Talk:Canada/Archive 20

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Montage

Do you guys think it would be suitable to put a montage for the Canada page? The country is pretty large with different landscapes and such

Don't think it's necessary. There is a main article about geography of Canada. You could say it there. No need because this article is "general" terms of Canada. Rlentle2s (talk) 07:45, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic Groups

1. The percentages don't add up. 2. It lists French and English as major ethnic groups (rather than Anglophone-Canadian and Francophone-Canadian) with links to the English/French People. This implies those percentages are made up of French (from France) and English (from England), which is simply inaccurate.

Masterenglish.ca (talk) 02:52, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

I can't answer number 2, but as for number one, that's been discussed before. The census lets you choose as many ethnicities as you want. Each individual person's ethnicity should add up to 100% (say, 50% English, 25% French, 12.5% Native, and 12.5% Kenyan), but the list as a whole doesn't have to add up to 100%. So you can say that you have an ancestry of English, French, German, Russia, Chinese, and First Nations (native), and even if all of those except Chinese are something like 2% (ie, you're mostly Chinese, with only little bits of the rest, all coming from your great, great, great, great grandmother), you're still placed in all of those categories.

Also, because that list comes entirely from self-reporting (and biased self-reporting at that. For instance, I list my ethnicity as "Canadian" ;o) ) rather than genetic testing (or even historical documentation), that list doesn't state what people are, but what they report themselves as. It's interesting simply because it shows how people think of themselves. Gopher65_talk 04:23, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

What do they mean by Canadian? All people living in Canada are Canadians. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.214.167.15 (talk) 20:12, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

It just means those that answered "Canadian" when asked what demographic they believed they belonged to. That's it. Singularity42 (talk) 22:07, 29 November 2009 (UTC)

This newly created article should be linked somewhere, People of Canada. 206.126.80.161 (talk) 01:32, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

It is strange that one third (or 33.333...%) of the respondents gave "Canadian" as their ethnicity, but the "largest ethnic group" is "English", at 21%.

I took a look at "Statistics Canada", reported as the source for this information. Here it is: [1] What I saw is that Statistics Canada does not say that 21% of Canadians are ethnic English, but rather that 21% of Canadians (or an absolute figure that represents 21% of the total Canadian population) report an English "ethnic origin". So there seems to be a gross confusion here: this article reports about "ethnic groups", while the source that should support this talks about something completely different: ethnic origins.

My own knowledge about Canada is too small to pretend that I can fix anything in this article. But could an editor who actually knows Canada (and the difference between "ethnic group" and "ethnic origin) take a look at this, and fix it? Thanks in advance. Ninguém (talk) 11:55, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

"Undefended" border

Would it not be more accurate to say that the border between Canada and the USA is the world's longest unmilitarized border? Homeland Security has unmmaned drones flying along the border, in addition to having patrols in the Great Lakes. Fbeavis (talk) 03:09, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I think you're right, that would be a better way to put it. Although aren't the drones military? ;) TastyCakes (talk) 17:30, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

The reference given (Wilson, Michael (April 2008). "The World's Longest Undefended Border". Government of Canada. Retrieved 2009-09-20.) uses the term "undefended", though it states that post-9/11, the situation has changed from an "undefended" border to a "secure" one. Canada – United States border refers to the border as being non-militarised, and that though the border is commonly referred to as undefended, "this is true only in the military sense, as civilian law enforcement is present."

I'd say that it isn't wrong to use the term "undefended", as it is commonly used, but "non-militarised" is a more technically correct term. Note that if the term is to be changed, it needs to be backed up by a reference. -M.Nelson (talk) 18:05, 10 January 2010 (UTC)

Although I agree that "undefended" doesn't seem entirely accurate, using "non-militarised" may not be much better. The term "non-militarised" border seems too close to a "demilitarised" border, like between the two Koreas. Perhaps it would be best to retain the use of "undefended", but add an explanation that this means that the border is not protected by military forces, although civilian law enforcement personnel are (of course) present. --AntarcticPenguin (talk) 04:59, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

The word 'undefended' implies a potential threat from the USA.'De-militarised' implies the border was, or should be fortified. How about something like, 'the Canadian military is not used to secure the border with the US'? And this is nothing at all unusual in westernised countries, except where there is a potential threat of military incursions. So it might not even be remarked upon at all.--Gazzster (talk) 08:30, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

It's not uncommon between Western countries, but it is the longest such border in the world. That, I think, is why it's notable, and presumably why the tidbit was there in the in the first place. That seems to be missing from your summary sentence... I think I lean towards calling it "unmilitarized", I don't think it's that close to demilitarized, I think the 'de' and the 'un' give them quite clear and significant differences. Do all the reliable sources call it undefended? If that's the case, I think leaving it as it is and putting in a footnote noting the technicalities might be an easy way to fix this. TastyCakes (talk) 15:14, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I wonder if it might be time to drop this relic of the cold war altogether. Really, it's the world's longest border, period, with the exception of Russia-China and maybe one or two others. And it did used to be undefended too, up until two years ago Canadian Customs & Immigration didn't even have guns. But really since 2001, the "undefended" bit is no longer really true and I believe the perception in a lot of the US is that the Canadian border needs defending. Do we have a recent reliable source that still calls it an "undefended border"? Franamax (talk) 17:15, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

That might be a good idea. List of land border lengths appears to confirm it's the longest border between two countries, 8,893km including Alaska. However, the border between Russia and Kazakhstan is 6,846km, compared to 6,416km between Canada and the lower 48, so it's not the longest "segment" of border in the world. China's border with Russia is only 3,645 km. TastyCakes (talk) 19:03, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

For a truly undefended border you need to visit the countries which are partner to the Schengen Agreement. They don't even have border guards in many cases. The US-Canada border is way more defended than that. -- Derek Ross | Talk 17:47, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

While it's true that the nations party to the Schengen Agreement have borders that are generrally not militarised, it's inaccurate to say that that often don't have border guards. From what I understand, once you have entered one Schengen member-country, you are able to enter them all without further formalities. However, they certainly have guards, especially for persons entering their nation from a non-Schengen state.

However, this is getting a tad off-topic. The question we're trying to answer here is whether or not is appropriate to call the US-Canada border the longest undefended border in the world. After a fair bit of thought, I believe that this is the most accurate phrase. Yes there are border guards on both sides, and yes there is an increasing use of various high-tech security systems, but these are not border defences, they are border security systems. The difference being that a "defence" is designed to stop an army, while a "security system" is designed to stop individuals (smugglers, illegal migrants, etc.) --AntarcticPenguin (talk) 02:44, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

And the border between France and Germany (for instance) has neither border defences, nor border security systems, so it is not even possible to quibble about whether it is defended or not: there is literally no restraint on movement between the two states. Whereas it is possible to argue about whether the security systems used by the US and Canadian authorities are defences or not. Whatever you call them, there is no doubt that they are forces of armed men who are ready to shoot anyone who crosses the border into their respective states without their approval. That certainly sounds like defence to me. -- Derek Ross | Talk 06:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

It's hard to say whether it's undefended or not. In some rural areas you can literally walk across the border without knowing it, while at Vancouver and Detroit crossings there is talk of military unmanned spy planes guarding against "drug running". I've been to crossings in New Hampshire where you drive up to a cabin and honk your horn for service, yet I've received everything next to the rubber glove in Upstate New York. The real question is what does defended and undefended really entail. PhilthyBear (talk) 17:37, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm it's starting to sound like the undefended bit is a nebulous claim at the best of times. Maybe we should remove it and just say "shares the longest international border in the world with the United States" like Franamax said? TastyCakes (talk) 17:42, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good.--Gazzster (talk) 23:33, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Clearly people, other than AntrarcticPenguin, are confused about what "undefended border" means. The fact that both sides take steps to assure that terrorists do not cross the border is not the same as defending it. Nor, in fact, is defending against smuggling or other individual border crimes. What the term refers to is the fact that neither side has an organized military presence along the border meant to repel attack by the other or to threaten the other. It is as true now as it has been since the US stopped trying to steal Canada many, many years ago. -Rrius (talk) 00:03, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

OK, so let's say it's an undefended border, fine. And it's also the world's longest border, period. Why are those two conflated? It's also the "world's longest border with people on both sides". The particular phrasing is a relic of the Cold War, it's a marketing phrase for freedom. Why do we choose to highlight anything other than "longest"? Franamax (talk) 01:01, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Oops, forgot. Isn't it also the border across which the highest volume and value of international trade occurs too? Could we go with "world's longest lucrative border"? See what I mean? Franamax (talk) 01:05, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree entirely (with Franamax). I'm not so sure about Rrius's argument. People are "confused" about it being called an "undefended border" because the word undefended can mean many things. It's not that we don't understand the word, it's that it isn't precisely defined in this context. Sure, to you and probably many people "undefended" means not defending against the other country, and "defending against" terrorists and smugglers is outside of the definition. But that's just a matter of opinion on what the definition is, another opinion you could probably find as much reliable support for is that a "defended border" includes defences against individuals as well as other states. Because of the lack of a clear, supported and objective definition of what "undefended" means in the context of a border, I don't think it's a good word to use in the article. TastyCakes (talk) 01:49, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The term "undefended border" just means the one thing. The use of term in relation to the border is supported by reliable sources, so lets not bother going down that road. Also, is the US–Canadian border the longest border overall? It was stated elsewhere in this thread that it is not the longest. Also, as to why "conflate" these two things, it is an interesting enough fact that it is mentioned quite a lot when you look into relations between the two countries. That a few of you may not see the importance should really take a back seat here. Frankly, Wikipedia would be remiss in not mentioning it. -Rrius (talk) 06:48, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

The overall border is the longest in the world. Counting just the part between Canada and the lower 48, it's the second longest. That was Franamax's point a little while ago, you could say "longest border with X" and it would be true. I understand what you're saying, but I disagree. "Undefended" does not appear to have a clear and consistent definition in this context and I'm increasingly inclined to support its removal. It is an interesting fact, it just isn't very concrete, and doesn't really mean much if you think about it. I think a better way of getting the same point across would be to highlight the excellent relations the two countries have enjoyed for many years and that they're the world's biggest trading partners. Personally, I think it's more interesting, and more indicative of relations, that more goods flow across the border than any other in the world.

How about a vote? I support changing it to just read "longest border" rather than "longest undefended border". TastyCakes (talk) 08:14, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Please keep in mind WP:Vote. I agree that this is an issue that needs addressing, but a vote will not solve that! What we need to do is find a phrasing that is acceptable to everyone; something that mentions how the border is not militarily active, but supervised by customs and border patrol officers. To me, 'undefended border' makes that clearer than any alternatives that have been suggested. However that's simply my opinion, which is in some way biased because I have grown up in Canada hearing the phrase 'longest undefended border'. Personally, I think it's fine the way it is, but let's reach consensus on this. --AntarcticPenguin (talk) 02:00, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

TastyCakes, you say that "undefended" does not have a clear and consistent definition with regard to borders, but I'm afraid you're just basing that on ambiguity created on this talk page. The term is understood as referring to defense against military incursion. Can you name an international border that isn't protected in a law enforcement sense? -Rrius (talk) 03:19, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

The Schengen Area? But that is besides the point, your example really proves nothing, since it does nothing to invalidate what seems a perfectly reasonable definition of "defending". "Can you name an international border that doesn't seek to defend against infiltration by criminals and terrorists?" seems like a perfectly reasonable sentence to me. I'm not saying that the saying "longest undefended border" doesn't assume the definition of "undefended" that you are saying. Obviously it does, or it would be incorrect. I'm just saying that it's not obvious that is the case. People could read the article and be forgiven for assuming there is no border control between the two countries, as is the case between countries in the EU. If we leave it as "undefended" I think we should note explicitly that we mean military-wise, and that civilian "defences" are present. I don't think you can provide a link to conclusively demonstrate that "undefended" always means the same thing, but please feel free to prove me wrong. TastyCakes (talk) 04:26, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't think that we should be discussing which is correct; we should be discussing which is most used externally. As the term "undefended border" is used almost uniquely to refer to the Canada – US border (see Google Search for Undefended Border; omitting "longest" and quotes), this is what should be on Wikipedia. Since the term's technical definition is questionable, this should be explained (as it already is at Canada – United States border, or perhaps through a footnote). Furthermore, it is clear that the border is commonly referred to as the "longest undefended border", and is not commonly referred to as the "longest border" (even if it may be in truth). -M.Nelson (talk) 20:41, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

Hmm I'm not sure wp:truth is meant in quite the way you're describing. As I understand it, the gist of it is that things that are true but cannot be verified should not be in the article. Border length can be verified and so is completely acceptable for inclusion in the article (and you can see it has been in the intro for a long time). That it's not a popular slogan doesn't invalidate it in any way. I agree that calling it can be easily verified that people call it the longest undefended border in the world a lot, and it could absolutely be included in the article if phrased that way, but it doesn't really help us with the problem that it's a fairly loose saying. There are lots of common sayings about things that are incorrect or vague that do not belong in Wikipedia articles other than to denounce or qualify them. This seems to be a case of the latter - it's true in a limited sense that should be spelled out. Consider a more extreme case - an apple a day keeps the doctor away. This is a very popular statement. If you look at apple, however, it mentions that it's a common proverb but doesn't say it's true. Likewise, I think it's fine to say that people commonly call it the longest undefended border, I just don't think we should endorse it, or at least not without qualification.

I'm not really bothered one way or another. If we do keep it in there, however, I think it should be changed to be more like at the Canada - United States border article where it says: the International Boundary is commonly referred to as the world's longest undefended border, but this is true only in the military sense, as civilian law enforcement is present.

TastyCakes (talk) 02:57, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

You're right in that I misapplied WP:TRUTH; I don't mean that we should present unverifiable information because it's "right", but that we shouldn't base the decision on which is most correct (instead, on which is most widely used). As I said above, I prefer "longest undefended border" used with some sort of clarification, whether it be a footnote or an extra sentence. -M.Nelson (talk) 04:18, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

That sounds fine to me. TastyCakes (talk) 04:31, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

But is it even called that anymore? Way up there is a link to Michael Wilson pretty much disclaiming the phrase in favour of "secure border". Is there a recent reliable source using "undefended border"? (Mr. Wilson is a decent fellow, but it was an ambassadorial speech to a US Chamber of Commerce, so it doesn't really prove one thing or the other) As AntarcticPenguin notes above, most Canadians who grew up in Canada heard the "undefended border" thing over and over - and it did used to be quite true and I for one wish it still was true. So what recent sources do we have? Even if we accept the tautology that the world's longest border is also the world's longest <every-attribute-of-that-border> border, is the phrase actually still current? Franamax (talk) 05:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Nunavit is now the eleventh province of Canada

The article is dated and does not reflect the new province of Nunavit. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.78.33.76 (talk) 19:29, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

First it is spelled Nunavut, secondly it is considered a territory not a province. Kyle1278 20:02, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Kyle's right on both counts. But to add two more: thirdly, it is mentioned in the article, and fourthly, it isn't new. I think the only word of truth in 70's entire statement is "article". Bearcat (talk) 00:02, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I lol'd. -Rrius (talk) 00:10, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

Images

Collapsed nonsense facilitated by vandal
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
caro_08Hello,i'm canadian and as you know;today,it's the beginning of the olympic games in Vancouver. On the page Canada,i would like to add images of largest canadian cities.By example,1-Toronto,with a photo of Toronto.2-Montreal,with a photo of Montreal.With the photos,i would accompany a little text,a parragraph,that describe the largest cities in Canada.Thank you! Moved from Wikipedia:Featured article review/Canada/archive1 on behalf of User:Caro 08. Nikkimaria (talk) 18:45, 12 February 2010 (UTC) Hi Caro, it looks like there is already a list of largest metropolitan areas in Canada under the demographics section, I don't think I agree another list of "largest cities" should be added... As for putting in pictures for each of them, I don't think it's practical to have a picture of each (or even the top 10), but maybe a selection could be added in a gallery format to the demographics section like is done here in the US article. TastyCakes (talk) 20:30, 12 February 2010 (UTC) WOW ok images all messed up...deleted ..not caro_08 fault....BUT caro pls tell us what you are trying to do..and maybe we can help....Today is Olympic games day and is not a good time to test edit the page since we can anticipate lost of view in the next weeks..Buzzzsherman (talk) 22:20, 12 February 2010 (UTC) Update I have replaced the deleted images ....but we should talk about if they are ok!!..Buzzzsherman (talk) 22:25, 12 February 2010 (UTC) This article does not need an extensive gallery of images of all of Canada's largest cities. For one thing, the article is already too long, and already contains too many, rather than not enough, photos. The photos might be appropriate elsewhere, but they don't belong here and Caro8 needs to stop this. Bearcat (talk) 22:34, 12 February 2010 (UTC) Yes i agree...some one has just removed them all..he did not give Edit summary...but i do think it looks better..i just did not want red links on the page specialty today ...I like this last editors boldness!!..Buzzzsherman (talk) 22:37, 12 February 2010 (UTC) Hello.I worked 4 hours on it and now,it is deleted.I'm frustrated...What i was trying to do,it's to increase Canadian tourism by adding a little parragraph with images of largest Canadian cities.I did't deleted something that was already on the page.I just added something.I will retry the samething,for the reason,i repeat:To increase Canadian tourism by adding beautiful images of Canadian cities with a little parragraph about the Canadian touristic places. Thank You!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caro 08 (talk • contribs) 23:41, 12 February 2010 (UTC) The point of wikipedia is not tourism promotion, it is an encyclopedia. Dbrodbeck (talk) 23:43, 12 February 2010 (UTC) Hello Caro 08 ..great effort ...but lets talk a bit more about this...pls hold off on your edits for now!!!..We have sizing issues on the page ..lets give other some time to comment here first pls... We do not mean to frustrate you, but the layout of the page should be discussed and agreement made first before massive changes...Buzzzsherman (talk) 23:47, 12 February 2010 (UTC) Hello! i understand what you mean!I will retry the samething i did,with a little parragraph that describe the canadian population.If you want,i can delete the chart that describe the canadian population and to do what i did with the pictures.This would be more interesting! Thank you verry much!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caro 08 (talk • contribs) 23:53, 12 February 2010 (UTC) I understand what you mean,i will retry the samething i did.with a little parragraph that describe the canadian population.If you want,i can delete the chart that describe the canadian population and to do what i did with the pictures.This would be more interesting! Thank you very much to answer me!Caro 08 (talk) 00:03, 13 February 2010 (UTC) Please do not do that. TastyCakes (talk) 17:10, 13 February 2010 (UTC) Canadian population Hi,i would like to edit the page Canada by adding a little parragraph that explain the Canadian population.With it,i would add 7 pictures of Canadian cities.This would be like that:1-Toronto(with a picture of Toronto),2-Montréal(with a picture of Montréal)... I thank you very much! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Caro 08 (talk • contribs) 14:20, 13 February 2010 (UTC) It seems like there is clear consensus that the page already has too many pictures and is too long, and so the pictures you are adding are inappropriate Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 16:01, 13 February 2010 (UTC) Thank you!.Caro 08 (talk) 17:54, 13 February 2010 (UTC) Err... I'd like to attach a condition to that. You can do it at least temporarily so that other editors can see how it looks. If they think it negatively affects the article it could be changed or reverted, and you'll need to discuss things with them here. 7 images seems like a lot, that's my primary concern. Equazcion (talk) 18:00, 13 Feb 2010 (UTC) Personally, I think that a paragraph describing the Canadian cities' populations isn't constructive. We already have the data presented clearly in a table, which allows easy comparison; what is gained by having them also listed in a paragraph? Also, it seems as though there is a bit of consensus on the article already having enough/too many pictures as it is. -M.Nelson (talk) 18:08, 13 February 2010 (UTC) Caro, it sounds pretty similar to what you were putting in before, and I don't think those were constructive additions to the article. The demographics section already "explains the Canadian population", what will your addition improve on? I think there is space to reasonably add two or three city pictures to the demographics section, but I think seven will overwhelm the article. TastyCakes (talk) 18:31, 13 February 2010 (UTC) Note that three editor comments above were altered by Caro 08 to make them seem favourable to their request. Original versions are now restored. Franamax (talk) 21:09, 13 February 2010 (UTC) All right.Thank you!Caro 08 (talk) 19:25, 13 February 2010 (UTC) OK we cant have you deleting big portions of text Caro 08!!!Buzzzsherman (talk) 19:29, 13 February 2010 (UTC) OK, this is getting confusing now. I've reinstated the block on Caro 'til we get this sorted out. Can someone else make whatever changes it is they want? Their diff's make it impossible to see what is happening but if the article size gets smaller it's usually not a good thing. Franamax (talk) 19:36, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Date formats

Hello guys i am not sure if the "Date formats" section in navbox is all messed up from all the reverts ...but i cant find a version with that section done properly ...any help here would be great!|date_format = dd-mm-yyyy, mm-dd-yyyy, ''and'' yyyy-mm-dd ([[Common Era|CE]])...Buzzzsherman (talk) 05:26, 13 February 2010 (UTC)

Canadian population by city

Hi,i would like to edit Canada by adding a little text about the population per Canadian city.With it,i would add 7 images of largest Canadian cities.Like that:1-Toronto(with a photo of Toronto,with its population),2-Montréal(with a picture of Montréal,with its population)...Notice that i won't delete any paragraph or thing that were already on the page Canada,so don't worry!!

