How did so many cultures become neighbours?

The Englishman John Cabot reached the eastern shore of Canada in 1497, and the Frenchman Jacques Cartier explored the Saint Lawrence bay in 1534-36.
In 1608 the Frenchmen laid the foundations of Québec and in 1642, Montreal.
After the North American colonial war, which lasted from 1755-63, Canada was given up to Great Britain by France, which governed at that time. In the following years there was a great English immigration and in 1791 the country was divided in 2 parts; the British province Ontario and the French province Québec. The British were now an upper class, but the French staged a revolt and the 2 provinces then were united in a union in 1841. Canada got the status of an independent nation within the Commonwealth in 1867. Canada is marked by contrast between the French and the English speaking people, which is a cause for separatist movements and a source of social unrest in some parts of the country, because of some deeply patriotic people. These problems are not that prominent today.

Canada is a large country with many cultures and nationalities. It is a country built upon immigration.  A lot of people from different countries immigrated to Canada due to different causes. People from the German speaking areas had some different reasons. Some immigrated to Canada because of violent religious persecution. But other investigations show that both social and economic factors pushed people to emigrate. Bad harvests, bad weather conditions, war, plague and so on were also reasons to emigrate. All of these things played a part in making people from the German speaking areas to emigrate to a country with visions of political and religious freedom, but most of al l- land.
A lot of Japanese people emigrated as well. The thing that drew them out of their country was the fishing industry. They weren’t thrown out, but they saw opportunities in the fishing industry. At a point there were so many fish that it is said that the boats had problems with sailing. With fishing came also the cannery industry. The cannery industry was huge. In 1900 more than 90 canneries operated in British Columbia with up to 2 million cases packed every year! In our tour of Canada we also visited a cannery, Gulf of Georgia Cannery. There we saw that a cannery was a large industry. It also took a lot of employees to run. But as machines developed it took fewer. Still all the fishes were cleaned by hand (and knife).

On August 4, 1972 Idi Amin (a dictator in Uganda) ordered the 50,000 Asians (mainly of Indian origin) 90 days to leave the country, following an alleged dream in which he claimed, God told him to expel them. The truth was that the Asians were great in their economic businesses. A large part of the 50,000 Asians immigrated to Canada. Bharati Mukherjee is an Indian author who was born in Calcutta, India in 1940. She now lives in Iowa with her husband the writer Clark Blaise. But she has lived in Toronto and Montreal several years before moving to Iowa. She has written a novel called Tamurlane, which is about some immigrants from India in Canada, who run a restaurant in Toronto. These immigrants get into some trouble with the immigration police. “Canadians don’t want us us, it’s like Uganda all over again..” Tamurlane gives an image of some problems with regard to immigration in Canada.  
About 45% of the Canadians are descendants of British people, 29% are Frenchmen, 3,4% are German, 2,8% are Italian, 2,2 % are Chinese, 1,5% are Ukrainian, 1,3% are Dutchman. The rest have Portuguese, Latin American or another ethnic background .
The above mentioned are only 3 examples of reasons why people immigrated to Canada. Canada is also a very young country, so it has not yet found its identity. It is in a phase of self definition and re-creation. But one can say that the identity of Canada is a multicultural society. 
So because of immigration from so many different countries, Canada has so many cultures.

By Awais Qadeer

Kilder:

From ”Canada Profile” p. 124

How did Canada become united into one nation?

In the beginning of the 18th century it was discussed, on both sides of the Atlantic, if one should unite the five British colonies in Canada. The argument for it was that not only would it benefit the economy but also be a force against future showdowns against the United States of America. In 1849 a joint legislative assembly was founded for the Upper and Lower Canada (which now is Ontario and Québec), by the British Parliament. USA and Great Britain still had a great influence in Canada. As long as the independent geographical units were not assembled in a federation, it would be difficult, nearly impossible, to solve bigger cross province problems. Another problem was the economy. There was a lack of capital.

