'O Canada we stand on guard for thee' Stained Glass, Yeo Hall, Royal Military College of Canada features arms of the Canadian provinces (1965)

The provinces and territories of Canada combine to make up the world's second-largest country by area. There are ten provinces and three territories. The major difference between a Canadian province and a territory is that provinces are jurisdictions that receive their power and authority directly from the Constitution Act, 1867, whereas territories derive their mandates and powers from the federal government. In modern Canadian constitutional theory, the provinces are considered to be co-sovereign divisions, and each province has its own "Crown" represented by the lieutenant-governor, whereas the territories are not sovereign, but simply parts of the federal realm, and have a commissioner.

The ten provinces are Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan. The three territories are Northwest Territories, Nunavut, and Yukon.

Location of provinces and territories [edit]

Provinces [edit]

Provinces of Canada

Flag	Arms	Province	Postal abbreviation	Capital	Largest city (by population)	Entered Confederation	Population (May 2011)[1]	Area: land (km2)	Area: water (km2)	Area: total (km2)	Official language(s)	Federal Parliament: Commons seats	Federal Parliament: Senate seats
		Ontario	ON	Toronto	Toronto	01867-07-01July 1, 1867	12,851,821	917,741	158,654	1,076,395	EnglishA	106	24
		Quebec	QC	Quebec City	Montreal	01867-07-01July 1, 1867	7,903,001	1,356,128	185,928	1,542,056	FrenchB	75	24
		Nova Scotia	NS	Halifax	HalifaxC	01867-07-01July 1, 1867	921,727	53,338	1,946	55,284	EnglishD	11	10
		New Brunswick	NB	Fredericton	Saint John	01867-07-01July 1, 1867	751,171	71,450	1,458	72,908	EnglishE FrenchE	10	10
		Manitoba	MB	Winnipeg	Winnipeg	01870-07-15July 15, 1870	1,208,268	553,556	94,241	647,797	EnglishA, F	14	6
		British Columbia	BC	Victoria	Vancouver	01871-07-20July 20, 1871	4,400,057	925,186	19,549	944,735	EnglishA	36	6
		Prince Edward Island	PE	Charlottetown	Charlottetown	01873-07-01July 1, 1873	140,204	5,660	0	5,660	EnglishA	4	4
		Saskatchewan	SK	Regina	Saskatoon	01905-09-01September 1, 1905	1,033,381	591,670	59,366	651,036	EnglishA	14	6
		Alberta	AB	Edmonton	Calgary	01905-09-01September 1, 1905	3,645,257	642,317	19,531	661,848	EnglishA	28	6
		Newfoundland and Labrador	NL	St. John's	St. John's	01949-03-31March 31, 1949	514,536	373,872	31,340	405,212	EnglishA	7	6

Notes:

A.^ De facto; French has limited constitutional status

B.^ Charter of the French Language; English has limited constitutional status

C.^ Nova Scotia dissolved cities in 1996, in favour of regional municipalities

D.^ Nova Scotia has very few bilingual statutes (three in English and French; one in English and Polish); some Government bodies have legislated names in both English and French

E.^ Section Sixteen of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms

F.^ Manitoba Act

• Prior to Confederation, Ontario and Quebec formed the Province of Canada.
• British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island were separate colonies before joining Canada.
• Manitoba was created simultaneously with the Northwest Territories.
• Saskatchewan and Alberta were created out of land that had been part of the Northwest Territories.
• Newfoundland was an independent Dominion within the British Commonwealth prior to joining Canada. British legislation transferred Labrador from Lower Canada to Newfoundland in 1809, but the location of the Labrador boundary was disputed until 1927. The official name of the province changed from Newfoundland to Newfoundland and Labrador by constitutional amendment on December 6, 2001.
• With the exceptions of Fredericton and Victoria, the provincial capitals are all either the largest or second-largest cities in their respective provinces. Fredericton is the third-largest city in New Brunswick while Victoria is the tenth-largest city in British Columbia.