Why do you need to add that when there is already a list of largest municipal districts in the demographics section? You never explained that, and if you go back to doing what you were doing before, you're going to get blocked again because you haven't properly explained yourself. TastyCakes (talk) 22:26, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

OK i won't add the text,but just the photos.Thank you!Caro 08 (talk) 23:21, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

This will looks like that:1-Toronto(with a photo of toronto,with its population) 2-Montréal(with a photo of Montréal,with its population)... Thank you!Caro 08 (talk) 23:22, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Explain first, Caro, and get the consensus of everyone here, before editing again. Your last edit removed over 8 kilobytes of content. Can you explain how this fits into your plan for the article? Equazcion ^(talk) 23:33, 16 Feb 2010 (UTC)

I still do not see what this adds. Dbrodbeck (talk) 00:31, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Caro has been blocked indefinitely, so it appears to be a moot issue for now. Equazcion ^(talk) 00:37, 17 Feb 2010 (UTC)

Economy Debt-to-GDP

I believe the debt-to-gdp numbers in the Economy section should be updated. The Parliamentary Budget Officer recently projected 09-10 ratio to be 33.9% (See http://www2.parl.gc.ca/sites/pbo-dpb/documents/EFAU_November_2009.pdf), not dropping to 19% as indicated in the article.

38.112.81.103 (talk) 17:14, 18 February 2010 (UTC)

refs removed

User:Nikkimaria today removed 3 refs from the article without giving an edit summary. Thus, I am asking why here.--JimWae (talk) 21:03, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

(s)he also unwikilined a bunch of stuff. Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:56, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

I seems this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_review/Canada/archive1 is the reason. Dbrodbeck (talk) 00:04, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I did leave an edit summary, although I agree that I could have been clearer about what I was doing. The FAR reviewers have requested that we reduce the number of refs by consolidating - that is, using the same ref to support multiple points where possible. All of the refs that I removed supported information that is also supported by remaining refs. As for the delinking, it was also requested that common terms be unlinked. Feel free to drop in at the FAR if you have concerns or questions, or drop a note at my talk page. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 03:49, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, I think some of the delinking is good. That said, New France is probably one we should have linked. Dbrodbeck (talk) 03:54, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

That was delinked for a different reason - it's a duplicate, already linked via pipe in the lead, so there's no need to link it again. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 04:20, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I had not noticed that, thought I had looked closely. THanks Dbrodbeck (talk) 05:15, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Still, the refs were just removed... without citing the other ref (from the shorter list of refs)--JimWae (talk) 05:01, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not sure I understand your objection. Most of my ref changes followed this format: "Sentence A.[1] Sentence B.[2]" -> "Sentence A. Sentence B.[2 - with extra page numbers if necessary]". The idea is that [2] covers the information in both sentences, eliminating the need for [1]. Could you explain your preferred formatting? Nikkimaria (talk) 14:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

"Sentence A.[1] Sentence B.[1]"" - else we can soon expect "Sentence A.[citation needed] Sentence B.[1]"--JimWae (talk) 18:27, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Education, science, and technology

I really think there should be a section titled "Education, science, and technology". Canada is a world leader in the science and technology field, therefore it deserves its own section on the main article. Bakersdozen77 (talk) 04:28, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Demographics pictures

I've noticed that first of all, the words "name, pop" etc. are not capitalized on one side and capitalized on the other which should be fixed. The other thing I think we should change is the picture of Toronto. I think we should use the picture thats on Toronto's page but that's just my opinion. One other thing I saw was that some of the cities have their Coat of Arms and some don't. We should have all of them have their coat of arms or none of them have them. I am new so I can't change these so could someone please fix these problems.

Nations United (talk) 03:59, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Ummmm, what? I don't see any pictures of coats of arms...129.100.249.17 (talk) 15:19, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

This was a Template:Largest Metropolitan Areas of Canada issue that has since been resolved. -M.Nelson (talk) 16:46, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Blackberry

I think the article about Canadian Economy could include a picture of a Blackberry, the most famous manufactured product of Canada today, just to show that Canada is not based only in Energy and Agriculture. Also a picture of a Bombardier high speed train would be interesting...--83.35.183.14 (talk) 21:23, 28 February 2010 (UTC)

Should Canada be re-listed as a developing country

People in Canada don't have as much money as they used it. I wonder that Canada might be re-listed as a developing country and booted out of the G8 if the economy continues its current pace. Is this true? GVnayR (talk) 23:38, 1 March 2010 (UTC)

Hardly. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.191.91.209 (talk) 03:44, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for comforting me. I have seen the local workers get laid off and I was worried that we might have to become some Third World country. I guess we'll be safe and this recession will end someday with us still being a developed country. GVnayR (talk) 04:10, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Assuming you're not just trying to get a rise out of people, please see developed country for an idea of why Canada is not in danger of leaving the "developed" list any time soon. Being a developed country involves much more than just money per capita: education, healthcare, infrastructure and political stability are all important factors and Canada is well endowed on all those counts, which is why it is ranked 4th in the list of countries by HDI, the highest ranking of any G8 member. Also note that your assessment of Canada's economy does not seem to be shared by many others. Its per capita income is ranked 12th in the world by the IMF, ahead of all other members of the G8 other than the US. Unemployment in Canada is lower than unemployment in the US and many European countries. And the Canadian banking system, and the Canadian economy in general, is generally seen as faring better than most during the recent economic turmoil. Canada's economy is thought to have grown at an annual rate of 5% in the fourth quarter of last year, a high rate for a developed country. Finally, membership in the G8 doesn't really mean that much, and it has no relationship with a country's level of development. Further, even as an economic bloc of "big players" it is increasingly out of date, with fairly large developed economies, like Spain and Australia, not being in it, and huge developing economies like China and India also missing. There is a lot of talk in the media that the G8 is being overshadowed in importance by the G20. TastyCakes (talk) 04:36, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Amen, TastyCakes. This guy was totally wp:soapboxing Netsquall (talk) 18:04, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Language section unclear

"67.5% speak English only, 13.3% speak French only, and 17.7% speak both" should be changed to e.g. "of the two official languages, 67.5% speak English only, 13.3% speak French only, and 17.7% speak both" Bjornarl (talk) 14:29, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

I'd say that and/or explain the 1.5% that apparently speak neither... TastyCakes (talk) 17:57, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Images for the demographics of Canada

We used to have some images of the major cities in Canada and now we don't. I thought it looked really nice, so do you think it's a good idea to add some pictures of the major cities like Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver? Nations United (talk) 05:46, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Do you mean the ones in the template or in the section itself? The ones in the template were removed as part of the ongoing featured article review. The ones in the section were added by the now indef-blocked sockpuppeteer Caro 08. As for your question...I prefer not having the pictures, but I'm open to suggestion provided that someone else writes the alt text for any images that are added. Nikkimaria (talk) 13:31, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Genocide

Something is wrong with this article if the word "genocide" is not contained within it, in reference to Canada's history of ethnic cleansing of the Aboriginals. —Preceding unsigned comment added by EightNineEditorMan (talk • contribs) 23:03, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Find a reliable source, suggest where to put it and get consensus. Dbrodbeck (talk) 02:03, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

That means you don't have chance. Finding sources and being right isn't enough.

Edit request

{{editsemiprotected}} "Intercolonial" should be "Inter-colonial". Thanks! 98.236.176.190 (talk) 08:03, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

98.236.176.190 (talk) 08:03, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Intercolonial seems to be more frequently used. It can also be found in dictionaries:[2]. --JokerXtreme (talk) 08:33, 27 March 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Matps, 3 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} Request to edit the text: change John Cabot in Giovanni Caboto since is the original italian name and theres not english version about it. It would be correct more like native name. Example: Cristoforo Colombo, Marco Polo, Amerigo Vespucci

Matps (talk) 00:17, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

Y done :-) --ZacBowling ^(user|talk) 00:24, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

As per FA re-review

Hello eh!.. I was asked to redo the section on Aboriginals as per Wikipedia:Featured article review/Canada/archive1 (since i am very familiar with the subject of our Indigenous peoples ). However I think that i should get others to review what i have in mind to add being the high profile of this article...All of the new section i propose is a copy edit of info that comes from the Aboriginal peoples in Canada article that we got to GA status not long ago. Keeping in mind the new text is a summery of the Aborigianl page, all-be-it a reasonable size for here.. Pls see copy of proposed changes here .... If no real objections i will add it in the next day or 2.Pleas feel free to edit the page ...........Moxy (talk) 23:36, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you plan to add all of your proposed section? If that is the case, I think they need to be shorter, as the current article is already too long. Regards -- Jeff3000 (talk) 01:37, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

I don't agree on either count. This is important info and not particularly expansive (i will have a look to trim though). The article overall appears to me not that long given the subject. hamiltonstone (talk) 01:40, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Hi guys lets get all to post here -->Wikipedia:Featured article review/Canada/archive1#As of April 06 if possible as it might help with any confusion as to why this is being talked about and keep it all in one place....I post here in the first place to get more involved and its working :) ... See here specifically as this is were the omissions of certain info was discussed...Moxy (talk) 01:50, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

 New text from user:sandbox to main article has been done ...Moxy (talk) 06:24, 8 April 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 64.119.222.218, 13 April 2010

{{editsemiprotected}} Canada's Debt-to-GDP ratio of 19.5% for 2009 seems fallacious. Consider revision + update

64.119.222.218 (talk) 13:26, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Do you have a source that suggests a different ratio? What do you think the correct value should be? Nikkimaria (talk) 15:13, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Until we have a source for this, there is not a need to change the article. Please let us know when you have a good source, and we will make the change.

 Not done ^Avicenna_sis @ 16:27, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Music in culture section

As I have argued at the FARC, the culture section remains sub-par for a feature article. It until recently had nothing on visual arts, music or literature. It still has nothing on literature (which i hope to fix, but not for a few days). The material now there is an improvement, but still too brief in my view. I have tried to add a number of major Canadian musicians who have demonstrated international significance, for example through winning multiple Grammy Awards. At least one editor is not convinced that this sets the bar high enough, or in the right place. Any other views? For those who think this is too long, I again suggest looking at England, which is a GA (and hasn't been knocked back at FA for excessive length or anything like that). hamiltonstone (talk) 05:35, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Canada is ahead of the U.S. on heritage.org rankings

The article says that Canada is ranked lower than the us on the economic freedom index, but now canada is 7th and us is 8th. 199.8.158.118 (talk) 17:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

 Done thank you for noticing--

Canada is a mixed market, ranking lower than the U.S. on the Heritage Foundation's index...

Canada is a mixed market, ranking above the U.S. on the Heritage Foundation's index.....[3]

..........Moxy (talk) 23:54, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

Question..

How do we up date the Spoken Wikipedia thing, is this something that is done by someone in Wikipedia, or just a matter of someone doing it them self's and uploading it?? I just cant find any real info on it...Moxy (talk) 20:02, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

It's just a sound file; if you want to update it, record yourself reading the article and upload the recording, or find someone willing to do a new version. There's also WP:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia where you can get more information. Nikkimaria (talk) 21:26, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

Suggestions for new unique style of article for Canada

Please discuss any suggestions for a unique style for the article of Canada. The article for Canada should not resemble other countries.

Suggestions to include should be; a comparable list of how Canada effects the earth, worldwide economic contributions, and cultural differences between Canada and the rest of the world. 70.181.249.210 (talk) 09:04, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Hello " Canada should not resemble other countries" actually we strive to make all articles somewhat the same so readers are not confused and can navigate them easily. The Canada article has been the model that other countries refer to when giving an example of what a country page should look like. This is an encyclopedia not a music website...We do have the Canada portal that has a unique look! ...Moxy (talk) 16:54, 25 April 2010 (UTC)

Speaker to rule whether Prime Minister in Contempt of Parliament

The Speaker is going to be deciding on a ruling that could set a precedence that greatly changes Canada's political system. The decision will occur some time between April 23rd, 2010 and April 30, 2010.[[4]] 72.172.171.178 (talk) 16:52, 26 April 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for this ..we will keep an eye on the developments...and if need be change some wording here and there !!...Moxy (talk) 03:01, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Hahbie's edits

User:Hahbie has inappropriately added a great deal of information to the lead in the form of footnotes, claiming it is essential explanatory information that does not appear in the body. Despite numerous calls to explain his edits here, he has persisted in edit warring. -Rrius (talk) 03:10, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Let's get into the specifics, shall we.

• First, he changes "and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982" to "culminated in the Canada Act 1982 of 1982, which gave rise to the Constitution Acts, 1867-1982"

You'll note that "Constitution Acts, 1867-1982" is in italics, a bizarre theme of his edits. More importantly, it doesn't make any sense.

• To that, he adds a footnote saying, "The Constitution Acts, 1867-1982 should not be confused with the Constitution Act, 1982, a statute of the United Kingdom Parliament, Schedule B of the Canada Act 1982."

This is a completely unnecessary explanation and, again, makes no sense because there is no single document called "Constitution Acts, 1867-1982".

• Next, where the lead said Canada is a constitutional monarchy, he adds a huge block of text attempting to argue that Canada only became a de jure constitutional monarchy in 1982, and had previously been a de facto one. He does this with absolutely no evidence whatsoever to support his view. It is, therefore, original research at best.
• A second extensive footnote floats between unnecessarily and verbosely explaining that the Queen of Canada is the same human as the Queen of the UK (he actually says "Queen of England") and incorrectly using the word "de jure" and inaccurately explaining Canada's sovereignty.
• Finally, he quite unnecessarily adds that a footnote saying, "Canadian English and Canadian French are official languages in several Canadian provinces and territories, too."

These edits are of low quality both in terms of formatting and content. After being urged to discuss his edits, Hahbie made it clear he wants to make some point about Canadian sovereignty rather than actually work to improve the article. However, I've outlined the above in case he chooses to take the latter path and discuss his edits. -Rrius (talk) 03:43, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Agreed these edits are to make a WP:POINT. I do not want to get into a 3RR situation here, but, these edits are disruptive. Dbrodbeck (talk) 03:47, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Agree they appear to be disruptive or pointy, and i think the existing hatnote directing people to Monarchy of Canada is about all that was needed. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:22, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Blocked for 3RR violation. I think they're disruptive edits for a point. Also using Ref tags for commentary not references. Canterbury Tail talk 19:29, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

Science and Technology

I suggest to leave the modification on Science and Technology, but at least reduce it to maximize space.I suggest to leave this part alone because is a complement of internet users in Canada.

[...] Canada have become world leader in the field of computer age. The first internet search engine was developed in Montreal in 1990 at McGill University. The world's first quantum computer was developed in 2007 by D-Wave Systems. There are studies in quantum computing technology at the Institute for Quantum Computing, in Waterloo, Ontario. Canada ranks as 12 in the world for Internet usage with 28.0 million users, 84.3% of the total population. [...] De Grasse (talk) 02:32, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Omg your Jimderkaisser should have the same name so we know its you.. anyways I think all this should be added to the main article on the subject. but never the less lets look at it..

Canada have become world leader in the field of computer age. (better English needed) The first internet search engine was developed in Montreal in 1990 at McGill University. The world's first quantum computer was developed in 2007 by D-Wave Systems. There are studies in quantum computing technology at the Institute for Quantum Computing, in Waterloo, Ontario. (what is this point talking about) Ontario. Canada ranks as 12 in the world for Internet usage with 28.0 million users, 84.3% of the total population. [...] (looks ok to me, but again better English needed)....Moxy (talk) 02:47, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I would add that the sentence "Canada have become world leader in the field of computer age" is essentially meaningless and should be omitted. As Moxy says, the rest needs referencing, clarifying and copyediting before it goes into the article. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:03, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

royal anthem

I think the "royal anthem" should be removed from the infobox. No other country to my knowledge lists their royal anthem in the infobox. Plus, a song they play for certain people on ceremonial visits is really not relevantKoopalampudoo (talk) 02:33, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Articles with the country's royal anthem listed: Denmark, Belize, United Kingdom, New Zealand, The Bahamas, Luxembourg, Thailand, Norway, Antigua and Barbuda, Sweden, Grenada, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Jamaica, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, and Jordan. Plus, the national anthem is a song played for certain people on ceremonial occasions as well; is it therefore not relevant? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 04:40, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, it shouldn't be in the infobox. It is "Honors music" played for certain dignitaries. It would be comparable to Hail to the Chief in the United States. Only the actual national anthem should be listed. It could be mentioned in the article, but it is not appropriate in the infobox.UrbanNerd (talk) 14:00, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Disagree,, as shown above by Miesianiacal this is stander practice, as an encyclopedia we should have as much info as we can. Template:Infobox country clearly allows for this section, so how can you say its not supposed to be there, perhaps it could be talked about on the template page because 100s of articles are using the parameters set fourth by the template - This is an FA level article with all parameters filled in as per FA review. There is no comparison to the badly sourced United States article that if it ever gets to FA level i think should include Hail to the Chief to show who is head of state. Moxy (talk) 17:17, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

The Royal anthem of Canada belongs in the infobox. And we cannot compare the US, a republic, to Canada, a constitutional monarchy. While in the US "Hail to the Chief" is only played for the President mainly, in Canada "God Save the Queen" is played at many public events even if the Queen is not present at that event. --~Knowzilla ^(Talk) 11:55, 21 June 2010 (UTC)

God Save the Queen should NOT be listed in the infobox as the "Royal Anthem". Canada's connections to the UK are only symbolic (NOT EXECUTIVE), and it specifically states in the National Anthem Act (1980) that O Canada! is the only official anthem of Canada. Nowhere in ANY bill, act, or other piece of legislation does it state in Canadian law that "God save the Queen (or King)" has ANY position in Canada. The only place where it is even mentioned is as the HYMN used for honours salutes for the visiting queen, or other royals, and abrev. versions for our GG and lieutenant Governors.

To sum up: It has NO legal standing in Canadian law, and it is only used as an DE FACTO honour salute only on a very limited basis. If some nostalgist British imperialist wants to dream that it is 1821 let them do so, but do not abrogate from Canada's identity, by mitigating by mixing something which is not an equal or even deserving of mention alongside O Canada! IN Canada. Slaja (talk) 05:12, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

One at a time. Miesianiacal, New Zealand lists "GSTQ" but also says that it's a national anthem not a royal anthem. Papua New Guinea, United Kingdom and Jordan only list one anthem not two. I would disagree that "the national anthem is a song played for certain people on ceremonial occasions". It's a bit hard to explain how the start of a regular season hockey game or every morning at the local primary school is a ceremonial occasion or who the certain people are. Knowzilla, we are not comparing the US style of government to the Canadian style but the way the two articles are laid out. Slaja, just because some people think the royal should be in the infobox does not make them a "British imperialist wants to dream that it is 1821". If you have no better argument than making attacks on other editors, I would suggest that you click on the "Random page" link on the left and see if the article you find needs improvement. Now after looking at God Save the Queen and Use in Canada I see that the royal has come about, in the same way that GSTQ has become the national in the UK, is due to Convention (norm) rather than by law. So if the royal is mentioned in the infobox then it needs to have the status made very clear. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 08:19, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

In articles where only one song is listed, it is both the national and royal anthem. Both anthems are ceremonial by their very nature; the royal one is played to honour the sovereign, the national one to honour the people of the nation. Because the national anthem is set out as such by statute law and the other by convention doesn't make much of a difference to this discussion; much of Canada's officialdom is built on convention and isn't considered less pertinent because of it (the office of prime minister, for example).

