After you have lived in Canada for a while with a Permanent Resident Card you may then apply for Citizenship. Part of the process for becoming a citizen is taking a test on the history, government and Culture of Canada. It is likely that after living in the country for a while you will become rather acquainted with this information, but the government still publishes an e-book that will help you study. These fun-facts are drawn from that e-book which is available on the CIC’s website.
- Canada is one of the few countries in the world that recognizes and grants civil marriages to all citizens regardless of sexual orientation.
- It is suspected that the first European visitors to the Americas were Vikings who landed at l’Anse Aux Meadows in Newfoundland.
- During the American Revolutionary war those residents of the 13 colonies who were loyal to the crown fled to Canada to escape the violence in those areas.
- In the late 1830s there was a series of armed rebellions in Canada that eventually led to the establishment of responsible government in the Dominion of Canada.
- Dominion of Canada was the official name of the state for approximately 100 years starting in 1864 and the name remains traditional to this day.
- Quebecers, residents of Quebec, are fiercely defensive of their sovereign and unique culture within an area that was largely colonized by the British.
- There was some talk about making British possessions in the Caribbean part of Canada in the 1920s.
- The first Prime Minister of Canada was Sir John Alexander MacDonald and his likeness is on the $10 bill.
- Women’s suffrage in national elections was granted to most in 1918, many years before Canada’s southerly neighbors, the United States, granted the same rights.
- On the eleventh minute of the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month Canadians observe the armistice treaty of World War One on Remembrance Day.
- Quebec City is one of the oldest continuously inhabited European settlements in the Americas.