Provincial capitals [edit]

Territories [edit]

There are three territories in Canada. Unlike the provinces, the territories of Canada have no inherent jurisdiction and have only those powers delegated to them by the federal government.^[2][3][4] They include all of mainland Canada north of latitude 60° north and west of Hudson Bay, as well as all islands north of the Canadian mainland (from those in James Bay to the Canadian Arctic islands). The following table lists the territories in order of precedence (each province has precedence over all the territories, regardless of the date each territory was created).

Territories of Canada

Flag	Arms	Territory	Postal abbreviation	Capital and largest city	Entered Confederation	Population (May 2011)	Area: land (km2)	Area: water (km2)	Area: total (km2)	Official language(s)	Federal Parliament: Commons seats	Federal Parliament: Senate seats
		Northwest Territories	NT	Yellowknife	01870-07-15July 15, 1870	41,462	1,183,085	163,021	1,346,106	Chipewyan, Cree, English, French, Gwich’in, Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, Inuvialuktun, North Slavey, South Slavey, Tłįchǫ[5]	1	1
		Yukon	YT	Whitehorse	01898-06-13June 13, 1898	33,897	474,391	8,052	482,443	English French	1	1
		Nunavut	NU	Iqaluit	01999-04-01April 1, 1999	31,906	1,936,113	157,077	2,093,190	Inuinnaqtun, Inuktitut, English, French	1	1

Note: Nunavut and Yukon were both formed from former portions of the Northwest Territories.

Territorial capitals [edit]

History [edit]

CANADA TIMELINE: Evolution of the borders and the names of Canada's Provinces and Territories

Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia are the original provinces, formed when British North American colonies federated on July 1, 1867, into the Dominion of Canada and by stages began accruing the indicia of sovereignty from the United Kingdom. Ontario and Quebec were united before Confederation as the Province of Canada. Over the following six years, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Prince Edward Island were added as provinces.

The Hudson's Bay Company maintained control of large swathes of western Canada until 1870, when it turned over the land to the Government of Canada, forming part of the Northwest Territories. Manitoba and the Northwest Territories were created in 1870 from Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory. At the time, the land comprising the Northwest Territories was all of current northern and western Canada, including the northern two thirds of Ontario and Quebec, with exception of the Arctic Islands, British Columbia and a small portion of southern Manitoba. On September 1, 1905, a portion of the Northwest Territories south of the 60° parallel became the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. In 1912, the boundaries of Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba were expanded northward: Manitoba's to the 60° parallel, Ontario's to Hudson Bay and Quebec's to encompass the District of Ungava.^[6]

1905 Provinces and territories of Canada coat of arms postcard

In 1869, the people of Newfoundland voted to remain a British colony over concerns that central Canada would dominate taxation and economic policy. In 1907, Newfoundland acquired dominion status. In 1933, facing national bankruptcy, the legislature turned over political control to the Commission of Government. Following World War II, in a 1948 referendum, a narrow majority of Newfoundland citizens voted to join Confederation and, on March 31, 1949, Newfoundland became Canada's tenth and final province. In 2001 it was officially renamed Newfoundland and Labrador.

In 1903, the Alaska Panhandle Dispute fixed British Columbia's northwestern boundary. This was one of only two provinces in Canadian history to have its size reduced. The second, in 1927, occurred when a boundary dispute between Canada and the Dominion of Newfoundland saw Labrador increased at Quebec's expense.

In 1999, Nunavut was created from the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories. Yukon lies in the western portion of The North, while Nunavut is in the east.

All three territories combined are the most sparsely populated region in Canada with about 100,000 people spread across a huge area. They are often referred to as a single region, The North, for organisational purposes. The District of Keewatin was created as a separate territory from 1876 to 1905, after which, as the Keewatin Region, it became an administration district of the Northwest Territories. In 1999, it was dissolved when it became part of Nunavut.

In late 2004, Prime Minister Paul Martin surprised some observers by expressing his personal support for all three territories gaining provincial status "eventually". He cited their importance to the country as a whole and the ongoing need to assert sovereignty in the Arctic, particularly as global warming could make that region more open to exploitation.^[7]

Government [edit]

Theoretically, provinces have a great deal of power relative to the federal government, with jurisdiction over many public goods such as health care, education, welfare, and intra-provincial transportation. They receive "transfer payments" from the federal government to pay for these, as well as exacting their own taxes. In practice, however, the federal government can use these transfer payments to influence these provincial areas. For instance in order to receive healthcare funding under medicare, provinces must agree to meet certain federal mandates, such as universal access to required medical treatment.