Knowzilla touches on a salient point: "God Save the Queen" is indeed played on occasions when neither the Queen nor any other Royal Family member is present. It is therefore a misconception to state that the royal anthem is nothing more than just honours music for a person. The national anthem eulogizes the nation of Canada; the royal anthem is a tribute to the state - to the monarch as the personification of the authority to make the rules that govern the people and the repository of Canadian sovereignty, not a nice old lady named Elizabeth. I think that warrants a place in the infobox (and Moxy is right to point out that the infobox contains a parameter for royal anthems). --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 13:43, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

CBW, Clearly that was not my argument I was pointing out that those in favour have a very limited basis to do so. My argument was that it has no standing or mention in Canadian law, whereas O Canada! clearly does in the NAA (1980). My other point is this, since its only use is as an HONOURS SALUTE it is a gross misrepresentation to list it as an "Royal Anthem". There is a big difference;

In a country with a DE JURE Royal Anthem, it significance can range from heritage purposes to as far as indicating EXECUTIVE COMMAND. An example of this would be French Guiana, to which the best of my knowledge has a National Anthem by convention, and "La Marseillaise" by law as its ROYAL ANTHEM. This indicates a lack of complete sovereignty, and thus external executive command.

An Honours Salute (which is not legislated in any form) is used for ALL visiting foreign dignitaries, regardless of birth. For instance when the Japanese emperor recently visited Ottawa they played his national honours music. The only exception to this with "GSTQ" is its very limited use in abbreviated versions for our GG and lieutenant Governors Honours Salutes. However, even then you cannot call it a Royal Anthem because it is; a) musically not congruent with GSTQ (diff. key, very short - only first six bars), and b) interchangeable with "Mallorca" when pipes instead of a band are used. Now why would a "Royal Anthem" be interchangeable with a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT piece simply due to the presence of pipes? This would negate its position as "Royal Anthem" because in fact, as CUSTOMS DICTATES there are two different songs.

A country cannot have multiple Royal Anthems unless (and seldom or never seen) it is enacted by legislation, or law. However countries CAN have multiple "Honours Salutes", as Canada does.

So once again by the definition of "Royal Anthem", Canada cannot and DOES NOT have one. Slaja (talk) 16:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Um... Yes it does. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:19, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Off the link you just provided. - "God Save The Queen" has no legal status in Canada, although it is considered as the royal anthem. Koopalampudoo (talk) 17:55, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

GSTQ is not an official anthem. The "Hockey night in Canada" song could be "considered" as an anthem to some, doesn't mean it belongs in the infobox. Koopalampudoo (talk) 17:59, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

This is getting ridiculous. Mies provided a site from the government asserting that it is in fact Canada's royal anthem. As was stated above, the fact that something is not enshrined in statute does not mean it doesn't exist. No statute says Canada has a royal anthem, but it does. Your point about "Hockey Night in Canada" is simply ridiculous. Slaja's point is also a bit silly since his criticism seems to be that it doesn't meet his definition of a "royal anthem", which is so deficient as such things go that he includes a republic as having a royal anthem. His point that continuing something after independence from another country somehow shows a lack of complete sovereignty is also silly. Should the House of Commons be renamed? Should the tradition of a state opening or of bringing up pro forma bills before considering the Queen's Speech be discontinued? -Rrius (talk) 18:10, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

"God Save The Queen" has no legal status in Canada . Says it all. Any argument other than that is simply "I want it on there". Koopalampudoo (talk) 18:13, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, no, "although it is considered as the royal anthem" says it all. Your basic argument against that is that you don't like because there is no statute. Our argument is that it is called the royal anthem by reliable sources. Furthermore, as it has long been listed, it should not be removed until a consensus against its inclusion emerges. -Rrius (talk) 18:45, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually, No, anything could be "considered" an anthem. It is not an official anthem, period. Your basic argument is "you want it". Sure reliable sources state it is a royal anthem. But this country holds no legal royal anthem. ("God Save The Queen" has no legal status in Canada) It should be removed until proven that it is an official anthem, which it is not. Koopalampudoo (talk) 19:05, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

What, in your consideration, defines something as having legal status? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:06, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Again, no, legal status is irrelevant. It is your personal standard for which you have shown not one reliable source. -Rrius (talk) 22:44, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

On June 18, 1980 - The Secretary of State of Canada, Francis Fox, presented a bill in the House of Commons that "O Canada" be proclaimed as Canada's national anthem as soon as possible. The bill was unanimously accepted by the House of Commons and the Senate on June 27. No such bill or order has ever taken place for GSTQ. It has "no legal status in Canada". Koopalampudoo (talk) 20:20, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

No bill or order has ever created the office of the prime minister. So, you must surely then believe that the prime minister has no legal status in Canada. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:39, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't be ridiculous. Sometime if you nothing constructive to add to the conversation, you shouldn't add anything. Koopalampudoo (talk) 20:44, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for admitting your position is ridiculous.

It's all academic, anyway; a reliable source says it is Canada's royal anthem. Done. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:46, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes resorting to juvenile behaviour, well done. Reliable sources say "God Save The Queen" has no legal status in Canada. DONE. Koopalampudoo (talk) 20:56, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Who cares if it has "legal status" or not? It is the royal anthem. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 21:01, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Exactly, the requirement that a royal anthem have legal status exists solely in your head. "God Save the Queen" has no legal status in the UK, either. So why do you think it matters. -Rrius (talk) 21:47, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Miesianiacal, did you not read what I wrote? GSTQ cannot be a royal anthem because custom dictates that when pipe are used instead of a band the song "Mallorca" be played instead.

IT IS NOT POSSIBLE FOR AN ANTHEM OF ANY KIND TO BE INTERCHANGEABLE.

IT IS A HONOURS SALUTE AND THAT IS ALL! NOT A "ROYAL ANTHEM"! Slaja (talk) 21:57, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Yet another factless argument. If you two aren't going to bother with facts and sources, perhaps it is time to close this silly discussion. -Rrius (talk) 22:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Rrius, is that a real argument? O Canada has legal status as Canada's anthem. GSTQ does not have a legal status as our "Royal Anthem", only by convention as a honours salute. To bring up the UK which does not even have a constitution is laughable. Slaja (talk) 22:03, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes it is a real one, and you are wrong. It is not my bringing up the UK that is laughable, it is your continuing to argue without a single fact to assist you that a royal anthem is only a royal anthem if a statute that is laughable. And trust me, I have had a good laugh about it. -Rrius (talk) 22:58, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Arguments aren't important, only sources. I'm not sure how many you need before conceding that "God Save the Queen" is Canada's royal anthem:

• Department of Canadian Heritage: "'God Save The Queen'... is considered as the royal anthem."
• Department of Canadian Heritage: "Since the proclamation of 'O Canada' as the National Anthem in 1980, 'God Save The Queen' has been performed as the Royal Anthem of Canada."
• The Canadian Encyclopedia: "'O Canada' and 'God Save the Queen'/'Dieu sauve la Reine' were approved by Parliament in 1967 as Canada's national and royal anthems."
• Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia: "[T]he Royal Anthem, 'God Save the Queen'..."
• Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan: "[T]he Royal Anthem, 'God Save the Queen'..."
• Department of National Defence: "Royal Anthem: The music of 'God Save The Queen' is considered the royal anthem of Canada... [T]he royal anthem, 'God Save The Queen'..."
• The Grand Orange Lodge of Canada: "'God Save the Queen' also serves as the royal anthem for most Commonwealth countries, such as Australia and Canada."
• Government of British Columbia: "Royal Anthem God Save The Queen"

If you still believe "God Save the Queen" is not the royal anthem of Canada, you'd best take the matter up with all the above organisations, not complain about it here. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:33, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, God save the Queen is the Royal Anthem of Canada and belongs in the infobox like many other nation's articles that list their royal anthem. This is one of those cases where it is more helpful to the reader to present information than not mention it at all, it hardly takes up a lot of room. BritishWatcher (talk) 22:37, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Agree. The field of the infobox simply asks for what is the royal anthem, not what has been officially decreed as such. If the Canadian government (and provincial governments) state that it is considered a royal anthem, we should consider it a royal anthem (with its status clearly identified per CBW). The opposing comments have no basis from external sources, and are essentially applying original research because someone doesn't like it. -M.Nelson (talk) 23:48, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

Don't Believe me? It clearly states that GSTQ is to be changed to "Mallorca" when it is Pipes playing. And it is a Honours Salute, not a Royal Anthem. [Cdn. hertiage dept.]

• [5]

None of those links provided any solid reason to place GSTQ as Canada's "Royal Anthem", for they all contained qualifying statements such as:

• "God Save The Queen" has no legal status in Canada,
• GTSQ...as part of the Salute,
• Legislation to this effect was passed only in 1980, however, and applied only to 'O Canada,
• but not legislated by the House of Commons,
• The Royal Salute is a musical greeting.

Every link you posted proved my point, It has no place in Canada as an official "Royal Anthem", and thus we should not list it otherwise.

To M.nelson's comments regarding opinion; can you not ponder why this listing is reprehensible to many? Does not one of you have understanding? I am feeling a very strong anti-Quebecois sentiment here and protest the utter violation of the Wikipedian ideal of civility. You all may not think, but this has serious meaning to the Quebecois people, but you tread on it with such frivolity. This isn't frivolous. It has the capacity to cause pain, suffering, and anger. It was not so long ago that the Quebecois people were being raped, and violated by the "english businessmen". Mention the word "reine" and the anger will come forth, from all generations of Quebecois.

So I ask you again, why have none of you considered this? Because to you Quebec is not a nation, it is under chains from Sussex st. to Buckingham, and that is all you know. And this is bigoted ignorance as never before. Keep your imperialist song as a mark of the marginalized people of Quebec, if you feel like one more act of marginalization. Because I am done arguing with English supremacists. Slaja (talk) 02:51, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Whoa! I never considered Quebec with regards to this, and quite frankly, it has no bearing whatsoever unless sources specifically state otherwise. We shouldn't try to "water down" Canada's connections to the UK for fear of offending Quebecois; at the same time we should also be weary of overplaying this connection (solely to avoid inaccuracy, not to avoid offending certain groups).

Back on topic, nobody is calling "God Save the Queen" an "official", "legislated", or "legal" royal anthem. However, "it is considered as the royal anthem". Because many references state this, we should report it, while making it clear that it is not "legal" in any way. -M.Nelson (talk) 03:10, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Unwritten convention has great standing in any Westminster style system (e.g. the British Constitution), and, the government of Canada says it is the Royal Anthem. It is that simple really. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:42, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

I don't think anyone is arguing that it is used as a royal anthem in Canada. I think the argument is that it is not an official anthem, therefor not appropriate for the info box. Only official anthems should be in the info box. (O'Canada). UrbanNerd (talk) 15:07, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I think we've pretty well established that it is official. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:19, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

What part of "GSTQ has no official status in Canada" don't you understand ? Koopalampudoo (talk) 22:33, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

The part where the reliable source making such a claim is supposed to be --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:37, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Even the government reference you provided says it has no legal status in Canada. Although you might think it is an official anthem in this country, you have been proven wrong. It is a ceremonial song seldom played for the GG and royal dignitaries. Period. Koopalampudoo (talk) 22:47, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

You didn't say "no legal status", you said "no official status", but, of course, making "official" equal only "legal" is your own fabrication. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:03, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

That it is not official is a gloss you are putting on the source, not what the source says. If all sources have to be laundered through what you think they mean, the rest of us may as well give up trying to edit and just make it Koopalmpudoopedia. The lack of a statute is utterly irrelevant to the question of whether it is Canada's royal anthem. -Rrius (talk) 22:50, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

"Official" does not equal "enshrined in statute". There are plenty of reliable, authoritative sources that say "God Save the Queen" is Canada's royal anthem, and none that don't. Your reliance on the lack of a statute is based, as can be seen by your comments above, on your desire to remove anything that you see as showing British dominance over Canada. As such, what you are attempting is, if not POV-pushing, then POV motivated, rather than an attempt to conform the article to what is verified by reliable sources. -Rrius (talk) 22:44, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Infobox is short for 'Information box'. Having the royal anthem included, provides readers with more information on Canada (and what's wrong with that?). GoodDay (talk) 23:00, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

To be clear, Koopalampudoo's point is incredibly weak because the text at issue says 'Royal Anthem: "God Save the Queen"'. No where in there does it say "official" or "legally". What is said is more than amply supported by reliable sources, and it is hard to continue to take the crusade against inclusion seriously. -Rrius (talk) 23:04, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Actually a quick look at the contribution histories of the users pushing the anthem as an official anthem (BritishWatcher, Rrius, Miesianiacal, Knowzilla) shows you all seem to have a large interest in british monarchy. So in fact it is you whom seem to be trying to push your POV's. Your arguments are beyond weak, and are slightly short of "We have a large interest in the monarchy and want to portray Canada as having a royal anthem, even if it is not official or legal. We like it" Koopalampudoo (talk) 23:11, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I'm a republican. GoodDay (talk) 23:14, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) And I've little interest in the British monarchy. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:19, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

"The Royal Anthem originated as a patriotic song in London, England, in 1745. Neither the author nor the composer is known. The anthem is performed officially in Canada in the presence of members of the Royal Family, and as part of the Salute accorded to the Governor General and Lieutenant Governors." [6] That is what it says on the Canadian Government website for heritage. The suggesting we are pushing a certain agenda here is nonsense, we are simply supporting the status quo which is clearly backed up by reliable sources. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:18, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh and yes i am a humble subject of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, my support for the monarchy does not make it possible for me to demand Royal Anthems be inserted on country articles just for the sake of it. There has to be some sources, and there are plenty in this case which is why the royal anthem has been displayed on this article for a very long time.. its been pretty stable as far as im aware. BritishWatcher (talk) 23:28, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) This is getting close to feeding a troll, but I'll respond. The text at issue is verified by reliable sources. "Interest" in the monarchy does not equate to support for it. I am an American, for Christ's sake. Interestingly enough, you completely skipped GoodDay, who is an avowed republican. Unlike you, we are not letting preferences influence how we view reality. Despite the fact that you don't like it, "God Save the Queen" is Canada's royal anthem. Full stop. That no statute has ever stated so is completely irrelevant, and you have failed over and over again to provide any support for you belief that the lack should bar inclusion. -Rrius (talk) 23:16, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

The user is a single purpose account. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:38, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

I have a compromise, seeing how we are currently including a non-official or legal anthem, maybe we could add another to please everyone.

• Anthem : O Canada
• Royal Anthem : God Save The Queen
• Hockey Anthem : The Hockey Theme
• Baseball anthem : Take Me Out to the Ball Game

Seeing how they have much merit as any other non legal anthems, it would be nice to include them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Koopalampudoo (talk • contribs) 13:28, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Oh for goodness sake. BritishWatcher (talk) 13:35, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Koopalampudoo, before you write anything else go read Wikipedia:Consensus and on a less serious note, you might want to consider if the horse is still breathing. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 13:55, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

I dont know if he had time to read it, hes gone over to God save the Queen article and made lots of POV changes there. BritishWatcher (talk) 20:35, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I just noticed that. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 20:36, 28 June 2010 (UTC)

Seriously, stop censoring now

I've moved the content to its own page which concedes the ONLY thing that people have asked for. To remove a link to that page is complete bullshit censorship. The whole point of an online encyclopedia is to use hyperlinks from one page to another. To remove a hyperlink because you don't want people reading the page it refers to is the very definition of censorship. You cannot justify this in a transparent revision-based document. Anyone removing this link is a clear vandal by any reasonable definition. There are dozens of links in the Canada article. Having this one isn't hurting anybody.

The fact that Miesianiacal removed this link proves that he NEVER believed any of his objections to the content. He just doesn't want ANYBODY reading about these secret laws. Miesianiacal, do you work for the Canadian government? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Truthinwiki2010 (talk • contribs) 01:09, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

No, Miesianiacal did not remove the link the second time; a different user did. Ironholds (talk) 01:11, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

New Page has been deleted...as per copyright violations Moxy (talk) 01:12, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I just saw that. Deleting the page is the most ridiculous way of censoring this content. Furthermore, quoting what an individual said inside quotes and given a reference is not a copyright violation. It is the very definition of fair use. Also, the user could have reworded anything he thought was a copyright violation that was not a direct quote. The fact that you guys removed the page all together shows that you are grasping at straws to hide this content. You guys aren't even trying to hide that you are censors not editors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Truthinwiki2010 (talk • contribs) 01:16, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

If we're all (What is it? Six of us now?) driven to censor this information, why is it still perfectly visible at 2010 G-20 Toronto summit? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 01:19, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

This is simply not of sufficient importance to be at this article. Your creation of an article consisting entirely of copyrighted text repeated verbatim shows a gross ignorance of the rules of editing at Wikipedia. Instead of lashing out at editors who are being responsible in protecting the project against inappropriate edits, why don't you read WP:Reliable sources, WP:Verify, WP:NPOV, and—above all—WP:Civil. -Rrius (talk) 01:27, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Call to stop censoring article about Canada

Recent attempts to censor the Canada wiki page performs a disservice to all Wikipedia readers. Currently, the government of Canada has made a fundamental shift in it legal philosophy and practice of law, a shift that affects all persons living in or visiting Canada. The government has decided that it is legal to create secret laws and arrest people who violate those laws. A secret law is one that is enforced but not disclosed to the public.

Lawyers and civil rights organizations are arguing that this violates the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and all legal traditions of Canada. Whether challenges to this legal practice of secret laws succeed or fail, the result will determine the nature of the Canadian legal system for the 21st century. It is the single most important issue in all of Canada's history as it will affect the lives of all Canadians and Canadian tourists and set Canada down one of two incompatible political and cultural roads.

Regardless of which side you take on this issue, the very existence of this issue is worthy of mention in the Canadian law section of this article. To omit the fact that a secret law has been used to arrest people in Canada, is not a neutral point of view. Whitewashing history is never neutral, it shows the most deceitful kind of bias. To omit the existence of secret law from this article is no different than to omit the existence of slavery before 1865 in the article about the United States. Such an omission is a lie, pure and simple.

Those who would censor this article should be reminded of the Barbra Streisand Effect. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.46.113.209 (talk) 22:37, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

This overview article is already too long and should serve only as an introduction for Canada. To keep this overview article concise, please consider adding information instead to one of the many "main" articles about Canada linked from this article. Like Law of Canada or/and Politics of Canada. This article is a summary of info and you will notice that no other minor law or legislation is mentioned. Moxy (talk) 22:45, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks, anon, for finally bringing this to the talk page.

First off: what you're talking about is an Ontario law, not a Canadian one, which is reason number one why it doesn't belong here. Secondly, as has already been pointed out repeatedly in the edit summaries of the reverts of your addition: such minutae doesn't belong in an article with a scope as wide as this one. That isn't censorship, it means put your info where it belongs. (Though, it is, in fact, already there at 2010 G-20 Toronto summit.) --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 22:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

For the above stated reasons I am with Moxy and Miesianiacal. Dbrodbeck (talk) 23:34, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

To address all your points...

> This overview article is already too long

Fact: The article contains 107,810 characters. Fact: My additions are a mere 1,020 characters. Fact: My additions increase the article length by less than 1%

This is not making the article too long.

> Should serve only as an introduction for Canada

The article already contains a law section. That section refers to the Constitution of Canada, the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the British North America Act, the Canadian Aboriginal law, Section Thirty-five of the Constitution Act, and the First Nations–Federal Crown Political Accord. The secret law text is at least as important as last four of these. Also the secret laws are fundamentally relevant to both the Constitution of Canada and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

> an Ontario law, not a Canadian one

The issues of Canadian Constitutionality and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a national, not providential issue. You don't have to be a legal scholar to understand that. But if you want me to quote legal scholars saying this is a Constitutional issue, I've got dozens of quotes ready for you. They are really easy to find with Google. The quote from Howard Morton specifically mentions the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, "Our argument is that this regulation contravenes the charter of rights. The charter under section guarantees people freedom of assembly, the freedom of communication, and this clearly violates that." Can I make this any clearer?

> no other minor law or legislation is mentioned

The use of secret laws is not minor by any reasonable standard. Already lawyers and professors of laws have indicated that this is a critical, fundamental legal shift on the level of completely changing the philosophy of the Constitution and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, not simply a single law.