However these problems were not discussed in the legislative assembly. The differences in Upper and Lower Canada provided the background for the discussions of the assembly. The railroad would be used for transportation of goods and so on. It would also be used for export and to establish contact to the almost 950.000 people who had settled down in West-Canada, among other places in the new colony, British Columbia (1858) , where gold was found. Another problem was the problem of expanding the land to the west. There was a shortage of land on the east coast.
The unstable political situation in Canada was at that point untenable. A federation was the only way of binding the colonies together and make them work properly. At this stage the Atlantic Ocean provinces already were discussing whether a federation should be formed or not. In the fall of 1864 representatives from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island were gathered to a conference to found a federation. When that came to people’s knowledge in the province of Canada, one sent a delegation of 6 ministers led by John A. MacDonald and George Brown to stop the plans of the Atlantic Ocean provinces and persuade them to join the large federation (which still had to be founded). The Atlantic provinces were convinced.

In 1866 representatives from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Canada met in London to prepare the presentation of the bill in the British Parliament. There the British North America Act was passed in the spring of 1867. 1. July 1867 the new constitution was born and Canada was united in The Dominion of Canada. Canada was now divided into the provinces Ontario, Québec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. The capital then became Ottawa in Ontario.
But still some provinces were not in The Dominion of Canada. The Northwest Territories, which almost was owned by Hudsons Bay’s Company, British Columbia, Newfoundland and Prince Edwards Island, were not a part of the Dominion of Canada yet. But these problems were easily solved. The Canadian government bought some of the parts of the Northwest Territories which was in the possession of the Hudsons Bay’s Company in 1870. Shortly after the British government handed the rest of the company’s possessions over to the Canadian government. In 1873 Prince Edward Island joined the Dominion of Canada, and in 1905 Alberta and Saskatchewan followed the lead. At last in 1949 the oldest British colony in Canada, Newfoundland, joined as well.
The first prime-minister of Canada was Sir John A. MacDonald, who was an energetic and intelligent person.

Kilder:

Canada Profile
by Merete Biørn                                                                                 Systime A/S

Canada og Alaska- historie og samtid
by Jørgen D. Rasmussen                                                                   Munksgaard, 1990

Rejsen rundt i Canada                                                                         Politikens Forlag A/S, 2000

How did USA become united into one nation?

In the beginning of the 16th century, people from Europe started to travel to The New World, which today is known as USA and Canada. The major part of the immigrants, were Puritan pilgrims, who came to The New World in the 17th century, to make a new and better society. The Puritans, who were a group of people, who tried to reform the Established Church of England, made the first English colony in America, and the first colony in The New World. The colony was established in what we today call Massachusetts, which is a state in the US. After that, the British people started a huge expansion spree in The New World.
Also the French traveled to America, and made a colony. Their colony, whose main town was called Quebec, was placed in what we today know as Canada. The Spanish people mainly had colonies in the southeastern USA, and in Florida. Also the Dutch settled in America. They settled in Albany.

Both the French and the British people wanted to rule in America. This led to a war between the French colonies and the British colonies. The war lasted from 1756 to 1763, with the result that Great Britain became the greatest and most powerful nation in The New World. Even though Great Britain was the greatest nation in the world, the war had cost them a lot of resources, and it was difficult for them to finance an army that was big enough to control all their colonies.
The British parliament tried to raise the taxes in their American colonies, which made the colonies afraid of losing their rights and home rule. The disputes between Great Britain and the 13 allied British colonies led to fights between the British army and militias in 1775. In the winter 1775 the 13 colonies tried to conquer Quebec, but failed. That prevented, what later became Canada, from uniting with the 13 colonies. In 1776 the 13 colonies declared their independence, which Great Britain of course didn’t like. The 13 colonies had now created their own country, USA, but it wasn’t acknowledged yet.

