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Territory in northern North America, ruled since 1982 by the Monarchy of Canada

Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over 9.98 million km², making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 km, is the world's longest binational land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver.

Geographical type: Territory

Latitude: 60° N — Longitude: 95° W

Area: 9,984,670 km²

ISO 3166-2 code: CA

Notable Places

  • Ontario - Most populous Canadian province

Other Places

Birthplace of

Barbara Branden, Barbara Weidman, in Winnipeg, Manitoba, on 14 May 1929
Tommy Chong, in Edmonton, Alberta, on 24 May 1938
Samuel Edward Konkin III, in Edmonton, Alberta, on 8 Jul 1947
Wendy McElroy, on 1951

Home To

British Columbia Libertarian Party, Coquitlam, British Columbia

Deathplace of

E. G. West, in Ottawa, on 6 Oct 2001

Measures of Freedom

Canada | Freedom House, Freedom in the World 2022
2016: Status: Free, Aggregate Score: 99, Political Rights: 1, Civil Liberties: 1
The Liberal Party, led by Justin Trudeau, won a clear majority in federal elections held in October 2015. When Trudeau took office as prime minister in November, he ushered in a cabinet composed equally of men and women, an unprecedented step in Canada's political history. Outgoing prime minister Stephen Harper resigned as leader of the Conservatives following his party's loss.
Human Freedom Index [PDF], The Human Freedom Index 2021
2019: 8.85, Rank: 6, Personal Freedom: 9.4, Economic Freedom: 8.06
Level of Economic Freedom, Economic Freedom of the World
2014: 7.98, Rank: 5