Now, if you want to break the Canada article up into smaller pages, I have no problem with that. We could take each of the sections in this article, and replace it with a single sentence or two and a link to a new page. But that's not what any of you are trying to do.

If we did that and I put the secret law text back in, I'm sure you'd remove it. If I added the secret law text to the page on the Constitution or the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, you'd remove it from there as well. If I put the secret laws text in its own (very short) page and linked it from any of these pages, you'd remove the link.

Compromise offered

Tell you what, I'm willing to compromise. I'll put the secret law section in it's own page if and ONLY if a link to that page is presented in the law section of the Canada page. I'm only asking for a single, short phrase like "Canadian Secret Laws have been enacted". This could go right in the paragraph that has links to common and criminal law and starts with "Common law prevails everywhere except in Quebec, where civil law predominates. Criminal law is solely a federal responsibility and is uniform throughout Canada."

Agree to this and I'll move the secret law text to it's own page. But without that link, this is still blatant censorship. I await your response; until then the undisputed fact shall remain on the page. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.46.113.209 (talk) 23:49, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Calling this particular provincial act a "secret law" is but one personal point of view, and presenting it as such is a violation of Wikipedia's requirement for neutrality. Further, that it is a Charter rights issue has yet to be established and, even if that had already been done, laws are challenged on their validity under the constitution all the time but aren't reported here. This is an encyclopaedia, not a news source. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:59, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

First of all, I did not call it a "secret law", the articles I cited called it that. Second, the law was by definition secret. Read the cited articles. Facts cannot be POV. Are you seriously trying to dispute that this law was secret? I can Google a hundred other references to back up this fact and you know that.

Second, everything in an encyclopedia has at one time been in the news. All historical events make the news. The fact that something has made the news does not preclude it from being in an encycledia. Ever heard of Watergate? That was in the news.

The fact is that this is clearly a historical event. Note a single credible source has disputed the historical and legal importance of the issue, regardless of which side they take. Inclusion of this fact does not take any sides. Exclusion of this fact clearly does take a side.

How embarrassed are you about this fact? Is that sufficient reason to censor it? Should we remove all references to slavery, the Holocaust, the Spanish Inquisition, the KKK, the bombing of Hiroshima, and anything else that we'd rather forget? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.46.113.209 (talk) 00:29, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Please re-read what I said; you seem to have misconstrued it. Regardless, problem number one is your edit warring and 3RR violation. You were asked kindly to stop and didn't, so I've reported your infraction. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 00:34, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Kindly? There has been nothing kind about this censorship. None of you have worked to improve the content or its presentation. You have only censored it. Falsely reported infractions is certainly not kind. I have shown plenty of good faith here. You have not. 174.46.113.209 (talk) 00:29, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

{edit conflict) There is no censorship here,, as stated to you many times before this info is not needed in this article. We have other articles that go into specifics about law and even the current event that you wish to send a message to. Moxy (talk)

If you think the info should go someplace else, why haven't you moved it and link to the new location? Should I take it that you accept my proposed compromised of moving this content to its own page and linking from the law section of this page to the new page? If so, I'll agree. 174.46.113.209 (talk) 00:29, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

It has not been moved because it is not neutral. Anywas i will let other deal with this as i myself have reverted thsi 3 times already Moxy (talk)

I said to you already that the info is included at 2010 G-20 Toronto summit. That's where I think it should be, for now. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 00:57, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

It appears as though the IP (aka Truthinwiki2010 (talk · contribs)) moved the material to CanadaSecretLaw. Would someone deal with this (speedy, etc)? -M.Nelson (talk) 01:02, 27 June 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps someone could also point out to him that it now turns out the law was secret because it didn't exist. TastyCakes (talk) 18:27, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

AD vs CE

I would like to change the abbreviation of AD (Anno Domini) to CE (Common Era). As this was reverted earlier i guess i should bring it up here as per Wiki Year numbering systems i see i should not have done this before bring it here. I prefer CE as its the academic, English and non-religions version. There was the comment about spelling it all out: (especially if you feel the need to parenthetically explain the abbreviation) actually we should spell it out the first time it appears in an article so that all understand what it means regardless of knowledge level and as per what FA article reviews like, that is (abbreviation should be spelled-out first time they appear). The comment was also said that Matching other articles is not a high priority. I think this is wrong as we should try to have a uniform format for our Canadian articles that's y we have Wikiprojects to help with uniformity. CE is what i have used when doing the other related articles like Aboriginals, History of Canada and Amerindian genetics and so on...But after saying all that i actually think there's no need to say AD or CE anyways in this case as it should be mentioned earlier if at all.

So the question is

1. . change to CE
2. . Leave as is
3. . moved to above date
4. . remove altogether

Thanks for your time and your choice Moxy (talk) 22:42, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

MOS specifically allows for both to be used, which means that the project doesn't see the academic and non-religious argument as strong enough to mean we should eliminate AD. This project is intended to be accessible to a broad audience, and entry-point articles such as this one to the broadest. Most people know what "AD" means. "CE" has a much smaller recognition among the general public. Thus, the extent we should even be having this discussion, AD is preferable. I don't think we should be talking about the choice, though. This is simple style matter where both are acceptable. As is the case with Engvar and other policies, the style used first should be used thereafter. As to whether it is necessary to specify "AD", I don't have an opinion.

As an aside, would you, as someone who prefers to CE, explain to people like me (an atheist) exactly how "Common Era" reflects any less of a pro-Christian bias. "Common" to whom exactly? What is the measuring event the BCE/CE scale uses? BC/AD has the virtue of at least not pretending it is based on something other than the birth of the Christian god-child. To repeat, this is an aside and not an argument against the change. -Rrius (talk) 04:47, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yes MOS does allows both , but it also allows change. I am just not convinced that AD is more common world wide any more...After talking to my son who did not know the meaning of AD and after seeing what we have on the topic -->Common Era#Usage. I am also an atheist and think there could be an age factor here for the differences. I in the 1970s at school learned that AD meant "After Death" thus has direct indications to Jesus. Were my son (still in public-school) say hes taught CE and BCE meaning "Before the common era and/or western calendar", so no religions condensations (yet this is not true as you say because of its origins). Anyways cool talk!.....PS i think we should just take it out !!Moxy (talk)

First, there may be an age thing, but that does not mean we should favour children over the majority of the English-speaking population. If you learned that "AD" means "After Death", I'm very sorry for you, but that simply doesn't make sense and your teachers should have been shot. Did they think Jesus' life happened between calendars? Of course "Before Christ" and "Anno Domani" are obvious in relating to Christianity, but the "we" in Domani has long since lost its Christian flair just as with, you know, Christmas. I find "Common Era" offensive because it tries, on the one hand, to cover up the Christian bias at the core of our calendar, while on the other implying that modern people all somehow share Christianity by calling it the "Common Era". I mean, "Common Era" really means "Christian Era" whether the creators of the term like it or not. It is, like attempts at political correctness, both nearly devoid of meaning, and counterproductive to the extent it does have meaning.

Very interesting point of view...not sure if its possible to make a new calendar at this point on Wikipedia, but they have tried to tone down the Jesus stuff with CE. Did not mean to push any buttons here....shall we remove it that way all sides are happy!!Moxy (talk) 05:54, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Demographics

The demographics section has information on the percentage of Canadians who are of visible minorities from the past, expected percentages for the future but nothing for the present. If someone has this information and would include it, that would be great. Or better yet, if this could be included on the information sidebar at the top of the whole article, such as in the England Wikipedia entry, that would be even more preferable in my eyes. Thanks. Air.light (talk) 08:35, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

By past data, do you mean from the 2006 census? That is the latest census... So if we're going to use more recent data it is pretty much certain to be less accurate. I guess that's the tradeoff we're looking at: more recent estimates that are less accurate. I'm not really bothered either way, I might lean towards just leaving it since there's another census due next year. TastyCakes (talk) 18:05, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Trouble is, by the time useable census data comes out on the more "in depth" topics, it's usually at least a year and a half after the census - so we never actually know about the present... AshleyMorton (talk) 23:45, 30 June 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately the conservative government in Canada has made the next census voluntary except for the basic population count. That means that any data collected will be biased against people with less time on their hands (more work = less likely to take an hour to fill out a voluntary census), meaning that the working poor will be less likely to be counted. Since many immigrants — especially refugees — fall into this category, the 2011 census will be so skewed as to be effectively meaningless. Gopher65_talk 15:07, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Indeed a voluntary census is pointless. :\ BritishWatcher (talk) 15:16, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure that's the story? As I understood it, everyone will get the standard census (as before) and some will be randomly selected to fill out a much longer questionnaire with lots more questions. I'm not particularly well informed on this matter though, do you have a link saying what you're saying above? TastyCakes (talk) 15:43, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Although I must say, I'm not sure I agree with your underlying assumption: I think some would make the argument that poor people are less likely to have jobs and are therefore more likely to have time to fill in a voluntary census. TastyCakes (talk) 15:55, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, a brief Google search shows that you're correct, the next census after 35 years is going to replace the mandatory long census (sent out to 20% of households) with a similar voluntary one (sent out to 1/3 of households). I agree, such a change will result in self-selection and will likely be of much less use statistically. The short census, sent to everyone, will remain unchanged. TastyCakes (talk) 16:39, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

Dominion of Canada

I put the official name up.--FifthCylon (talk) 04:28, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Sorry to say but it has been reverted.. pls see Talk:Canada/Officialname1 and Talk:Name of Canada as to y. Moxy (talk) 04:42, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

I believe Archives 13, 14, 17, and 18 of this talk page all have discussions, too. For veterans of those discussions, I just typed "armchair" in the "search archives" box, so there could presumably be more. -Rrius (talk) 04:52, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Canada's only name is "Canada". Yes, do see the above links for more on this. JimWae (talk) 04:44, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Yup, I remember those conversations well. Ah, Armchair. Good times:). IIRC it was eventually decided that Canada ceased to be The British Dominion of Canada after the Statute of Westminster in 1931. Government documents continued to use the name Dominion of Canada until sometime in the 1950s or so, when that fell out of favour. After that point Canada didn't have a longform name, and was just "Canada". A new longform name might arise in the future, but as of right now none exists. Gopher65_talk 14:58, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

New opening sentence

I want to change the opening sentence to the intro section to something similar to the first sentence from the third paragraph: "Canada is a federation consisting of ten provinces and three territories that is governed as a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state." The current opening line is too diminutive; instead, it should be something similar to United States. I will make the change by the end of today if nobody comments here. • Freechild'sup?

I don't really like your suggestion. The previous consensus was that the first paragraph includes geographical information, the second paragraph includes historical information, and the third paragraph includes information about how the country is run. Regards, -- Jeff3000 (talk) 15:16, 1 July 2010 (UTC)

Any other replies? I thoroughly believe there needs to be a stronger opening statement; the current one reduces Canada to simply being a location rather than a socio-political entity. • Freechild'sup? 03:57, 4 July 2010 (UTC)

I absolutely would not change it to include anything not geography related. I would however change the word "occupying". Sounds too close to a foreign occupation. Maybe "Canada is a country in North America" would suffice. UrbanNerd (talk) 13:28, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

governor general designate

This strikes me as a case of WP:Crystal. I know he is the designate, but is that even a position? Dbrodbeck (talk) 20:59, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

It's not a position, no; but governor general-designate is a term used widely in Canada. He presently is the governor general-designate, so it should be okay to say as much, but no more; for instance, reporting on his installation as governor general as though it is a guaranteed fact would definitely be crystal balling. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 21:15, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I was not sure (and frankly could not care less either way....) so I thought I would bring it here rather than delete the entry. Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:18, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

I see now where it was inserted. I removed it as the governor general-designate is not a leader of any sort and isn't anywhere near important enough to warrant a place in the infobox. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 21:26, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Just did the same at Stephen Harper Dbrodbeck (talk) 21:31, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps some better wording

I was purusing the wiki and this line - "One of the world's highly developed countries, Canada has a diversified economy that is reliant upon its abundant natural resources and upon trade—particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship." - could benefit from a minor re-write, e.g "One of the world's more developed countries, Canada has a diversified economy which is based upon its natural resources and international trade, especially with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship."

The original text seems verbose and could be broken into multiple sentences, but whatever.

I don't know who wrote this, or how you write, but the double use of the word 'upon' in the original sentence is rather off-putting, as is the statement- "with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship". Its my opinion that a researcher who would take the time to read this wiki, would have reached that conclusion themselves, based on the 'longest border in the world' and of course, the proximity of Canada to America. I'd like to think the world is well aware of how complex relationships with the states are, as a matter of course.

Just throwing in my twoonie.

Cheers. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 9fires (talk • contribs) 05:36, 19 July 2010 (UTC)

About ethnic groups in infobox

To whom it may concern as per this edits [7], [8] and [9]....Pls note that at the FA level ethnic groups in lead infobox are "generally" discouraged due to the fact that at the FA level there will be an entire section on ethnic groups. Pls see Bangladesh, Australia, Indonesia, Belgium, Belarus, Cameroon, Chad, Nauru etc that are FA level...Now that being said people are free to seek consensus to add it as there are a few older FA articles that still have them ->Like Germany that you could refer to, however it would have to be worded correctly as we generally do not use the term European peoples in Canada or whites etc.... but use the division as per Ethnic origins of people in Canada set forth by Statistics Canada.Moxy (talk) 16:25, 13 August 2010 (UTC)

Dominion of Canada

The redirect Dominion of Canada (which is protected and cannot be edited by regular users) currently leads to Canada, which I think is not very utilitarian, as the linkage does not explain the difference between "Canada" and "Dominion of Canada," or why Canada no longer officially calls itself "Dominion." I would suggest linking "Dominion of Canada" to Name of Canada instead. --SchutteGod (talk) 17:35, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

In theory what you say is correct, however if someone searches for the Dominion of Canada it makes sense to link to the actual country article rather then a article about how the current naming can to be. I believe the "Etymology" section here (that is the first section) explains what and Y its not Dominion with the option of a Main header link for further inquiries as to the naming situation if more info is wanted by readers.Moxy (talk) 17:46, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Pictures for the "Largest metropolitan areas in Canada by population (2006 Census)"

Hello everyone. I think it would be a good idea to include pictures of the major cities in the table. I remember we had this before but it was then changed to this. I personally think the table by itself is too plain and pictures would make it look better. What does everyone else think? Nations United (talk) 01:32, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Agreed, it used to look way better. UrbanNerd (talk) 01:46, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Not sure on this one...IF we add them all there will be 20 pics...I think that would be way to many and make the chart huge (unless we make the pics so small that you cant tell what they are). And if you dont do 20 who and how do we pic the pictures..Moxy (talk) 02:42, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe only the top 8 cities had images if I remember correctly. UrbanNerd (talk) 03:06, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

was going to say sounds not to bad.. til i saw that removing them was part of the Featured article review requirements. Wondering if this is the norm or a requirement...as i dont see any other FA country article with them..except Australia Moxy (talk) 03:49, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

If I recall correctly, the main reason these particular images were brought up at the FAR was because at the time (and perhaps again soon), alt text was a requirement for FAs, and we couldn't come up with any way that those images could meaningfully meet that requirement. You can see the relevant discussion at the FAR that Moxy linked and here, where an image-expert editor suggests that the images are not helpful, alt text or none. If we can come up with a way to incorporate images so that the template a) looks neat and uncluttered, and b) doesn't over-extend the width of any page it's used on, then I'd have no objection. However, you need consensus here first - this issue has been controversial in the past, particularly due to the edits of a sockpuppeteer. Cheers, Nikkimaria (talk) 04:02, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

Oh, and it would probably be helpful to cross-post this to the template's talk page, and possibly to the Canadian WikiProject, so that more interested parties may have their say. Nikkimaria (talk) 04:03, 26 August 2010 (UTC)

How is Canada a federation?

Most Canadians would tend to disagree, Canada is a country with 10 provinces, and 3 territories, not a federation. Request to have term changed. Objective44 (talk) 04:17, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose We are the predominate Federation in the world = "A federation also known as a federal state, is a type of sovereign state characterized by a union of partially self-governing states or regions united by a central (federal) government. The international council for federal countries, the Forum of Federations, is based in Ottawa, Ontario Canada. It helps share best practices among countries with federal systems of government, and currently includes nine countries as partner governments.Moxy (talk) 04:27, 2 September 2010 (UTC)
• Agree with Moxy. "Federation" (or federal state) is a standard terminology which applies to Canada. Ditto Australia, which is also a mix of states (=provinces) and territories. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:59, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose per reliable source. And no: I don't believe that most Canadians would tend to disagree. I'm sure they learn about this in grade school. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 05:12, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose There is a pretty good reason we call it the federal government for example.... Dbrodbeck (talk) 11:44, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

• Oppose Does the term Confederation ring a bell ? -- Derek Ross | Talk 20:49, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

OK lets talk

In 2008, a group of Canadian astronomers directly observed three planets orbiting the star HR 8799. They produced the world's first direct photograph of a solar system. Olivier Daigle, a Canadian astronomer from l'Université de Montréal, has developed the world's most sensitive astronomical camera.

Dont think it should be here at all links to nothing Canadian...This is out of place and worded oddly ... leads you to believe its Olivier Daigle work and was seen from Canada with the new telescope that is mentioned second ..is it this new thing that saw the first thing???..Moxy (talk) 19:09, 5 September 2010 (UTC)

Should sound like and linkup like,,,, In 2008, the National Research Council of Canada's Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics announced they had directly observed three planets orbiting the star HR 8799, with the Keck and Gemini telescopes in Hawaii,

as for the camera...not sure we should be plunging it as an add..Should sound like ... The Natural Sciences And Engineering Research Council of Canada and l'Université de Montréal has developed one of the most advanced astronomical camera....

WWII History

Canada declared war on Germany on 10-September-1939. UK declared war on 3-September-1939. The article states that Canada declared war three days after Britain. It needs to be changed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.74.101.188 (talk) 14:20, 11 September 2010 (UTC)

Canada occupies the, "upper," half of North America?

Can we change that to the, "northern," half?

It might be on the upper side of a map, depending on how the map is oriented, but if I am in North America, and I want to find Canada, I don't travel up, I travel north. Josh Moses (talk) 01:33, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Why doesn't it just say "Canada is a country in N.America." ? Why use words like "occupies, upper, or north" ? It's pretty self explanatory where in north america it is by the map in the infobox. UrbanNerd (talk) 01:37, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Until recently, it did say "northern". Brianpetersn changed it here to fix "redundancy and/or ambiguity". I would agree with either reverting or adopting UrbanNerd's suggestion. Nikkimaria (talk) 01:43, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that "upper half" is pretty silly, so reverted to "northern". However it still is a tiny bit awkward with "northern North America", so if anyone can think of a better idea, go for it. -M.Nelson (talk) 02:08, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Thanks! Josh Moses (talk) 02:52, 9 September 2010 (UTC)

Ya it still sounds a bit awkward. I'm going to go ahead and change it to "Canada is a country in N.America". If anyone objects feel free to change it or discuss it. It doesn't make much sense and the very next sentence (extending from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean) describes its exact location in N.America. UrbanNerd (talk) 22:33, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

The occupation must end! We will no longer suffer our uppressors. :) I like the "country in N.A." wording. The infobox image and text description makes fairly clear what is going on, so I see no potential to confuse the reader. Franamax (talk) 22:43, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

Lead grammar

I think the lead should read 'It is a member of G8..., APEC, and the UN.' That seems to be the most common usage, but correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks, 99.224.10.2 (talk) 23:41, 15 September 2010 (UTC)

Science and Technology

I would like to integrate this paragraph on wikipedia but some seen to be against. I know there have few problems with grammar but I was wondering if you are interested to integrate with of course modifications ? ,,User:Jimderkaisser

Canada has been the home of many famous scientists, inventors, and engineers, such as Alexander Graham Bell, the creator of the telephone and performed pioneering experiments in hydrofoil; Robert William Boyle, the creator of the ASDIC and Reginald Fessenden who performed pioneering experiments in radio, sonar and television.

