. In the 1970s, concerns about self-sufficiency in energy and foreign ownership in industrial sectors prompted the liberal government of Pierre Trudeau to establish a national energy program along with the establishment of the Foreign Investment Review Board

In the 1980s, Prime Minister of the Progressive Conservative Party, Brian Malrony, abolished the national energy program and changed the name of the Foreign Investment Review Authority to Canada for investment in order to encourage foreign investment. The free trade agreement between Canada and the United States in 1988 canceled tariffs between the two countries. Whereas, the North American Free Trade Agreement included Mexico in the system in the 1990s

In the middle of that decade, the liberal government headed by Jean Chretien began to carry forward the annual budget surplus and began to reduce public debt steadily. The global financial crisis in 2008 damaged Canada and entered it into an economic recession that could raise the unemployment rate to 10%. In 2008, Canadian imports totaled more than 442.9 billion dollars, including 280.8 billion from the United States, 11.7 billion from Japan and 11.3 billion from the United Kingdom

The country's trade deficit in 2009 was about 4.8 billion Canadian dollars, compared to a surplus of 46.9 billion Canadian dollars in 2008

As of October 2009, Canada's unemployment rate is 8.6%. Provincial unemployment rates range from 5.8% in Manitoba to 17% in Newfoundland and Labrador. Between October 2008 and October 2010, the Canadian job market lost 162,000 full-time jobs and 224,000 permanent jobs. Canada's federal debt is estimated at $ 566.7 billion for the 2010-2011 period, up from $ 463.7 billion in 2008/09. Canada's net external debt increased by 41 billion dollars to 194 billion dollars in the first quarter of 2010

Canada has a mixture of different nationalities and cultures, guaranteed by the Constitution and enacted policies that encourage multiculturalism. The cultural identity in Quebec is strong, with many French speakers saying that their culture in Quebec is distinct from Canadian English. Nevertheless, all of Canada is a cultural mosaic and a group of several regional, indigenous and ethnic subcultures. Government policies such as publicly funded health care, high taxes for distributing wealth, prohibiting the death penalty, strong efforts to eradicate poverty, emphasizing multiculturalism, tightening arms control and gay marriage legislation are social indicators of Canada's development politically and culturally different from the United States