Provincial and territorial legislatures have no second chamber like the Canadian Senate. Originally, most provinces did have such bodies, known as legislative councils, but these were subsequently abolished, Quebec's being the last in 1968. In most provinces, the single house of the legislature is known as the Legislative Assembly except in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, where it is called the House of Assembly, and Quebec where it is generally called the National Assembly. Ontario has a Legislative Assembly but its members are called Members of the Provincial Parliament or MPPs. The legislative assemblies use a procedure similar to that of the Canadian House of Commons. The head of government of each province, called the premier, is generally the head of the party with the most seats. This is also the case in Yukon, but the Northwest Territories and Nunavut have no political parties at the territorial level. The Queen's representative to each province is the Lieutenant Governor. In each of the territories there is an analogous Commissioner, but he or she represents the federal government and not the monarch per se.

Each of the territories elects one Member of Parliament. Canadian territories are each entitled to elect one full voting representative to the Canadian House of Commons. With the sole exception of Prince Edward Island having slightly greater per capita representation than the Northwest Territories, every territory has considerably greater per capita representation in the Commons than every other province. Residents of the Canadian territories are full citizens and enjoy the same rights as all other Canadians. Each territory also has one Senator.

Provincial parties [edit]

Most provinces have provincial counterparts to the three national federal parties. However, some provincial parties are not formally linked to the federal parties that share the same name. The New Democratic Party is the only party that has integrated membership between the provincial and federal wings. Some provinces have regional political parties, such as the Saskatchewan Party.

The provincial political climate of Quebec is quite different: the main split is between sovereignty, represented by the Parti Québécois, and federalism, represented primarily by the Quebec Liberal Party. From March 2007 to December 2008, the Official Opposition was the Action démocratique du Québec, which advocates what it calls "autonomy", a middle-of-the-road option supporting localized power in the federal structure. They have no corresponding federal party, but polls show their base to align with the federal Conservative Party of Canada.

The provincial Progressive Conservative parties are also now separate from the federal Conservative Party, which resulted from a merger between the Progressive Conservatives and the Canadian Alliance. In British Columbia, the Liberal Party separated from the federal Liberal Party and is now an independent entity.

Other [edit]

The Canadian National Vimy Memorial, near Vimy, Pas-de-Calais, and the Beaumont-Hamel Newfoundland Memorial, near Beaumont-Hamel, France are ceremonially considered Canadian territory. In 1922, the French government donated the land used for the VImy Memorial "freely, and for all time, to the Government of Canada the free use of the land exempt from all taxes".^[8] The site of the Somme battlefield near Beaumont-Hamel site was purchased in 1921 by the people of the Dominion of Newfoundland. These sites do not, however, enjoy extraterritorial status and are thus subject to French law.

In the past, there has been interest in both Canada and the Turks and Caicos Islands, an overseas UK territory in the Caribbean, for the latter to enter Confederation in some capacity. While no official negotiations are underway, the two have a long-standing relationship and politicians on both sides have actively explored the circumstances under which a political union could be achieved.^[9]

See also [edit]

• Canadian provincial and territorial name etymologies
• List of areas disputed by Canada and the United States
• List of Canada-related topics by provinces and territories
• List of Canadian provinces and territories by gross domestic product
• List of adjectival and demonymic forms of place names#Canadian provinces and territories
• Northwest Passage international waters dispute
• Proposed provinces and territories of Canada
• Territorial claims in the Arctic

Book: Canada

References [edit]

Further reading [edit]

• Christopher Moore; Bill Slavin; Janet Lunn (2002). The Big Book of Canada: Exploring the Provinces and Territories. Random House Digital, Inc. ISBN 978-0-88776-457-8. 
• Statistics Canada (October 27, 2010). Canada Year Book. Ottawa: Federal Publications (Queen of Canada). Catalogue no 11-402-XPE. 

External links [edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Provinces and territories of Canada

• Provinces and Territories - Government of Canada
• Going to Canada: Canada's provinces and territories - Government of Canada
• Canadian Governments Compared

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