The greatest Canadian successes are in the field of aircraft engineering and space technology. The history of the Canadian aircraft eingineering originated from a pioneer of aviation Alexander Graham Bell who made the AEA Silver Dart, Canada's first powered aircraft. In the 20th century a number of prominent canadian aerospace engineers, supervised the creation of many dozens of models of military and civilian aircraft. Famous Canadian airplanes include the CF-105 Arrow ,the world's first aircraft to reach the speed of Mach 2 and the C102 Jetliner, the second jet airliner in the world. Elsie MacGill, known as the Queen of the Hurricanes, became the world's first woman aircraft designer. She designed the renowned Hawker Hurricane, one of the most successful fighter-bomber of the world war two.

The history of canadian space technology originated from 1962 with the Alouette 1. The Alouette 1 was Canada's first satellite and the the first satellite constructed by a country other than the USSR or the United States.

I was the one that reverted the new additions..for many reasons - grammar problems ..Some references are not valid . many many others statements need refs and many weasel words used...That said i do believe there is some very interesting facts here that could be saved if proper references found....Moxy (talk) 05:00, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I have added some sources De Grasse (talk) 05:18, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Since I have a basic English as a second language, you could help me to change the text including the weasel words. De Grasse (talk) 05:28, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Ancient Canadian civilization????!!

I found two lines from this article quite silly and unfounded.

The characteristics of Canadian Aboriginal civilizations included permanent or urban settlements, agriculture, civic and monumental architecture, and complex societal hierarchies.[24] Some of these civilisations had long faded by the time of the first permanent European arrivals (c. late 15th–early 16th centuries), and have been discovered through archaeological investigations.

Ancient "urban" Canadian civilizations with "civic and monumental architecture"???

We're not talking about Egypt or Central Mexico, here....

I did a search on "ancient canadian civilization" in google, and I couldn't find

any similar claims, not even from the "fringe".

The only thing I found was where people were using the text of this article

on their pages, and these cases unfortunately were quite numerous.

Won't someone please correct this????! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jimmy spiz (talk • contribs) 05:32, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

Hmm, the underlying source is a book to which I have no access. The "permanent" settlements seem well-established fact, corn agriculture is documented up to north Manitoba now from 1000 years ago, so Central Canada had settlements to which people returned on a regular basis, at least once to plant and once to harvest but I do believe they lingered more in these locales. Settlement sites on the west coast also were relatively permanent, although travel to camps was common. The "urban" bit seems problematic, depends on your definition of urban I suppose. I rather doubt that any native settlement pre-contact would fit the definition, although there were indeed rather sophisticated societies present. Agriculture, yes of course in central Canada, well-established. "Civic" architecture - again, how do you define it? To me it implies a post office, pre-defined planning of roads/trails, a neutral central feature of the village... I'm not aware of any such locations, so I would question that wording as well. "Monumental" architecture - no, there's nothing like Mayan pyramids but two equivalents I can think of are burial mounds in southern Ontario and totems poles on the west coast (and shell middens would likely count as a monument to garbage ;). Totems may be considered as monuments, but really they were just rural PO boxes with the flag up so people knew where to paddle to do their trading. I agree that this wording could be improved and re-sourced to better explain the situation. Franamax (talk) 00:48, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok i will look for a better ref ...Heres a copy of the book usesd right now History & mathematics: Historical dynamics and development of complex societies By Peter Turchin ...i cant find the page or anything in the book. ...........Lets drop urban as for the rest is right ..In Canada they built mounds and were part of the Hopewell tradition and as mentioned above had agriculture in the parries.Moxy (talk) 01:33, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Update..Ok i found the refs..will update in shortly if none objects ...so will be dropping the urban that is all.Moxy (talk) 05:20, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

• The characteristics of Canadian Aboriginal civilizations included permanent settlements,Invisible genealogies: a history of Americanist anthropology - By Regna Darnell 2001 - Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, page 338 ISBN: 0803217102 agriculture,A concise economic history of the world: from Paleolithic times to the present By Rondo E. Cameron 1993 Oxford University Press, page92 ISBN: 0195074459 civic and monumental architecture,A short history of the Canadian people By George Bryce 1887 - the New York Public Library and complex societal hierarchies.Indigenous difference and the Constitution of Canada By Patrick Macklem 2001 - Toronto : University of Toronto Press, page 170 ISBN: 0802041957

That's better, should "extensive trade networks" be in there? I'm still not comfortable with "civic and monumental architecture". The source you give seems to only mention a council-house as "civic" building and implies that this was a post-contact development. For "monumental" we have burial mounds, totems and inukshuks. Those last two were mostly utilitarian in nature as opposed to monuments for the sake of having a monument. So is the claim based solely on the burial mounds? That is 5 or 6 sites, hardly representative of aboriginal society in Canada as a whole. Even though it's qualified by "included" it seems a rather sweeping claim - whereas a Mayan site would most definitely show "civic and monumental architecture". So is there a better way to word it for this overview article? Nice work digging up the sources! Franamax (talk) 09:26, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Second ref for "civic and monumental architecture" Architecture in Canada and Architectural History: Early First Nations ...yes we could reword this as its broad term we are currently using..long-houses our civic as in they gathered there to talk etc... What do you think sounds better.... and yes they had a very extensive trade network this goes all the was back to Paleo-Indians who traded stone tools all over north America let alone the later Old Copper Complex and Hopewell Exchange System Canadian aboriginals were a part of.... Moxy (talk) 14:45, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

The change

Ok i have done the change over pls double check all (Note drooped urban and changed "civic and monumental architecture" to civic and ceremonial architecture....Moxy (talk) 17:53, 3 October 2010 (UTC)
The characteristics of Canadian Aboriginal civilizations included permanent settlements, agriculture, civic and ceremonial architecture,, complex societal hierarchies and trading networks..

References for above text

---

That looks much better Moxy. Good job. Gopher65_talk 13:19, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Politics

There is an error in the electoral system. Members of Parliament are elected by a SIMPLE PLURALITY, NOT A SIMPLE MAJORITY. The first-past-the-post system is a single-member PLURALITY voting system. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.115.171.220 (talk) 13:47, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I changed it to simple plurality. ~DC ^{We Can Work It Out} 13:55, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Establishment in Canada

In this edit Category:1867 establishments in Canada is removed from the article. The reason being "Canada is not an establishment in Canada". I suggest it belongs to this category as well as belonging to Category:1867 establishments in the British Empire. Btw. this hierarchy is newly established and needs populating. __meco (talk) 18:07, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

The category was removed once before by another editor before I removed it. But, yes, Canada is not an establishment in Canada. I'm not even sure about your Category:1867 establishments in the British Empire; it seems redundant, but I'm no expert on categories and will leave it up to others to decide whether or not the category is needed. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 18:45, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

I can think of many other cats that should be listed first. We cant add a cats for every date or event listed. Removing over cats as per Wikipedia:Overcategorization

Not every verifiable fact (or the intersection of two or more such facts) in an article requires an associated category. For lengthy articles, this could potentially result in hundreds of categories, most of which aren't particularly relevant. This may also make it more difficult to find any particular category for a specific article. Such overcategorization is also known as "category clutter" .

Moxy (talk) 00:33, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

I have readded this category. The argument presented by Moxy is wholly invalid and they should present it at Wikipedia:Categorization for a reality check if this is unclear. I have readded Category:1867 establishments in the British Empire as this is part of an established category structure where individual participation is not optional, just as you wouldn't remove Obama's birth category from that article, for any reason. For a recent discussion about this hierarchy, please see Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2010 September 23#Category:Establishments in the United States by year. __meco (talk) 07:51, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Pls read the link you provided, its clear thats is say that categories are to help navigate topics. How is it helpful to have Canada under Category:1867 establishments in Canada or Category:1867 establishments in the British Empire when there is nothing there to navigate to. 3 people have reverted your additions now. So at this point you need to seak consensus to add it back. pls see Wikipedia:3 revert rule and Wikipedia:Consensus. The odd thing is the cats Category:1867 establishments in the British Empire is so wrong for 1867. This is the year of Confederation/or exasperation from the British Empire. PS we have cats by years already for Canada Category:Years in Canada. Moxy (talk) 13:58, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

What do you mean "there is nothing there to navigate to"? Are you reacting to the fact that this category structure, establishments by country, which is a subset of the establishments hierarchy, has only recently been started and thus has not been populated yet? __meco (talk) 16:18, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

His point, I believe, is that Category:1867 establishments in the British Empire is presently empty. Even if this article were added to it, it would only be a category of one. What other articles are there on 1867 establishments that don't already have a country-specific category to fit into? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:28, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

All. Why? __meco (talk) 18:08, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

The guidelines says "Each article should be placed in all of the most specific categories to which it logically belongs." Currently the article is listed/categorized under Category:States and territories established in 1867 which is a sub cat of Category:1867 establishments that is a sub cat of Category:1867. This looks like the most logical hierarchy does it not? Then we have it under Category:Former British colonies that is a sub cat of Category:British Empire again this looks ok, could be better but does lead to more articles about the British Empire. The guidelines also say "Categorize articles by characteristics of the topic, not characteristics of the article." So i would argue that this means it should be categorized by its main topics. So Canada was establishments in 1867 specifically as a new Dominion. So for the cat 1867 we have it under States and territories established in 1867. Y because its an establishment of a States and/or territories in 1867. This is much more specific and verbally correct then it being in Category:1867 establishments in Canada and/or Category:1867 establishments in the British Empire that should be full of companies, provinces and cities that had to officially incorporate themselves within Canada or the British Empire that year. The guidelines also say "Categories should be useful for readers to find and navigate sets of related articles. They should be the categories under which readers would most likely look if they were not sure of where to find an article on a given subject." I would say that no one will ever look at Category:1867 establishments in the British Empire to find Canada or would expect to find it there. ---All that said i could be way off on all of this and consensus may prove me wrong. Moxy (talk) 19:58, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

Admittedly a contry is in a borderline situation with regard to placement in the Establishments by country and year hierarchy since they (country/year) are both entities that unarguably have been established on a given date, but it also constitutes the class by which this particular hierarchy categorizes (in addition to year). Still, I will argue that removing countries from the Establishments by country and year altogether makes for another oddity whereby they then become the only types of objects within the entire Establishments by year structure that will then not be eligible for categorization of establishment by both location and year in this newly developed sub-hierarchy. It may not be a big deal (except for people like myself with a sometimes accute attention to detail), but the dilemma looks no better on the other side: Canada was obviously established somewhere. If neither in Canada nor in the British Empire, then where? It's a bit like deciding whether "0" should be defined as a positive or a negative number. My preference clearly is that it would be nice to see Canada in both of the categories that I have attempted to place her (it) in. __meco (talk) 21:37, 14 October 2010 (UTC)

AS pointed out by my lovely wife and a nice article she has shown me. I now dont care about any of the cats as i have just found out only 3 to 5 percent of Wikipidia readers use Cats to navigate with (90+ percent use internal article links). So realy i am fighting over something that in the long run will not matter as its not seen by anyone. And because after seeing that even our most popular cat (Category:Canada) is only seen about 30 times a day from thousands and thousands of hits to Canadian article that link to that cat. So realy does it matter no. However you will need to convince the others, but you may do what you like from my stand point. Hope this does not lead to 100 cats added though. Moxy (talk) 00:02, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 216.198.139.38, 17 October 2010

{{edit semi-protected}} You say that CANADA is the (world's second largest countrie)It's the world's largest coundrie after the U.S.S.R broke up.So I been told and taught in school along time ago.

216.198.139.38 (talk) 13:15, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

 Not doneNot even close.... The sources in both articles say its second --Russia = 17,075,400 km2 (1st) | Canada = 9,984,670 km2 (2nd) (Soviet Union 1922–1991 = 22,402,200 km2)......pls see -->List of countries and outlying territories by total area and List of countries and outlying territories by land area.Moxy (talk) 13:57, 17 October 2010 (UTC)

Yup, as Moxy points out, Canada is actually the 4th largest country by land area (China and the US are both bigger, as is Russia, of course). Canada is the second largest country by territory controlled, due to the large number of significantly sized arctic islands that it controls. Gopher65_talk 03:52, 20 October 2010 (UTC)

Queen's Role

I believe the Queen's role in Canadian law needs to be clarified, esp. "The direct participation of the royal and viceroyal figures in any of these areas of governance is limited, though.."

I recently toured the Canadian capitol buildings (very impressive I would like to add) and the lady giving the tours mentioned that all Canadian laws need to be approved by the Queen. I believe this is a very important point that needs to be added. Any comments? --NDState 00:24, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Omg they told you that on a tour??? The Constitution Act, 1982 created a mechanism by which Canada's constitution could be amended by joint action of federal and provincial governments; prior to 1982, it could be amended only by the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It also created the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which grants individual rights which may not be contravened by any provincial or federal law. Laws passed by the federal government are initially announced in the Canada Gazette, a regularly published newspaper for new statutes and regulations. Federal bills that receive Royal Assent are subsequently published in the Annual Statutes of Canada. From time to time, the federal government will consolidate its current laws into a single consolidation of law known as the Revised Statutes of Canada. The most recent federal consolidation was in 1985. Pls see Law of Canada and Court system of Canada. Moxy (talk) 04:01, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

Actually, the tour guide was correct! What she described is ROYAL ASSENT. Normally, as a practical matter, assent is granted by the Queen's representative on advice by the Cabinet and Privy Council. Even in the UK, assent by Her Majesty is rarely withheld. However, it can be withheld as a final check and balance(It was done for 3 bills in Alberta in the 1930s, all of which were later determined by the Supreme Court of Canada as unconstitutional). 99.245.181.18 (talk) 16:17, 12 October 2010 (UTC)

Moxy, I do not need a smart-alecky comment. For your information the tour guide is an official representative of the country and has to complete rigorous training. I am not sure what that quote is telling me, it does not say the queen does not have to approve. We are talking about Royal Assent. Can you provide me with the specific info from those articles instead of just citing an entire article? Do you have any non-wikipedia sources that contradicts the tour guides claim? Thanks! --NDState 04:14, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Ndstate, see Royal Assent for the mechanism by which HM is involved in day-to-day operations of Canadian government. Note that except in very rare cases (such as the signing of the Constitution Act in 1982), it is the Queen's representative who undertakes all royal functions. → ROUX ₪ 04:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Ok, I took my own advice and went out and did some research. I found a lot of info from official websites. "No federal or provincial bill becomes law without Royal Assent" the source from the Parliament's official website. Also "the Canadian prime minister did not appear in the written Constitution until 1982. It still contains not one syllable on prime ministerial qualifications, the method of election or removal, or the prime minister’s powers (except for the calling of constitutional conferences). Nor is there anything on any of these matters in any act of Parliament..." well s/he has to get his power from somewhere. The queen? The queen is the head of state... "in Canada, the head of state can, in exceptional circumstances, protect Parliament and the people against a prime minister and ministers who may forget that “minister” means “servant,” and may try to make themselves masters. For example, the head of state could refuse to let a cabinet dissolve a newly elected House of Commons before it could even meet, or could refuse to let ministers bludgeon the people into submission by a continuous series of general elections." Clearly the role of the queen is not fully represented in this article. I would edit this, but it might be better left to a Canadian. Please let me know your opinions. --NDState 04:52, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the post ROUX ₪, I saw your post after I posted mine. I still think what I presented still justifies consideration in the main article. Thanks! :) --NDState 04:54, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Sorry i was not clear. I am just surprised the tour guide did not elaborate on the situation. What actually happens is that the "Queen" per say does not approve the law. Its a matter of formality in which the Governor General and/or the Deputy Governor General do this. So i guess the tour guide is somewhat right, but they should word this better. Because at no time does any-other commonwealth nation or Elizabeth II her self actually approve the laws. Its all done within Canada with no foreign government influence as we use the Westminster system of government. The whole process is done in Canada by Canadians as a "royal assent ceremony". More info ->The Royal Assent Act of 2002 - How a Government Bill becomes Law - Canada.Moxy (talk) 05:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Wh

Thanks for the post Moxy. While the assent (which is required to become law) is normally done by the Governor General, the queen has the right to do the assent herself, withhold the assent, or even "fire" the Governor General. The queen holds the power and allows others to use the power over the assent. This is not clear in the article and I believe it needs to be clarified. A quick google search of this and you find that many people ask about her role. As such I think it is appropriate to include the most accurate information. --NDState 05:12, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I need to correct a couple of things Moxy has wrong there. For one, HM has indeed personally signed Canadian legislation: the Constitution Act, 1982. I seem to recall having heard there have been a few others, mainly legislation passed just prior to Royal Tours, but I am honestly not sure. Furthermore, HM signing Canadian legislation is emphatically not the action of a foreign government; it would be the action of Elizabeth II in her capacity as Queen of Canada. The GG is also in regular contact with HM by phone (and presumably these days by email) in order to gain HM's insight on issues touching on the Royal Prerogative (e.g. assent, proroguing of Parliament, etc). The Queen appoints (and theoretically dismisses, though I'm not sure that has ever happened) her GG on the advice of her ministers only; while it is technically true under the law that she may appoint and dismiss as she pleases, in practice and convention she may not take those actions without Governmental direction. → ROUX ₪ 05:21, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Yes i understand. but we must make sure its clear that she is the Head of the Commonwealth, thus is just a figurehead and has no relation to the governance of the country. Moxy (talk) 05:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No, I'm afraid that you do not understand. She is The Queen of Canada, and is therefore our head of state. The Governor General acts as her representative, but it is indeed Elizabeth II who is ultimately in charge, no matter how her powers have been delegated. → ROUX ₪ 05:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Moxy please read what I posted and the related links. The queen is the head of state as Roux mentioned. http://www2.parl.gc.ca/Sites/LOP/AboutParliament/Forsey/institutions_02-e.asp --NDState 05:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Wow, i guess i am just not clear on what i am saying. Not sure how i can word it better. Yes the queen is the head of state, but does not execute her powers. Its simply a formality "royal assent has been granted in Canada in the following manner: once a bill has been passed in the same form by both the Senate and the House of Commons, the Governor General as representative of the Crown attends Parliament in the Senate Chamber. The Members from the House of Commons are then summoned by the Usher of the Black Rod to the Senate. Once all parties are present, the bills that are to receive royal assent are presented to the Governor General or a Justice of the Supreme Court of Canada acting as Deputy of the Governor General. The formal request is made in the following manner: "May it please Your Excellency: The Senate and the House of Commons have passed the following Bill, to which they humbly request Your Excellency's Assent", the title of the bill is then read and the Governor General or her Deputy signifies assent by a nod of the head." Moxy (talk) 05:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Moxy, please dont act like we are dumb. First of all you modified your previous post. In your previous post you said she was not the head of state, now you are saying she is. I am listening to what you are saying, but you have not provided any official document that verifies what you are saying. I have provided information to the contrary of what you are saying, as has Roux. The queen can prevent what you described from happening. The GG serves at the pleasure of the queen and she can over ride him or fire him. Therefore she has the final say. She is the head of state as the Queen of Canada and therefore has several rights and privileges that are not accurately described in the article. Is there some reason you dont want this clarified on Wikipedia? --NDState 06:00, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I removed that edit because it was wrong with a typo, thanks for pointing out my errors to all. I see i just cant get my point across. She is limited in what she can do by our constitution Constitutional monarchies, thus regulated to the status of a figurehead. You may add what ever you think is right to the article no one is stop-in you. Moxy (talk) 06:35, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Your point is in error. The Queen is not merely a figurehead, she is an integral part of Canadian government, the person from whom the Government's very authority is derived. No law in Canada may be enacted without her approval, either directly (as, per the parliament website linked above, has indeed happened) or through her delegate. No criminal court cases may be prosecuted with her authority; under Canadian law, any criminal offence is an offence against the Crown (thus why criminal cases are performed as R(egina) vs X). Passports are issued in her name. Shall I go on? You are asserting a point of view that is incorrect on its face. → ROUX ₪ 06:46, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you joking Roux ? I think you have England and Canada mixed up. The queens role in Canada is extremely less integral than what you describe. UrbanNerd (talk) 13:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not, and I don't. The Queen is more physically involved in the UK, yes. Her legal status in both realms is identical. → ROUX ₪ 13:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

(ec)He is correct however, lots of people don't think she is intergral because they don't see it directly. But technically her role is extremely intergrated into our system. Mostly indirectly through her representatives. But she is key to almost all legal/governmental maters in this country. -DJSasso (talk) 13:26, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Not 'almost.' Every law in Canada has force due to authority stemming from the Throne. Every criminal court case is positioned as R vs X. The Armed Forces derive their authority to act from the Sovereign. Provincial legislatures and Parliament meet under her authority and at her direction, legally speaking. Every governmental decision from municipal parking fines to how federal elections are run ultimately only have authority because of the Sovereign. She is, in a very real sense, a living embodiment of the entire legal underpinning of the country. → ROUX ₪ 13:30, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