After that, the French decided to help the Americans to win the war, so the British would lose some of their power.
With support from France, USA was superior compared to the British, and in 1781 Great Britain had lost the war. USA and Great Britain signed the peace treaty in 1783. USA was now acknowledged, and a new united nation was born.
The following 100 years after the independence, USA has had a big expansion to the west and south. The state Louisiana was bought from France in 1803 for 15 million dollars. France sold Louisiana, because they were afraid, that Great Britain would take it. In 1810-19 there was a war between USA and Spain, and Florida was incorporated into USA. In 1836 the English speaking people in the Mexican federal state Texas rebels against the Mexican government, and created a republic, which also got incorporated to USA. Later USA started a war against Mexico, and conquered half of Mexico’s territory. The state California was conquered in 1850 and Oregon in 1853. In 1850 USA had a territory consisting of 31 states.

After Lincoln was elected president in 1860, the united America was about to end. The state South Carolina, which was a state that allowed slavery, didn’t like President Lincoln, who was against slavery. South Carolina resigned from the Union. Shortly afterwards, more slave states followed South Carolina and seceded. USA was about to be split up in two parts. This resulted in a civil war in 1861 between the 23 North states, and the 11 South states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee), which allowed slavery. The civil war ended in 1865 with the North states as winners. USA was again a unity.
In 1867 USA bought Alaska from Russia for 7, 2 million dollars. Russia might have regretted the sale of Alaska during The Cold War, when USA had a big tactical position.
Later more territories/states have joined USA, and it had created the multicultural, but united nation we have today.
 

Written by Thomas

Kilder:

USA, historie og identitet
By Bjerre-Poulsen

The homeside:

Is Canada a unity today?

Canada is a well-run country. Canada is an industrial, technological and urbanized society.
The country is very well-known for the excellent trees, which are the biggest industrial area in Canada. We are talking about 14 billion dollars in a year for British Columbia alone. That’s just one state. That is not bad. British Columbia biggest economical income is from the forest industry. It’s a rich country like Denmark, but the biggest difference is Canada less socialistic.

Canada is 22 times bigger than Denmark and Canada have lots of land, where agriculture is the top industry. We can’t really compare Denmark with Canada, because Denmark is an old country while Canada is a teenager. The country was founded as a state during the last couple of centuries, after the Europeans arrived. Canada has the beautiful nature and the new buildings whereas Denmark has the old buildings from severale do not have mountains like Canada, so you can’t compare the Danish nature with the Canadian. Canada is a multicultural country, unlike Denmark, which was my first experience in Canada. Is Canada like US or what?
If you ask a Canadian “Is Canada like US?” they won’t be too happy.

They don’t like to be compared with US. There are many differences between US and Canada. US is an English speaking country while Canada is an English and a French speaking country. Canada has a natural contrast between those two parts which you don’t see in the US. Canada is an organized country and I feel the people have a quite good welfare in the country. That is very positive, but you can’t have a country without problems and “fights”. I mentioned that Canada has a natural separation between the smaller French part and the English part but at the same time these two parts are a symbol of the Canadian identity. Different cultures live among each other. The French people want some more influence in the society. That concluded a struggle between the English speaking and the French speaking population. For a long time the French speaking part were very isolated. The Catholic Church played a big role at that time because the church controlled the education in Quebec. The church had the authority and many French people got educated. They built their own society but after the British Regime started after the Seven-Year War all the educated people went back to France.

There are many discussions about the French part wanting to be independent, but as Stina, Merete Biørns niece, said “It will never be reality”. I think it would affect the economy very hard and it would break the whole idea of the Canadian identity. If Quebec decided to be independent it would mean a serious break. It will be so isolated in the middle of two huge English speaking states. There is no point in making Quebec independent, because it would lead to a huge conflict between Quebec and the rest of Canada.   

Even though Canada is a country with different people from all over the world, Canada is still a developing country, which includes many positive values. I saw the multicultural society in UBC and I think that it has been a good integration process. All people are Canadian, no matter the colour of the skin or ethnicity, and that’s the spirit. Canada Rocks!

Written by Umut

Kilder:

Canada Profile
By Merete Biørn (s.15,16,17)                                                             Systime A/S