Articles

The Colonial Venture of Ireland, Part 2, by Wendy McElroy, Freedom Daily, Jun 2004
Historical account of Ireland from 1840 to the first decade of the twentieth century, including the Young Irelanders, the famines, the Irish in North America, Captain Boycott, the demand for home rule, the Gaelic League and the emergence of Sinn Fein
In the ten years after 1845, two million Irish ... emigrated ... to America or Canada ... On St. Patrick's Day 1858, a new movement was born ... In America, it was known as the Fenian Brotherhood ... Some members wished to invade Canada—a British colony—to apply pressure on British policy toward Ireland. In 1866, about 600 Fenians crossed the Canadian border but retreated upon hearing that a company of British was advancing ... President Grant finally announced that an Irish government-in-exile violating the frontiers of a friendly neighbor would not be tolerated ...
Independence Day Propaganda, by Anthony Gregory, 4 Jul 2011
Argues that the American Revolution, albeit of a libertarian flavor, had several unsavory shortcomings both before and after 4 July 1776
The hostility toward Britain for its Quebec Act ... was indeed motivated in part by ... anger that the colony was losing such common law rights as habeas corpus. But there was also animosity toward the British for reversing its ban on Catholicism in Quebec. The Continental Army's first major operation was to invade Canada to "liberate" the inhabitants from British rule (and with the intention to subject them to U.S. rule). The Canadians, mostly of French stock, were ... generally neutral toward the war between these two hostile powers.
UpdMartin Van Buren: The American Gladstone, by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Reassessing the Presidency, 2001
Revised version of the 1999 essay "Martin Van Buren: The Greatest American President", now a chapter in Reassessing the Presidency: The Rise of the Executive State and the Decline of Freedom (2001)
President Van Buren also could have had a war over Canada. The United States had twice mounted military expeditions to conquer its Northern neighbor, first during the American Revolution and again during the War of 1812. At other times, annexation was under consideration ... [He] was in office less than a year when rebellions broke out in both Lower and Upper Canada. Americans lent support to the rebel "patriots" with recruits and provisions, and although Canadian authorities easily dispersed any organized resistance, border incidents kept anti-British feelings at fever pitch, especially in the president's home state.
Outsourcing Torture, by Sheldon Richman, 29 Sep 2006
Discusses the case of Maher Arar, a Canadian and Syrian citizen sent by the Bush administration to Syria for interrogation and torture, due to erroneous information from Canadian law enforcement that he had (unproven) terrorist ties
In 2002 the U.S. government detained Arar after receiving information from Canadian law enforcement that he had links to terrorists. But almost immediately afterward the Canadians told their American counterparts the information was wrong: no evidence tied Arar to al-Qaeda. The Canadian authorities offered to keep an eye on him when he returned to Canada, but the American officials were already arranging to send Arar to Syria ... "... In October 2003, he was released and returned to his wife and children in Canada," the Times reported. The Bush administration refused to cooperate with the Canadian commission.
The Reagan Record On Trade: Rhetoric Vs. Reality [PDF], by Sheldon Richman, Policy Analysis, 30 May 1988
Analysis of Reagan's stance on free trade and protectionism, contrasting what he and those in his administration said with a lengthy list of actual quotas, tariffs and trade negotiation results
The Reagan administration recently signed a free-trade agreement with Canada that would liberalize trade for the world's busiest trading partnership ... Canada's tariffs are higher than America's, but it should be noted that some 70 percent of American exports already enter Canada duty-free and 85 percent of Canada's exports enter the United States duty-free ... The agreement won't promote free trade in beer or sugar ... American beer was not included in provisions easing trade restrictions on liquor exports because the United States would not exempt Canada from American sugar quotas.
UpdThe Rocky Road of American Taxation, by Charles Adams, Mises Daily, 15 Apr 2006
Adapted from the author's For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization; examines tax resistance in colonial America up to the Jefferson presidency
The distinction between direct and indirect taxation was picked up by the Canadians in their constitution, the British North America Act, which restricts the taxing powers of Canada's provinces. In the late l970s, a special oil tax in Saskatchewan was declared illegal because the tax offended the Canadian constitution's classifications and restrictions ... Into modern times the British Parliament held supreme constitutional power over the Canadian people, though it did not dare to interfere with their wishes for many years.
Socialism and Medicine, Part 2, by William L. Anderson, Freedom Daily, Jun 2008
Examines the economics of medical care in the United States, including the influence of third-party payers and comparisons to medical care in Canada
If we wish to gain a sense of what to expect with government-sponsored medicine, we should look to Canada to see why the system there has its detractors—and defenders ... Montreal, Canada ... has about 3.6 million people in its metropolitan area, and ... three MRI devices, one for more than a million people. Anyone needing an MRI there has to wait at least six months ... Take the sets of incentives faced by a hospital administrator in Canada, however. Because he cannot charge for any services, an MRI device will not provide any income for his hospital; thus, it represents only an expense.
Tired of Two Parties?: Blame the centralization of the federal government, not the Constitution, by Pradeep Chhibber, Ken Kollman, The Washington Post, 17 Aug 2004
Chhibber and Kollman, authors of The Formation of National Party Systems (2004), argue that the decline of third parties in the U.S. resulted from the increasing power of the federal government (e.g., national income taxation, the New Deal)
Our neighbor to the north provides further evidence of the influence of centralization on the ability of third parties to win votes. Quite a few parties received significant vote shares in the 2004 elections for the House of Commons in Canada. The smaller parties that managed to win substantial votes have their roots in provincial politics, and they drew enough votes from those provincial roots to have a say in national politics. Their success is largely due to the fact that Canada is one of the most decentralized nations in the world.
Related Topics: Political Parties, Voting
The War of 1812 Was the Health of the State, Part 2, by Sheldon Richman, The Goal Is Freedom, 6 Mar 2015
Discusses how James Madison's conduct of the War of 1812 led to changes in American attitudes, including mercantilism, militarism, imperialism and centralization
Wood notes ... "with the development of Canada freeing the British Empire from its vulnerability to American economic restrictions, President Madison was bound to be concerned about Canada." ... Interest in Canada was not just material. A belief in "Manifest Destiny," though the term wouldn't be coined until 1845, was a driving force ... Even though the war had no formal victor and produced no boundary adjustments (U.S. forces were repulsed in Canada after burning its capital, for which Britain retaliated by burning Washington, D.C.), Americans were generally delighted with the outcome ...

The introductory paragraph uses material from the Wikipedia article "Canada" as of 18 Jan 2023, which is released under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike License 3.0.