You realize I was agreeing with you right? -DJSasso (talk) 13:32, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Of course. Just pointing out that 'almost' is incorrect, in the same way it would be incorrect to state that almost all legal authority in the USA derives from its constitution. → ROUX ₪ 13:34, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I have a practical question to ask: what do you think would happen if the Queen ever attempted to withhold assent? I'll give a hypothetical example that didn't actually happen: Maybe the Queen (as head of the Church of England, and also as an old person, since they tend to have conservative social views) was strongly opposed to gay marriage. When Martin's government passed legistlation legalizing gay marriage, what would have happened if she'd withheld assent? Does anyone here honestly think that that legalization wouldn't have still gone through? She is the head of state and *technically* has the power to halt legislation... but she couldn't actually do it in practise. Any attempt to do so would result in a revolt by the Canadian government. I don't think any government would allow that to happen. Harper would spaz if that happened to him:P. What do we call a person who technically has power, but practically can't use it? Figurehead. So she is indeed a figurehead, whatever her technical powers are. Gopher65_talk 13:45, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

S.55 of the Constitution Act 1867 allows only the governor general to grant or withhold Royal Assent in the Queen's name, though the same clause permits the Queen to direct the governor general on what to do in this regard. No sovereign in Canadian and British history since Queen Anne has withheld Royal Assent to a bill; only with seriously dodgy legislation have some of Canada's lieutenant governors delayed Royal Assent, sending such bills to the governor general for review by the federal Cabinet or to the Supreme Court and leaving it up to them to decide. So, unless the bill in question was something blatantly unlawful - like the abolition of elections - the Queen could not instruct the governor general to deny Royal Assent without herself acting unconstitutionally. As parliament is supreme, if the Queen did act beyond her constitutional limitations, she would likely be forced off the throne by constitutional amendment, as happened to Edward VIII; that's difficult to do, but a sovereign overstepping her bounds in such a manner may just be enough of a catalyst. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:25, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The government could complain all they wanted, without a referendum of canadians to remove her as head of state. There is nothing the government could do if she wanted to halt some legislation. -DJSasso (talk) 13:47, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. Forcing through legislation without Royal Assent would require a constitutional amendment, and those of us who have been alive long enough to remember Meech Lake and Charlottetown know what a headache that is. The convention is that the does not withhold assent. The legal truth, however, is that The Queen (or her representative) is the very final check on a possibly abusive government. → ROUX ₪ 13:56, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The queen has very little role in Canada. Her representatives may, but the representatives and her are completely different. Tweaking wording to imply that the queen herself is the final word on passing laws, or governing the country is both misleading and incorrect. UrbanNerd (talk) 15:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

You are mistaken. The Queen herself is the final word, when she chooses to be so. Her representative is the figurehead. → ROUX ₪ 15:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you living in 1755 ? or recently fallen on your head ? Sure she "could" be the final word if she chose to do so, however she does not. Implying she does is misleading. She has little to do with the everyday affairs of Canada. Furthermore if she did choose to do so I'm sure there would be a revolution in the country, which in my eyes, and the eyes of MANY worldwide is sorely needed in Canada. UrbanNerd (talk) 15:16, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Roux is correct, she is the ultimate authority. Whether she chooses to use it or not is part of that authority as she has the authority to not do anything as well. She has delegated her authority to her figurehead representatives. If you think there would be a revolution in Canada if she did something then you clearly don't have an understanding of Canadians. I think most Canadians would side with the Queen, over a minority government, no matter which party it was. -DJSasso (talk) 15:19, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Bahaha, if you truly believe that you and these other monarchist really have no understanding of Canada, or Canadians. Even recent polls show the majority of Cnadians want to cut ties with that old wind bag and her inbred family who are responsible for years of murder and repression. UrbanNerd (talk) 15:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The Canadian monarch is the final authority. PS: I'm not a monarchist. GoodDay (talk) 15:37, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)Notice how only one of us has thrown insults around. Not much point in discussing anything with you; that you resort to ad hominem attacks pretty clearly indicates you don't have a leg to stand on. Bye now. → ROUX ₪ 15:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't trying to insult you. If I was I could have chosen any of the numerous "interests" of yours from your user page. buh bye. UrbanNerd (talk) 15:29, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The Queen has a significant role in the construct of Canadian governance, both in the federal and provincial spheres; this is evidenced in the number of times she is mentioned throughout the country's constitutional documents. It is also according to the constitution that she is the final word on matters of state; and "final" word is exactly what it would be, constitutional convention dictating that her word only be given in political matters that have degraded to the point where her word has become necessary. It's highly unlikely a massive revolt would erupt over a lawful use of the reserve powers. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:38, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Here come ye olde monarchists. Didn't think it would be long before they slithered in. It seems a group of you go around and "British up" articles like a nerdy gang of monarchists. Let's just put a picture of the queen in the info box, replace the maple leaf with the union jack rag, and rewrite the whole article in old english ... yes ? done. UrbanNerd (talk) 15:51, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not a monarchist or a republican. It doesn't really matter to me. I am, however, a realist. The Queen is currently the head of state. There is no question about that, that is the reality of the situation. But continue with your attacks on people. I have come to expect nothing less of you, its what you always resort to when people disagree with you. PS he is within his rights to remove attacks on other editors. Consider this a warning that further attacks will likely result in a block. -DJSasso (talk) 15:59, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm a republican, so don't paint us all with the same brush. GoodDay (talk) 16:05, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Do we all agree that *practically speaking*, the Queen has no role in Canadian politics (the Governor General has a practical role, but the Queen does not)? Since there is obviously confusing on this subject (even on this talk page, where everyone claims to know what we're talking about;)), maybe it would be best to briefly discuss the differences in what the constitution says (Queen is final check on Parliament) and what happens in practice (Governor General is final check on Parliament)? Gopher65_talk 16:11, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

No. The Queen has a role in Canadian governance: appointment of the governor general, creation of additional Senate seats, issuance of royal proclamations, creation of state honours, & etc. Further, as it's the Queen who appoints and dismisses the governor general, she's the final check on parliament, not her viceroy.

I think what the article presently says is fine: it indicates that the Queen and the governor general have a role but that the direct participation of either figure is limited. Perhaps "limited" could be elaborated upon to clarify that it means "constrained by laws and convention" rather than "almost never happens," but that seems a relatively easy fix, if even necessary. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:20, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Moxy, I pointed out that you changed your view about the queen as the head of state, which is relevant since you were talking about being clear. It was not to belittle you. I would recommend that those of you that think she is just a figure head go and read a bit more about the way the government works at the Parliament website. The power to approve laws derives from her, that is a very important thing to note and needs to be clarified. If no one would like to enhance the explanation I would be willing to, however I think it is better left to a Canadian... since my knowledge is limited to what I have read on the Parliament website and official tours of the capitol buildings.  :) --NDState 18:56, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I did not change my view it was a typo (as explained above). You can see by my edits previous to the one you like to point that i agree she is head of state (in fact dont think anyone here is saying other wise). I just simply disagree on the fact she actually governs in the manner that is perceived. As "Royal Assessments" are never withheld in principle by the Governor General. Thus the real power lies within the House and Senate of Canada and not the Crown of Canada.The Canadian Regime: An Introduction to Parliamentary Government in Canada page 99. Moxy (talk) 20:23, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

Miesianiacal, phone up Stephen Harper and tell him that he didn't appoint the new Governor General:P. See how long that conversation lasts. You are ignoring the differences between practical and technical power. The Queen doesn't appoint the Governor General, the Prime Minster does. The Queen merely signs the document after the appointment is already complete. Practically speaking, the power of appointment lies with the Prime Minister. I honestly don't understand how anyone can claim otherwise. Do you really think that the Queen personally selected David Johnston as GG? Do you really think that she considered, even for the briefest moment, rejecting him when she heard he'd been appointed? Of course not. She has no practical power, and she knows it. To say otherwise is to ignore the nature of her situation.

I don't care about the differences between a consitutional monarchy and a republic. I'm fine with the Queen being our head of state (with the GG filling the roll in practice), and I'd be fine with a president (or equivilent). I don't have a bone to pick here with regards to Canada's governmental system... apparently unlike nearly everyone else here. I'm just confused as to why people are claiming that the Queen has practical powers (or that she isn't the head of state?) when it is obvious in the reality outside this talk page that she doesn't. All practical powers that the Queen originally had (as stated in the consitution) have been transferred to either the GG or the PM, depending on the power in question. And... that's just the way it is. I'm sorry if that bothers you, but that's just the way it is. How can you argue against reality? Gopher65_talk 20:57, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

It's not a matter of my being bothered by anything. You're simply wrong. What does any of this have to do with what's said in the article, anyway? Are you objecting to anything? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 21:02, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm simply wrong? So, Michaelle Jean didn't prorogue parliament? That was actually the Queen? Geez, I must have been on the moon that week, because I completely missed the 4 hour meeting that Stephen Harper had with Queen Elizabeth. Linky please? Gopher65_talk 21:27, 28 October 2010 (UTC)

The 2008 prorogation of parliament is a non-sequitur. You claimed "The Queen doesn't appoint the Governor General, the Prime Minster does. The Queen merely signs the document after the appointment is already complete. Practically speaking, the power of appointment lies with the Prime Minister... All practical powers that the Queen originally had (as stated in the consitution) have been transferred to either the GG or the PM." The very fact that the Queen's signature is required - not just for decoration or tradition's sake - for certain acts to have validity proves that the powers you say have been transferred to the prime minister or governor general have not. The Queen retains all her prerogatives as per the conventions and letter of the constitution; these cannot be exercised by ministers by themselves or by the governor general without the monarch's permission. As such, the sovereign still has the right to refuse her prime minister's advice in certain circumstances. Those circumstances may be extremely rare, but that doesn't mean they're impossible or that the monarch is a useless trinket. The system as it is wouldn't function with the monarch simply plucked out. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 14:43, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

northern North America

I have removed the addition of northern North America in the lead as per previous talks. This kind of extended info is mentioned in the "Geography and climate section". That says "Canada occupies a major northern portion of North America, sharing the land borders with the contiguous United States to the south and the U.S. state of Alaska to the northwest, stretching from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean. By total area (including its waters)," So we have no need to add the redundant and aquaward statement in the lead. If people are not sure were in North America Canada is they can see it in the appropriate section.Moxy (talk) 16:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

And I have restored it. There is little reason to be imprecise, as North America is rather big (compare with the lead for United States, for instance), and it would otherwise be akin to saying that (e.g.) France is simply in Europe. As well, a number of publications describe Canada as being in 'northern North America' (e.g., CIA Factbook[10], Merriam-Webster[11]), so it is hardly awkward. Summary style does not mean being simplistic. Moreover, this particular qualifier was in place for some time before someone apparently decided to remove it not long ago. You will have to point me to the particular discussion and consensus which supports requalifying it so. Bosonic dressing (talk) 21:02, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

It was not much but the most recent talk was --> here. I agree it said northern North America for a long time, but during recent times editors have excepted the new version {as have I). I also think the wording "northern North America" sounds odd. I personal see no need as its more clear in the "Geography and climate" section and the fact there is a map of the country at the same line level as the lead that clearly indicates its location in green. That said y dont we see what others have to say before we bully in either wording. If we are to be that specific in the lead we must not confuse our readers. I actually would like to see it say "Canada occupies the majority northern portion of North America" since "northern North America" may imply to our readers the areas covered by Alaska, Greenland and/or areas in dispute in the Arctic Archipelago and Northwest Passage. I say make it simple or word it better to reflect the fact that its not just Canada up there without having to name them all. Moxy (talk) 23:16, 24 October 2010 (UTC)

A few years ago I received a small check as a christmas gift from someone in Alaska. The teller at my bank wouldn't believe me that Alaska isn't part of Canada, and that it was in fact a US check (which needs to be handled differently than a Canadian check). She ended up calling over her manager, who had to ponder for a few moments before hesitantly agreeing with me that Alaska was not part of Canada. So maybe some precision is called for :P. Ilknowledgeable people like my bank teller are who these general pages are written for, after all. Mind you... of those who would come to this page assuming that Alaska is part of Canada, I'd hope that — unlike my bank teller — most aren't bloody Canadian. Gopher65_talk 00:36, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Maybe she needed to look at the map here, G. ;)

Thank you for pointing out that discussion, M. -- as for support for the recent, simpler version, I'm not seeing a groundswell of it. (Actually, for more than a year until Sep., no one apparently had an issue with the longer phrasing.) I support the original wording or similar: "Canada occupies a major portion of northern North America". But, I also support saying just "in northern North America" and it wouldn't be odd or awkward to say so, as cited above -- if need be, one of the above references can be added. The fact that a map indicates where it is is little reason to be imprecise and simplistic when describing it in prose upfront. As well, when (by analogy) it is indicated that France is in western Europe (or even just Europe) or China is in east Asia, there is no assumption that they subsume each of those regions -- so, not doing so here to potentially assuage claims or reckonings over the archipelago and passages is ridiculous. Bosonic dressing (talk) 01:57, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

Northern North America sounds ridiculous. It's pretty obvious where in north America it is, speacially when there are only 3 large countries. Furthermore there is a map. This has been discussed and agreed upon before. No need to debate it again. Concensus has been reached. UrbanNerd (talk) 20:41, 25 October 2010 (UTC)

The argumentation for the simpler text is even more ridiculous. If it is obvious where it is, then there shouldn't be any issue in stating and referencing that upfront, as other examples above do. Accordingly, I have done so -- actually, I've simply iterated references already in this article -- and it's rather sad that something so obvious needs to be cited. And, perhaps you should learn how to spell 'concensus' before invoking it where it doesn't exist, particularly after just a few throwaway comments despite more than a year of stasis concerning this content. Bosonic dressing (talk) 04:24, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I have to observe that whatever the merits of the arguments may be, this edit war cannot continue. I will ask for article protection if it goes on any longer. Some editors are also perilously close to violating 3RR. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 04:52, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I was just looking at the United States article to see what they have. Why not try the following;

"Canada /ˈkænədə/ is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent it extends..."

then the third paragraph could start;

Canada is a federation that is governed..."

The rest of the first three paragraphs would remain unchanged. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 09:22, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm not seeing the parallel in structure in the above suggestion with the US article lead, which is probably built that way as the US is all over the place; anyway, in that article's 2nd sentence, it indicates "The country is situated mostly in central North America..."--so, if anything, the parallel version would be similar to what is in place now. Then there is a version above suggested by Moxy et al (and closer to what was originally in place): "Canada is a country occupying a major northern portion of North America,..." Yet, I do not see why simpler examples like France and China, or Germany or India or Colombia "[which] is in northwestern South America" or the current lead, are being overlooked. I don't see the need for other changes suggested above. Bosonic dressing (talk) 13:18, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe the other countries are being ignored and/or over looked because they are not FA articles plus of Wikipedia:Other stuff exists. Well Germany is FA but i see there is other problems there.Moxy (talk) 14:16, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

What part of consensus has been reached are you not understanding ? This has already been discussed recently and a consensus was reached. Repeatedly changing it to what you want it to read despite consensus against it is plain vandalism. UrbanNerd (talk) 14:08, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

M., India is featured ... and what of Japan, Belgium, Indonesia, Turkey, and some other featured country articles? Whatever - there are definitely problems....

Accordingly, U., just as with your lack of understanding of what 'consensus' is is your lack of understanding of what constitutes vandalism: good faith edits aren't vandalism, and consensus is questionable in this case. Your blanking of references is closer to vandalism that anything I've done. Read the definition and, upon your comprehension of it, weigh in again. Bosonic dressing (talk) 14:33, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

How many times have you been reverted ? You are vandalising this article. I think an admin should step in and block you from vandalising any further. Read the talk history. It was discussed. You clearly lack the basic understanding of bold revert discuss. You also clearly haven't the simplest understanding of what constitutes vandalism. Removing your repeatly reverted edit and a ref which you just added is not vandalism. Repeatedly adding the same edit after being repeatedly reverted and asked to stop, asked to disscuss, and warned about warring, is vandalism. A quick look at your user page history reveals that you seem to have a history of edit warring and incivility. STOP vandalising this article. UrbanNerd (talk) 14:56, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

I'm adhering precisely to BRD: I'm boldly restoring the long-standing content, changes to which were minimally discussed, and now moreso. You simply retort that the addition of one word sounds ridiculous - bollocks. As for reversions, I won't speak to your hypercompulsion, apparent lack of comprehension, or ad hominem arguments: to wit, you have also breached 3RR. I'll hereafter comment again when others do. Bosonic dressing (talk) 15:12, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

No you're not. You're adhering to a BRRDRRDRRDRD cycle which is completely different. Bold, Revert, Discuss. Do not continue reverting, do not continue altering, discussion. And do not attack other users, comment on content not editors.Canterbury Tail talk 16:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Yo urban nerd, just report him. He is obviously a trouble maker. 99.253.228.190 (talk) 15:38, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

And both users have breached 3RR. Both have been warned, and the next to revert will be blocked. Canterbury Tail talk 15:58, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

As someone completely uninvolved I would have to say having "northern North America" is a really awkward statement. Since Canada takes up a very large portion of North America having to be so super specific is a bit redundant, especially in light of the fact it makes for a very awkward lead sentence. Sausage's suggestion should alleviate the issue of describing where it is without having to have such a horrible sentence. -DJSasso (talk) 16:05, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

So lets do a quick poll see what we can do to get a better consensus on the matter. PS regardless i will be removing the refs for the lead as there is no need for them (will be moved to "Geography and climate" section if need be) - as per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (lead section)#Citations.Moxy (talk) 16:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Quick poll

I understand polls are not the best way to go, but lets see what generally people have to say on the topic at hand. I guess 4 options have been suggested..they are in no particular order:

Option 1 = Canada is a country in North America, extending from ...

Option 2 = Canada is a country in northern North America, extending from ...

Option 3 = Canada is a country occupying a major northern portion of North America,

Option 4 = Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent it extends....

• Option 1 - I think its best to keep it simple since the info "is" and can be better explained in the "Geography and climate" section.Moxy (talk) 16:34, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 2, then Option 3 - being summative does not mean being simplistic. This simple notion - cited - already is/was already explained more in the 'Geography' section. Option 4 is too contorted. Bosonic dressing (talk) 16:59, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 4, then Option 1 - Options 2 & 3 are bad english. -DJSasso (talk) 17:00, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 4, or Option 1. Options 2 and 3 are not as elegant. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 19:00, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 1 -northern North America sounds ridiculous. Where does southern North America end and northern North America begin. UrbanNerd (talk) 19:04, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 4 - It informs the reader of both the location and the make up of the country at the start. Enter CBW, waits for audience applause, not a sausage. 19:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 4 is the only one that is not only sufficiently informative but also has smooth sentence flow. Gopher65_talk 19:51, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

• I'd just like to add that if there is consensus that the lede is already too big and shouldn't have any more information, I'd accept option 1 as a compromise, on the condition that the geography section continue to fully explain the location of the country inside North America. Gopher65_talk 02:05, 27 October 2010 (UTC)

• Option 4, then 1 per the above. Note that as I'm not a regular participant in the article, I came here per Casliber's post on the content noticeboard. Jclemens (talk) 20:20, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 4 adds useful information to the lead, and flows reasonably well. PKT(alk) 20:57, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 4 or Option 1 - Option 4 balances addition of information with excellent readability. Anything that includes the phrase "northern North" or "northern part of north" should not be countenanced as it sounds silly. And BTW, once the dust has settled, can we lose the cites from the lead? The existence of this transitory edit dispute should not be taken to mean citations are needed because it is somehow controversial to state where Canada is. hamiltonstone (talk) 03:16, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 4', Optiona 1. Number Four is clearly the most artfully worded. However, it was fine the way it was as well. People talk about southern North Korea or northern North Korea; eastern Western Sahara; southern North Carolina; and so on. It may sound bad to some, but those people should get used to it because it happens all the time and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it and no reason to set some kind of precedent about what constitutes good English. Chrisrus (talk) 03:55, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 4 - northern North America sounds rather awkward to me. Option 1 isn't bad either.--kelapstick^(bainuu) 06:33, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 4, then 1 - 4 is both elegant and informative. → ROUX ₪ 07:20, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
• Option 1, then 4 -- Jeff3000 (talk) 04:12, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

So it appears that Enter CBW suggestion (option#4) clearly is the favourite thus far during the lock-down of the page. Do we all agree on this and that the change to the wording of option 4 should be implemented? I guess we are looking at what is below as our new lead. Moxy (talk) 04:02, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Canada /ˈkænədə/ is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west and northward into the Arctic Ocean. It is the world's second largest country by total area. Canada's common border with the United States to the south and northwest is the longest in the world.

