History | The Canadian Encyclopedia

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  • Editorial

    Editorial: The Canadian Constitution Comes Home

    The following article is an editorial written by The Canadian Encyclopedia staff. Editorials are not usually updated. In April 1982, as an Ottawa winter turned to spring, Queen Elizabeth II made her eleventh visit to Canada. She had come to make it official. After more than a half-century of trying, Canada would have its own constitution. A Canadian-made constitution was unfinished business from the country’s colonial past. The British North America Act in 1867 set out the jurisdictions of the federal and provincial governments and created the Dominion of Canada. It was, however, a law of the British Parliament, and it could only be amended (changed) by the British.

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  • Article

    Pays d'en Haut

    Pays d'en Haut [French "up country" or "upper country"] was an expression used in the fur trade to refer to the area to which the voyageurs travelled to trade.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/GreatLakesNewFrance.jpg Pays d'en Haut
  • Article

    Great Peace of Montreal, 1701

    On 4 August 1701, the French concluded a peace agreement with the Five Nations Haudenosaunee (Iroquois). This brought to an end almost a century of hostilities marked by atrocities on both sides. The Haudenosaunee were permitted to trade freely and to obtain goods from the French at a reduced cost. In exchange, they pledged to allow French settlement at Detroit and to remain neutral in the event of a war between England and France. The accord assured New France superiority in dealing with issues related to the region’s First Nations. It also gave the French the freedom to expand militarily over the next half century.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Great Peace of Montreal, 1701
  • Article

    Peace, Order and Good Government

    “Peace, order and good government” is a phrase that is used in section 91 of the British North America Act of 1867 (now called the Constitution Act, 1867). It offers a vague and broad definition of the Canadian Parliament’s lawmaking authority over provincial matters. Since Confederation, it has caused tensions between federal and provincial governments over the distribution of powers. The phrase has also taken on a value of its own with Canadians beyond its constitutional purpose. It has come to be seen as the Canadian counterpart to the American “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” and the French “liberty, equality, fraternity.”

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  • Article

    Peasant Farm Policy

    From 1889 to 1897, the Canadian government’s Peasant Farm Policy set limits on Indigenous agriculture on the Prairies. The policy included rules about the types of tools First Nations farmers could use on reserve lands. It also restricted how much they grew and what they could sell. The Peasant Farm Policy was built on the belief that Indigenous farmers had to gradually evolve into modern farmers. It also reduced these farmers’ ability to compete with settlers on the open market. The policy ultimately impeded the growth and development of First Nations farms. As a result, First Nations never realized their agricultural potential.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/62c520ef-e4ce-43bd-9fca-e2256625e40a.jpg Peasant Farm Policy
  • Article

    Pedlar

    Pedlar is a derogatory term used in the days of the Fur Trade by Hudson's Bay Company men to describe any trader from Québec, and later any trader from the North West Company, who "peddled" his goods to the Indigenous peoples by taking them to their encampments.

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  • Article

    Penetanguishene Treaty (No. 5)

    The Penetanguishene Treaty of 1798 (also known as Treaty 5 in the Upper Canada treaties numbering system) was an early land agreement between First Nations and British authorities in Upper Canada (later Ontario). It was one of a series of Upper Canada Land Surrenders. The Penetanguishene Treaty encompasses land on Georgian Bay at the northern tip of the peninsula at present-day Penetanguishene, as well as an island in Penetanguishene harbour. The British wanted to establish a naval presence on Lake Huron before the Americans could and the purchase of land at Penetanguishene would allow this. The British also realized that they might have to evacuate their post at Michilimackinac some day and wanted an alternative location.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/PenetangTreaty5.jpg Penetanguishene Treaty (No. 5)
  • Article

    Persons Case (Plain-Language Summary)

    The Persons Case was a constitutional ruling. It established the right of women to serve in the Senate. The case was started by the Famous Five. They were a group of women activists. In 1928, they objected to a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that women were not “persons.” As such, they were not allowed to serve in the Senate. The Famous Five challenged the law. In 1929, the decision was reversed. As a result, women were legally recognized as “persons.” They could no longer be denied rights based on a narrow reading of the law. (This article is a plain-language summary of the Persons Case. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see the full-length entry.)

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  • Article

    Petitioning in Canada

    Petitioning is one of the most common tools of political protest accessible to the local population. Limited during the era of New France, the practice of collectively petitioning political authorities became much more frequent in the years following the Conquest by the British. Sanctioned in the 1689 Bill of Rights, petitioning had been a common practice in Britain for centuries, and ever since 1763, Canadians have been sending petitions to their governments (colonial, imperial, federal, provincial, and municipal) for a variety of reasons. With the recent introduction of e-petition, Canadians, more than ever, can have their voices heard in government.

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  • Article

    Population Settlement of New France

    Throughout the history of New France, soldiers and hired labourers (“engagés”) who crossed the Atlantic were the primary settlers in Canada. Those young servicemen and artisans, as well as the immigrant women who wished to get married, mainly hailed from the coastal and urban regions of France. Most of the colonists arrived before 1670 during the migratory flow which varied in times of war and prosperity. Afterwards, the population grew through Canadian births. On average, Canadian families had seven or eight children in the 17th century, and four to six children in the 18th century. As a result, the population of New France was 70,000 strong by the end of the French regime.

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    https://d3d0lqu00lnqvz.cloudfront.net/media/media/d698c031-e790-4c17-906a-5b880e71e24d.jpg Population Settlement of New France
  • Article

    Pictographs and Petroglyphs

    Rock art is generally divided in two categories: carving sites (petroglyphs) and paintings sites (pictographs). Pictographs are paintings that were made by applying red ochre or, less commonly, black, white or yellow dye. Although the majority of the images were traced with the finger, some could be executed with brushes made of animal or vegetal fibres. Petroglyphs are carvings that are incised, abraded or ground by means of stone tools upon cliff walls, boulders and flat bedrock surfaces.

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  • Article

    Pier 21

    ​Pier 21 was an immigration depot on the Halifax harbourfront that operated from 1928 to 1971.

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  • Article

    Pinky Schooner

    A Pinky Schooner was an ancient type of vessel adapted to a primitive sloop or schooner rig in the British North American colonies and widely used in the Maritime provinces until the early 1900s. Often less than 14 m long, they were cheap to build and ideally suited for fishing.

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    https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/images/tce_placeholder.jpg?v=e9dca980c9bdb3aa11e832e7ea94f5d9 Pinky Schooner
  • Article

    Pioneer Life

    As each new area of Canada was opened to European settlement, pioneers faced the difficult task of building homes and communities from the ground up. Pioneer life revolved around providing the basic necessities of existence in a northern wilderness — food, shelter, fuel and clothing. Pioneering life was integral to family life and provided social stability for the settlement of a larger population across the country.

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    Place Names

    Canada has about 350,000 official place names. These include names of populated places, water bodies (e.g. lakes) and geographical features (e.g. mountains).

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