The land that is now Canada was inhabited for millennia by various groups of Aboriginal peoples. Beginning in the late 15th century, British and French expeditions explored, and later settled, along the Atlantic coast. France ceded nearly all of its colonies in North America in 1763 after the Seven Years' War. In 1867, with the union of three British North American colonies through Confederation, Canada was formed as a federal dominion of four provinces. This began an accretion of provinces and territories and a process of increasing autonomy from the United Kingdom. This widening autonomy was highlighted by the Statute of Westminster of 1931 and culminated in the Canada Act of 1982, which severed the vestiges of legal dependence on the British parliament.

Canada is a federation that is governed as a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. It is a bilingual nation with both English and French as official languages at the federal level. One of the world's highly developed countries, Canada has a diversified economy that is reliant upon its abundant natural resources and upon trade—particularly with the United States, with which Canada has had a long and complex relationship. It is a member of the G8, G-20, NATO, OECD, WTO, Commonwealth, Francophonie, OAS, APEC, and UN.

• I think so. Once the lock expires, someone should go ahead and make that change to the lead. hamiltonstone (talk) 04:19, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

• Agreed. Dr.K. ^{λogosπraxis} 04:27, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Note: The Canada Portal has been updated to the version that has been discussed/ agreed upon here.Moxy (talk) 06:40, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

 Done the change has been done with the refs moved to proper section in main body of the article - as per this edit .Moxy (talk) 16:15, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Full protection

Hi folks, I fully protected the article for 3 days to stop the arm-wrestling going on the article page. Everybody cool down and discuss. Any passing admin is welcome to unprotect once some conclusion is reached. Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:10, 26 October 2010 (UTC)

Ah, there we go. All sorted :) Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:44, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Mention of Ottawa

I just noticed that there is never a link to Ottawa in the prose sections of the article, nor is it even mentioned in the lead. This may want to be addressed. ∙:∙:.:pepper:.:∙:∙ 23:03, 29 October 2010 (UTC)

Are you referring to its status as the capital should be in the lead and/or how it became the capital? Ottawa its self is mentioned 3 times in the article. First in the Demographics section, both in the chart and in text. Then is mentioned again in the Culture section where we mention its the capital of the country.Moxy (talk) 03:58, 30 October 2010 (UTC)

Land border with Denmark?

It's a bit random but surely this article suggests the government believes it has a small land border with Greenland/Denmark: http://www.cbc.ca/technology/story/2007/07/26/hans-technology.html worth a mention? - themodelcitizen (talk) 20:14, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

AFAIU the exact placement of the border is disputed. Both Canada and Denmark claim a small island. The island is not split, as I understand it, but is instead claimed by both sides. Gopher65_talk 00:22, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

We could realy use that ref at -->Hans Island and Territorial claims in the Arctic#Hans Island. Will use it soon if no one else does first(having diner first). Moxy (talk) 01:50, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

Read the article Gopher - Canada's government appears to view the island as split. Whether or not Denmark or any other country/body for that matter agrees with that, it seems to be the official stand of Canada's government now. - themodelcitizen (talk) 20:35, 14 November 2010 (UTC)

But they haven't decided the border yet. If they did decide to place the border straight down the middle of the island then yes, Canada would share a land border with Denmark. But for now both sides are still claiming the entire island. It sure would be interesting if they decided to split it though:). Gopher65_talk 00:42, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

When/if it is decided it could possibly be a candidate to be listed on List of divided islands. CaribDigita (talk) 22:32, 16 November 2010 (UTC)

Hamlet is a small village strictly without a church! http://oxforddictionaries.com/search?searchType=dictionary&isWritersAndEditors=true&searchUri=All&q=hamlet&_searchBtn=Search&contentVersion=WORLD —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.141.40.28 (talk) 23:48, 20 November 2010 (UTC)

History section too long

The History section is too long. While mention of aboriginal traditions is important and deserves to be referenced, the level of detail for an overview article is too much here. The taxonomy of creation myths belongs in an article on Aboriginal culture. Mention of archeological sites is also too detailed for an overview article like this. --soulscanner (talk) 03:15, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

• Edits are bold edits. No problems with reverts, but would like discussion. --soulscanner (talk) 03:27, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Yes i did revert them - again! This layout change you have made makes it much harder for our readers to navigate the page. Plus there is grammatical errors like the run on sentence that is editorialized "Although archaeological and indigenous genetic studies support a human presence in the northern Yukon 26,500 years ago and in southern Ontario 9,500 years ago, aboriginal traditions hold that they have occupied their territories since the beginning of creation".

Plus adding pic of the 1800s in the pre-Colombian section does not work for me as well. Not sure what others think but its not an improvement from what i can see. Revision as of 22:25, November 24, 2010 . Moxy (talk) 05:43, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

I have gone ahead and removed These are the earth diver, world parent, emergence, conflict, robbery, rebirth of corpse, two creators and their contests, and the brother myth. as this is a bit to detailed with no links to help our readers learn more on the topics. I dont think much more should go since there is only 2 paragraphs covering a millennia. I was also very distressed to see the Metis origins removed. Moxy (talk) 06:29, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

The description of the Metis is problematic. I moved mention of the Metis to the section on the fur trade because they did not exist in Pre-Columbian times, and had a way of life centered on the fur trade. The term "mixed-blood" is antiquated if not racist. Also, the Metis culture came about mostly in the Prairies in contact with Cree, Ojibwa, and other prairie peoples. It needs to be cleaned up.--soulscanner (talk) 07:37, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Oops i see what you did, sorry it was lost on me with the layout change. I would have no problem with this moved again as long as the Aboriginal section is still a stand alone section (dont want to see the section merged with Eruopen colonization). The article covers 1608 to present very well, but theres only 5 sentences for 10,000 BCE to 1608. I personal think more is needed in the Aboriginal section - but all agreed that with the mention in the Culture and Law section that this minor lead to the main Aboriginal article was enough.Moxy (talk) 08:28, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Unsourced claim

"These include the CADPAT, G-suit, CRV7, Carbon dioxide laser and the Flight data recorder."

I can't find anything in the source about those inventions (the source was probably modified). Not only that, but I can't find any mention of Canadian involvement in the invention of Flight Data Recorders or CO2 Lasers. And Canadian involvement in the invention of the modern G-suit seems to have been insignficant. Yes, some early research was done by Canadian researchers, but it was quickly overshadowed by more advanced techniques developed by the Americans. The article on the other hand seems to imply that G-suits are an exclusively (or nearly so) Canadian invention. Gopher65_talk 02:11, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

I say remove it Moxy (talk) 02:17, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Y Done — Gopher65_talk 12:21, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

Ethnic Origin Statistics

Hi all - just thought I'd get out ahead of potential criticism - I just modified the Demographics section where it discusses "Ethnic Origin" data from the 2006 census. There were several problems. For one, several of the percentages were simply not correct (based on the cited source). That was easily fixed. However, I felt I also had to make a couple of other changes, and I wanted to explain them here, so that no one thought I was somehow driving some sort of agenda. First, the data in the cited source makes no distinction between the self-reported ethnic origin "Canadian" and any other origin (say, "Jamaican" or "Pakistani"). Therefore, I don't think that we should break "Canadian" out and treat it differently in the text. I did include the word "self-reported" in the lead-in sentence, in an attempt to clarify what we're actually reporting here, and that Wikipedia is not making a judgement call on whether such an ethnic origin even exists. Second, the text had used the words "First Nations", when the source used "North American Indian". I really do feel that we have to religiously report data as presented in the source. Especially in areas of ethnicity, if we start modifying the terms used in the sources, we put ourselves in a very delicate situation. Finally, I added "Dutch (Netherlands)" to the list. My reasoning here was that I couldn't find a good justification for cutting it off. I would suggest that the list should end when we hit some sort of natural mathematical break (so - include all above 5%, or all above 1 million), rather than being purely arbitrary. I could not discern a reason for cutting it where it was, so I chose to cut it at "all with more than 1 million responses", meaning that I had to add in Dutch. I feel very strongly about my first points, but would happily support other better possibilities for where/when to terminate the list. Oh, yeah, and I changed the source website to a different page within the StatsCan website that includes the identical data, but in a slightly easier-to-read format, and also includes all ethnicities, so that readers can go to it if they want more info. Compare here (previous) [12] and here (new) [13] AshleyMorton (talk) 11:49, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you sure you copied that last URL correctly? It doesn't show the same data as the other link. Gopher65_talk 13:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

Oh, crap, you're right. Luckily, it's only here on the talk page that I got it wrong. I have edited my above post to get it right. Thanks for checking! (It's the one labeled "new" that has changed.) AshleyMorton (talk) 14:47, 3 December 2010 (UTC)

In this spirit, I corrected the religion table so that the religion match those outlined in the source. There seems to be more than one place where what's said in the article doesn't match the source. --soulscanner (talk) 09:03, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

That looks good, soulscanner. I find it very frustrating to see how people fiddle demographic statistics so that they line up with more of what "seems right" to them. The most cack-handed are the people who just modify population numbers, but I really worry about the people who do things like rename "No Visible Minority Reported" (which by definition includes people of Aboriginal ancestry, and people who don't want to answer the question) to "White". Thanks for the work in the religion area! AshleyMorton (talk) 23:19, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

New map

Image deleted

Shall we talk about this - We have no sources for this map ..is it original research or is it all valid? Plus should have a caption to explain what it is in the first place.Moxy (talk) 16:29, 3 December 2010 (UTC) File:20 largest cities.JPG We need sources for a map? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:06, 3 December 2010 (UTC) Well part is labelled cities, and part metropolitan areas. Not the same thing, so we need to determine first which it is supposed to be representing. Canterbury Tail talk 17:50, 3 December 2010 (UTC) As I see it, it's only the filename that says "cities". Besides, "city" (non-capitalised) is an acceptable term for a CMA, whether it happens to formally be a City, a group of Cities, a Regional Municipality, or whatnot. I agree that the map needs a caption. However, it really only contains the information from the table that was above it. I think that it should go back in. In my mind it's not original research to summarise information that is present elsewhere in the article (and is properly sourced) in graphical form. AshleyMorton (talk) 18:05, 3 December 2010 (UTC) I think its a great map for its purpose. However we should not assume its right or accurate, just cause it nice. Nor should our readers have to look at other sections of the page to make sure the info is right (this would be y i removed it and started this talk). The author should indicate were the data has comes from in the "Source" section - as it is now the source is the author (is this guy some expert?) . Should be like File:Nouvelle-France1750.png or even better like this --> File:Algonquian langs.png. If the data changes in the section above this map now the map seems wrong. We need to indicate WHEN the map info is for and from where. Moxy (talk) 20:13, 3 December 2010 (UTC) I agree that those other maps are great. However, I think that this map more than meets the standards. The only thing that it's doing is to put on a map, for those who wouldn't know, the location of Canada's 20 largest CMA's. I don't think that the location of e.g. Vancouver needs to be explicitly sourced. It needs a proper caption, for sure, but beyond that, I think that we end up fighting over details, rather than getting on with making a good encyclopedia. AshleyMorton (talk) 22:31, 3 December 2010 (UTC) This is an FA article we should at least have the minimal requirements. Its not the location but the fact theres a number attached to the location that need to be verifiable. I might just take the time and fix it myself tonight.Moxy (talk) 23:09, 3 December 2010 (UTC) I made this map myself yesterday in my spare time, I didn't think it would generate this much of a discussion. It is in fact supposed to be a map of the 20 largest CMAs. I can remove the numbers and put it back with a caption as I still have the file of the map itself and it can readily be edited. JaSte (talk) 00:01, 4 December 2010 (UTC) Scratch that, I'm deleting the file from Wiki altogether. It turns out there is unclear copyright information about the map template, I used it thinking it was public domain. I will use a different template and address the issues that this discussion is pointing out. Sorry and thank you. JaSte (talk) 00:56, 4 December 2010 (UTC)}}

"royal anthem"

royal anthem doesn't exist in canada. check the australia article its not there, nor on the barbados article and a bunch of other countries former colonies of britain. it is racist to say that canada has a royal anthem because according to british law only an anglican white brit can be elevated to monarch. state racism is not accepted under the canadian constitution, so therefore canada cannot have a such an obscene "anthem". 70.29.110.171 (talk) 17:35, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

pls see Talk:Canada/Archive 19#royal anthem for the most recent talk about the subject....that said we are always open to more talks on the matter.Moxy (talk) 17:45, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict)The Queen is the official head of state of Canada, and the royal anthem does exist according to reliable sources. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:46, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Putting aside racism and colonialism non sequiturs and erroneous claims about the rules of succession, "'God Save The Queen'... is considered as the royal anthem, to be played in the presence of members of the Royal Family or as part of the salute accorded to the Governor General and the lieutenant governors."[14] --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:48, 2 November 2010 (UTC)

Ah yes the royal anthem debate. I am strongly against it's inclusion because, 1) it is not a legal anthem of Canada, and 2) Just because it is a commonwealth country that may salute the GG, military personnel, and dignitaries with it doesn't make it an anthem. It's inappropriate in the infobox because it's not a legal anthem of Canada. UrbanNerd (talk) 02:36, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Just because it is not legal, that doesn't mean that it isn't Canada's royal anthem: Mies' link says that "it is considered as the royal anthem"; thus, Wikipedia should consider it to be the royal anthem. Many things regarding Canada's government are not legal (such as constitutional conventions) but carry the same weight as those that are. I'm not sure if it's been proposed in the past, but I wouldn't oppose a footnote making this clarification. -M.Nelson (talk) 02:56, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

That's just it tho, it's not a legal anthem, it's considered an anthem (de facto)... Many things can be considered anthems. The Maple Leaf Forever was a de facto anthem, and the HNIC anthem is even considered a de facto anthem by some. If it's not an official anthem, it shouldn't be included period. UrbanNerd (talk) 03:10, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

"God Save the Queen" isn't the UK's national anthem by statute, yet, it's still the official national anthem. Only you are drawing the unique conclusion that "official" only exists by written law. If you want to use that logic to delete "God Save the Queen" from the United Kingdom infobox, give it a go and tell us what happens. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 03:54, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I highly doubt GSTQ has no legal status in the UK. I could turn your little challenge around and urge you to try inserting GSTQ into the Quebec article. Let me know how that goes for ya.

Unofficial is the key here. The US doesn't have God Bless America in the infobox, because it is not an official anthem. Altho it is played way more than GSTQ in Canada. I'm sure the US's unofficial royal anthem is GSTQ as well. I asked about 10 people if they've ever even heard GSTQ and none had. They have all lived in Canada their whole lives. "When the bill pronouncing "O Canada" as the national anthem was put through parliament, the joint committee's earlier recommendations regarding "God Save the Queen" were not included", in other words when making the anthems official, they didn't want GSTQ to be an anthem of Canada and only excepted O'Canada. The point is Canada doesn't legally have a royal anthem, that should be the end of the story. To put it in the infobox is inappropriate. UrbanNerd (talk) 13:42, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

You are drawing the unique conclusion that "official" only exists by written law. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 14:10, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

You are drawing the unique conclusion that "considered the royal anthem" constitutes official royal anthem and inclusion in the infobox.

No, I am drawing from various sources the conclusion that "God Save the Queen" is the Royal Anthem of Canada. The infobox doesn't call "God Save the Queen" the "official royal anthem"; it calls the song the "royal anthem", which it is, and, as there's a field in the infobox template for such a tune, it's quite correct to include it in the infobox here. You already expressed back in June your desire to see the song deleted from the infobox (using many of the same arguments (and possibly a sock to repeat them)), but consensus was against that idea. You could try again to gain agreement to remove it, but it seems like you're a long way from that at the moment. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:16, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

But I seem to be just repeating myself. I have learned debating with this group of monarchists is pointless. It always ends in either the debater giving up, or the debater expiring out of boredom. You know my stance. UrbanNerd (talk) 16:30, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Just because someone does not agree with you does not mean that person is a monarchist, I am a republican. It is also a violation of WP:AGF to assume that someone that has a different political opinion than you cannot edit in good faith.Dbrodbeck (talk) 16:35, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

I was speaking about the admitted monarchy supporters. ut we're getting off topic here. UrbanNerd (talk) 22:09, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Which is still a violation of WP:AGF, which makes this germane to the discussion. Dbrodbeck (talk) 22:44, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Ya so drop it and discuss a relevant point. ("My argument is not whether GSTQ is Canada's royal anthem, my argument is that Canada has no official royal anthem. To justify including it in the infobox it should actually be an official anthem.") UrbanNerd (talk) 23:13, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

There's no convincing reason to adhere to your personal rule that what goes in the infobox must first meet your personal definition of "official". The field in the infobox template asks for the country's royal anthem. The government of Canada designates "God Save the Queen" as the country's royal anthem. "God Save the Queen" goes in the infobox as the country's royal anthem. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:53, 3 November 2010 (UTC)

Indeed, thank you Miesianiacal well put. UN, please look up WP:CIVIL. Dbrodbeck (talk) 00:25, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

Correct, the field in the infobox template asks for the country's royal anthem, if a country does not have an official royal anthem, like the USA, and countless other countries it is left empty. It is not "my personal definition" or "my personal rule". It is not official, period. UrbanNerd (talk) 00:35, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

One might get the sense that you consider your word to be more authoritative than that of the government of Canada. Regardless, as we'll all only be repeating ourselves after this, if you wish to pursue this matter further, I suggest you seek dispute resolution. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 03:08, 4 November 2010 (UTC)

I remain unmoved from what we had discussed earlier. It should be included. Dbrodbeck (talk) 03:33, 3 November 2010 (UTC).

I, for one, have been a stated Monarchist, and though my views have weakened, I'm still perfectly happy singing GSTQ because, well, I really do wish her well. However, I feel that I have to indicate here that what UrbanNerd, and those who've gone before him/her have stated, is neither "personal" nor "unique". By inserting those adjectives into nearly every response (as was clearly the tactic for a little while there), those who oppose UN's opinion are being nasty and unproductive, without addressing the substance of the question. I think that I can summarise the core debate: a) There is space in the infobox for a royal anthem. b) Canada recognises that, at a minimum, when a royal anthem is appropriate, GSTQ is it. c) Most people in Canada would be confused by the concept that Canada had a royal anthem - they would likely guess that it was GSTQ (not having any realistic alternative), but it's not a major component of daily life. In my mind the *one and only* relevant discussion point is: what belongs in the infobox? Canada also has national pastimes, a national animal, a national day (July 1st is listed, but not in its role as a national holiday), a poet-laureate and a national tree, among many other items of varying national significance. Some can be traced to legislation, some not. Yet none of those I listed are mentioned, while "Drives on the..." is listed, even though I would argue that most people who visit a country article in an encyclopedia do not do so to seek that specific datum. So: The debate should *not* be about whether we have a royal anthem in Canada. It should be about whether it belongs in the infobox. I vote "no", because it is not a defining or structural element of the country (yes, I know I just invented those criteria, but I believe that they, or something like them, are more relevant than "Is there a blank? If so, fill it.") AshleyMorton (talk) 12:10, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmmm. I've hit up country pages (including Canada) on several occasions looking for basic information about the country in question, and on every occasion I've found the infoboxes frustratingly bloated. They contain a lot of useless garbage, while not containing much of the stuff that I was interested in. Of the things that are currently there, IMO only the following should remain: GDP, population, land area, time zones, country code, internet code, demonym, capital, and official languages. Everything else is superfluous (including both national anthem and royal anthem. Most people aren't going to be looking for that, and we cater to what most people will be looking for). Gopher65_talk 14:09, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

There's a big difference. Try to remember that each realm is different. Therefore, what may have status in one nation may not in another. Canadian government sites do state that the Queen's song is to be played when the GG or sovereign arrives/departs. Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle On the other hand, if you view the Barbados government's protocol [15] it states the Barbados national anthem will be played instead. Specifically: "The National Anthem shall be played -

(a) for the purposes of a salute on ceremonial or official occasions, on the arrival and departure of (i) the Governor General. (ii) the Sovereign or a member of the Royal family, " Each realms have different "symbols" and adhear to or recognise all of those symbols differently. 'God Save The Queen' just isn't played in Barbados. CaribDigita (talk) 21:33, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

You make a good point, CaribDigita. That reasonably negates any simple comparisons with other Commonwealth realms. However, I would like to repeat my point that not all official things are entered in an info box. For example, the national holiday Canada Day, highest point (altitude) in the country, and current Chief Herald - all official or proven things - none of these are in the infobox. I would suggest that the primary problem isn't whether we have a royal anthem, but whether it matters. AshleyMorton (talk) 23:52, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a matter to be taken up at Template talk:Infobox country. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 02:06, 8 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't think that it is - each country has different, relevant concepts of what should be in an infobox - that's cool. There's one template so that we can be consistent with format and the like, but there's nothing to say that all the same fields need to be filled out - the question of which ones should be filled out for a given country should be discussed at that country's page.AshleyMorton (talk) 11:30, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The template doesn't even allow for the inclusion of things like national holiday, highest point, or chief herald, which you implied were equivalent in importance to a royal anthem. It thus followed that you were suggesting the removal from the infobox template itself of the fields for royal anthem and whatever other information was deemed as non-important. If that's not what you meant, then I don't know what you're suggesting that isn't already the case; nobody is forced to fill out all the fields in the infobox. However, there seems to be little opposition to doing so, which I assume is because the template has been well constructed as a synopsis of all pertinent basic information about a country and there's now a practical consistency across all articles on countries.

Is there any other information besides the Royal Anthem that you feel should be deleted? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 13:40, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

There seems to a consensus to remove it. It's not an official anthem, it doesn't belong. It will be removed shortly. UrbanNerd (talk) 05:12, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Umm, before you do so, could you outline the basis on which you've determined such consensus? Weight of arguments measured against site policy and all that? If you're going to call "consensus", let's just run through those steps for those of us hard of consensing. Franamax (talk) 06:12, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I do not see any consensus either. Dbrodbeck (talk) 12:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Agree with Dbrodbeck i dont see any consensus at all. However after looking here and at Talk:Canada/Archive 19#royal anthem looks like only the pro side seems to be-able to provide references to there argument. Moxy (talk) 15:19, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah I don't remotely see a consensus here. -DJSasso (talk) 15:21, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The only argument for including it is the personal preferences of a few monarchists. The song is not an official anthem of Canada and must be removed. UrbanNerd (talk) 15:43, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I have revert your edit at Template:Music of Canada best we talk about it more before you remove this all over. If you could provide references as the pro side has it might help your argument. Now you have gone and reverted the revert again....best you read WP:Bold and understand its you that has done the bold edit...you reverted an addition from 6 months ago so Miesianiacal addition is not a bold edit at all since thousands have seen it and did not revert it over the past six months.Moxy (talk) 15:47, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Are you suggesting Bold edits have an expiration date ? If I make a bold edit and no one notices or reverts me for 6 months I'm home free ? Or are you suggesting I track Miesianiacals edits to make sure any bold edits (which he contributes plenty of) don't pass this so called expiration date ? UrbanNerd (talk) 16:10, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, WP:SILENCE if a edit has sat for a significant amount of time it is considered to have consensus and is no longer a bold edit. Your edit removing something that has been there so long would now be the bold move. -DJSasso (talk) 18:06, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Actually I was reverting another questionable edit by Miesianiacal if you would look at that edit history. So please follow Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. And as for "providing references as the pro side" I have already proven that GSTQ is not an official anthem and I am not about to regurgitate the same facts again. When O'Canada was passed in parliament as Canada's national anthem, GSTQ was purposely removed from the legislation, ending GSTQ as an anthem of Canada. We do not have a royal anthem, period. Is GSTQ played for the Governor General, royal visits, and a few other ceremonial occasions ? Yes, but that doesn't make it an anthem of Canada, which it is not. Adding it to the infobox and every other article Miesianiacal can get his hands on is terribly pov, and shows poor editorial integrity. UrbanNerd (talk) 16:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I dont care about this fight, but you realy think an edit for 6 months ago was bold and your the one reverting that bold edit after all this time? Come on man you cant go around saying i reverting as per Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle (That is only an assay) if the addition are that old and seen by so many. Anywas best of luck to you and your fight. If you take more time in trying to find sources on your side it might help...Like Playing of "God Save The Queen" at events. Not going to get you far if you cant prove your point.Moxy (talk) 16:25, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I wish it were that simple Moxy. I have provided several sources to prove it is not an anthem of Canada but it is of no help. The few users pushing for it are so intrenched in the monarchist ideology that they will not reason with facts proving Canada has no royal anthem. I have even sourced the link you provided before which states that it is only played as part of the Salute, but to no avail. UrbanNerd (talk) 18:54, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

FWIW, both anthems stink (as I'm a republican & atheist). Anyways, reliable sources have been provided for keeping Canada's royal anthem. It's been properly labeled as royal anthem in the infobox & not a co-national anthem. Therefore keep it in. GoodDay (talk) 19:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I agree with GoodDay, and oh yeah, I too am a republican and an atheist... Dbrodbeck (talk) 20:01, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

AKA it may not be an anthem of Canada, but we want it included anyways. Ya thanks, heard it before. UrbanNerd (talk) 20:48, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

The royal anthem stays in the infobox. GoodDay (talk) 21:05, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I disagree with UD that consensus was found. Clearly not. However, I disagree strongly with the arguments that are simply based on the fact that the "remove" side doesn't have many sources, while the "keep" side has sources. Their sources don't by any stretch of the imagination prove that the anthem deserves to be in the infobox. UD has used slightly nasty words about monarchists, but it is my opinion, and that of many friends and colleagues, that the monarchy's importance - Notability in Wikipedia-speak - is overstated throughout Wikipedia - and I believe this is caused by the people he's talking about, whether they are specifically included in this discussion, or not. The is the trouble with simple tallying of sources: proving that something exists is easy. Proving that it is non-notable, or not notable enough for inclusion is really tough, when there are a set of people who are active in their support of its inclusion. I bet we can't find a reliable source that says "Having GSTQ as our royal anthem is one of the things that defines our country." THAT would be a source in favour of inclusion. Sources that simply site the existence of the thing only put it on par with our national bird and IMHO don't make the argument for inclusion. To me, the only argument in favour of NOTABILITY (not existence) was Miesianiacal's comment that I should take it up at the infobox template discussion. Note - that's not really an argument, but I disagree anyway. Just because a royal anthem is notable in enough countries to warrant inclusion in the template does not mean that it is notable enough everywhere, nor that it is notable enough here. In fact, I would argue that the standard of notability required for inclusion in the infobox for the main country is higher than that for inclusion in the text, and way higher than for inclusion in, say the Monarchy in Canada article. I know that this issue has been hashed through before, but I don't believe that notability has ever been proven, because so many bytes have been used up arguing about existence and officialness. I hope that people will address this issue, because I don't believe that "source count" actually favours inclusion if we talk about notability.AshleyMorton (talk) 00:28, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Personal i see the parameter "Royal Anthems" as a way of listing a nonofficial or historical anthem for commonwealth countries. Lets do what they did at Bermuda and label it (Unofficial) with this ref that our readers can click on and see for themselves its position in Canada by an Official GOV page. I think its best since there is such a debate, that our readers have a link and see it so they can understand its context within Canada.....ps only talk on this i could find at the template its self-->Template talk:Infobox country/Archive 5#Anthems.. Moxy (talk) 01:04, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

What's in a Name? The word Dominion should be

Please regular page watchers do not kill me. I come only after looking at the archives and the page on Canada's name to wonder whether this ridiculous consensus on keeping Canada's true name as a Dominion out of the article still stands? Why, I say, Why? But first I ask; Is it too soon to open this discussion since the last? And, second; It's right in the Constitution Act 1871, plain as day for anyone to see! (but I digress...) Cheers. Outback the koala (talk) 08:05, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

/me shrugs. Find current official documentation where the government of Canada refers to itself as the Dominion of Canada, and then come back here with it. But even Armchair himself (the major proponent of the "Dominion" side) could never manage to do that, so I doubt you'll succeed (because there isn't any).

As to the various implied and explicit references to the Dominion of Canada in the British North America Acts, those acts were repealed and replaced in 1982 (some parts were incorporated into the new constitution), so that isn't a valid argument. No one is arguing that Canada didn't use to be called "The British Dominion of Canada", they're arguing that it isn't called that any more. Gopher65_talk 12:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Would it not be better to say perhaps "previously established as the Dominion of Canada"? On a logical take, I would have to say how could Canada still be considered a "Dominion" nowadays anyway? To spin that same idea on its head, to use the same argument wouldn't Nova Scotia for example still be a "Dominion" even though it is a province of Canada? CaribDigita (talk) 17:04, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, but I've got to agree with Gopher. There is absolutely no current documents that show Canada's official name as "Dominion of Canada". (I really do not want another discussion on this...) Nations United (talk) 19:49, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, as I recall Armchair's argument always went along the lines of trying to prove that all nations had a "long name", so Canada must have one too. This whole thing has been beaten to death, with nary a current reliable source ever showing up. Franamax (talk) 20:17, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Let always address peoples concerns and explain y things are the way they are. Heres a quick overview of the 2 main arguments in this case (old as they may be) and y things are in there current state. The main argument to use the name Canada is based on Wikipedia:Common name, were Canada would clearly be what is the most common name used to identify this topic, thus what our readers would search for - So then the other argument was should it not be in the lead as per ->Wikipedia:Naming conventions (geographic names) Like:....
( Canada /ˈkænədə/ {Dominion of Canada} is a North American country consisting...).
The end result of this arguments was to add an Etymology section (like other country articles). This is the first section people will see/read that has a top link to a main article on just this topic. Y here and not in the lead was to not add what is a debate in the name in the first sentence our readers will see. Was determined best to have a proper section (leading to its own page) to address this more was the best and most comprehensive solution. Moxy (talk) 20:07, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the Outback's claim that the 1871 Constitution Act makes it "plain as day" that Dominion is part of the name. In fact, I think that document shows pretty clearly that DominionD is a title and not part of the name, given that it uses the name Canada without the title in section 5, and refers to Canada as "the said dominion" in section 3. I think that the 1867 Constitution Act backs the theory that "Dominion" is a title and not part of the name by using the phrase "One Dominion under the Name of Canada" —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:27, 12 December 2010 (UTC)

Dominion of Canada? AFAIK, the Canadian government doesn't use that 'name' anymore. GoodDay (talk) 23:52, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you all for your comments. Clearly this is still a divisive issue on this page that has never been resolved and now is not the time to reopen the discussion. Hopefully one day, the page can reflect the true name of the country. Cheers. Outback the koala (talk) 03:21, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

But it does reflect the true name. Afterall, the Canadian government wouldn't lie to us, would they? GoodDay (talk) 13:52, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Well at least not about the name one presumes.... I do figure they are a RS for the name of the country. Dbrodbeck (talk) 16:55, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

LOL, well you can take it to the top if you wish. The Head of State: The Queen's website doesn't say "the Dominion of Canada". It says "The Queen of Canada's Royal style and title is Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom, Canada and Her other Realms and Territories, Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith." [16] - CaribDigita (talk) 23:16, 14 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, that's not a definitve answer, since Australia is actually the Commonwealth of Australia, yet the Queen's title isn't "Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, Queen of the Commonwealth of Australia and Her other Realms and Territories, Head of the Commonwealth." However, the Constitution Act 1867 is pretty explicit about Canada's name: "One Dominion under the Name of Canada." Not "the Name Dominion of Canada"; just "Canada." --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 01:47, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I think you're right MIESIANIACAL. St. Kitts and Nevis is a twin-island Federation but it doesn't say the Federation of St. Christopher (a.k.a. St. Kitts) and Nevis either. It does correctly refer to the Queen's style under The Bahamas as ("The Commonwealth of") though. I wonder if it was just an oversight. CaribDigita (talk) 04:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The Queen of Canada's royal style has United Kingdom mentioned in it & before Canada? GoodDay (talk) 01:54, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

I saw that too.  :-)<g> I thought of checking the Constitution of Canada to perhaps see if the style was worded there but I got side tracked doing something else and forgot all about it. CaribDigita (talk) 04:24, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The 1867 act is no longer in effect. So we'd have to look at the current constitution for guidance. Gopher65_talk 13:23, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

The 1867 act is still in effect, although amended. In particular, the phrase "form and be one dominion" is still there. So Canada is still a dominion, whatever dominion means. However, this does not imply that "Dominion of Canada" is an official name. Also, the fact that dominion is currently so thoroughly disused means that putting dominion in the lead paragraph would be overly legalistic and pedantic. Let's keep it out of the lead paragraph. Indefatigable (talk) 17:00, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

I strongly agree that the BNA Act 1867 is still in place, although it is now in an amended form. @Indefatigable - it would be hardly padantic nor overly legalistic if it is a commonly used phrase. I spent the last few days asking some of my work colleagues and friends their opinion on what the full name of Canada is and their answers were all highly similar. Even most children I asked knew this information (although this may be a regional thing for my town) If it is widely used, then why not include it. Outback the koala (talk) 23:43, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

Weren't the various BNA acts superseded by the constitution in 1982? The majority of the original text was folded into the constitution, but the original acts themselves are no longer in force. At least that's the way I understood it. Gopher65_talk 00:04, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Comment: While rooting around Wikicommons to try and fill-in "Category:Documents of Canada", I found a photo of the proclamation by the Queen forming the Canadian Confederation.[17] It reads: "BY THE QUEEN! A PROCLAMATION For Uniting the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick, into one Dominion. under the name of Canada".

This is all information outlined 'er debated here before but, if you root through the document it makes an argument for both sides. CaribDigita (talk) 16:19, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

This document has since been superseded by several other Constitutional Acts that drop the title of Dominion, most notably the Constitution Act of 1981. Please review the previous dialogue on this subject. We've been over this before. Canada is no longer a colony or dominion of the British Empire and is no longer referred to as such. --soulscanner (talk) 22:41, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

While everyone is entitled to refer to Canada as a Dominion, colony, commonwealth, imperial possession etc., the use of Dominion to describe Canada is largely archaic. It is not longer in common use. It's useful to mention it in the etymology section for historic purposes as it appears in some old colonial documents. It should be deleted everywhere else in the document, as it simply is no longer relevant in describing Canada's current status. It is no longer a Dominion in the historic sense of being a British colony with limited autonomy. --soulscanner (talk) 22:33, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Maritime borders with France and Greenland

About Canadian borders, Canada shares a maritime border with France (St.Pierre and Miquelon) and possibily (I'm not sure) with Greenland. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 151.15.13.176 (talk) 13:03, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Russia too, no??? When I used to get CBC in the USA (as Newsworld International) I thought I recall hearing that Canada and Russia have agreements in place over the Arctic regions? [18], [19], [20], [21] CaribDigita (talk) 01:53, 18 December 2010 (UTC)

End of Dominion Status

According to this scholarly source [22], Canada's Dominion Status ended in 1939. This is why the Government of Canada stopped using the name after the Second World War. The title pretty much establishes it. Please do not delete scholarly sources from wikipedia pages. --soulscanner (talk) 08:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Firstly, it's unclear how Canada's status as a Dominion of the Empire is related to the etymology of the country's name. The name "Dominion" and status as a "Dominion" aren't linked; for example, though it was for a time a Dominion of the Empire, Australia was always named the Commonwealth of Australia, never the Dominion of Australia. Canada was certainly a Dominion of the Empire, but that doesn't guarantee "Dominion of Canada" was ever the country's legal name.

Secondly, regardless of where the claim fits, I believe one can delete a source when it doesn't back up the claim it follows. "Canada's status as a Dominion within the British Empire ended with Parliament's independent declaration of war on Germany on September 9, 1939" is a pretty audacious assertion that I've certainly never heard before, and I've done a fair amount of work on this encyclopaedia that relates to the evolution of Canada's independence. That's not to say definitively that the claim isn't true, but I think it requires some (i.e. more than one) solid sources to support it. Yet, the one you gave doesn't. Can you provide some more information on this? --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 13:39, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I recommend reading through F.R. Scott's work "The End of Dominion Status" in its entirety. His thesis in this paper is precisely that Canada's Dominion status ended when Parliament declared war in 1939; it's the whole point of the article, so I'm unclear about your objections about including it. You can purchase it online or get the volume at any University Library. It's obvious even in the title.

F.R. Scott was a constitutional lawyer at Montreal, Dean of Law at McGill University, and the legal mentor of Pierre Elliot Trudeau. You may personally disagree with his thesis as audacious, but your personal opinion doesn't matter any more than mine. If you can find a source that disputes Scott's paper, I'd like to see it. Most sources recognize this paper as the first to document Canada's independent declaration of war as an expression of independence that ended its Dominion Status. Constitutional scholar Douglas Heard, for example, cites Scott extensively when discussing Canada's Independence:

These separate declarations of war and neutrality were final proof of the complete functional divisibility of the Crown. As Scott concluded in a paper written towards the end of the war, "Today it is firmly established as a basic constitutional principle that, so far as relates to Canada, the King is regulated by Canadian law and must act only on the advice and responsibility of Canadian ministers".[101] However, the Canadian ministers' ability to advise the King on this matter was acquired entirely through informal political arrangements and not through any legal change. [23]

The statement was certainly audacious in 1944, but that's how Canada asserted it's independence from Britain. Britain didn't give up its Empire just like that. Canada had to take it's independence. That's what F.R. Scott is saying. --soulscanner (talk) 15:14, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Scott was entitled to his opinion, which probably has its merits. But his opinion isn't necessarily fact, and I don't believe any section of this article, let alone the etymology one, is the place to get into his theory. This page is an overall look at Canada and the general consensus is that Canada emerged out of Dominion status gradually, not at any one specific point in time. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 15:20, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

So you deleted the reference it because you disagree with Scott's paper? --soulscanner (talk) 15:32, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

No. I deleted the reference because it was used as a source for a sentence I deleted for reasons I already explained above. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:41, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

You originally said you deleted because the claim was not in Scott's paper. It clearly is. The second reason that was that you found his opinion too audacious, which is your personal opinion. Neither is a valid reason for deleting it. --soulscanner (talk) 22:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It's place in the source is clear only to someone who has the full source in front of them; Scott's assertion about the end of Canada's Dominion status coming on 7 September 1939 certainly isn't in the link you provided.

Regardless, the claim was presented in the article not as Scott's theory but as a widely accepted fact. I think the claim is audacious precisely because I've seen no other sources say anything even remotely similar. I asked if you could provide some further supporting sources, but you haven't yet. All you've provided is a quote relating to the division of the Imperial crown being finalised in 1939 (though it was actually well split before that), which doesn't affirm that Dominion status ended on any specific day. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:07, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

What other paper say...So it hard to pin it down ..like MIESIANIACAL says its seem to happen over time.

BRITAIN

• 1947- The British cabinet position of Secretary of State for Dominion Affairs was renamed the Secretary of State for Commonwealth Relations.
• May 29, 1953- the full title of the British monarch was changed from Queen "of Great Britain, Northern Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas" to Queen of "Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of her other Realms and Territories."

OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS OF THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT

• 1935- "DoC" stopped being used in the Canadian Treaty Series, an annual volume of Canada's ratified treaties*
• 1949- "DoC" stopped being used in Journals of the House of Commons
• 1951- "DoC" stopped being used in annual collections of the Statutes of Canada
• 1953- "DoC" stopped being used in annual archives of Debates of the House of Commons
• 1957- "DoC" stopped being used in Law Reports of the Supreme Court of Canada

1987- "DoC" stopped being used in Canadian Parliamentary Guide

• Note, in treaties themselves Canada has always been referred to as simply "Canada," even in pre-1931 documents, and even when other countries use their more formal names.

LAWS

• 1951- Dominion Lands Survey Act replaced by the Canada Lands Survey Act
• 1951- Dominion Elections Act replaced by the Canada Elections Act

PRIVATE PUBLICATIONS

• 1952- TIME magazine stops using "The Dominion" as its heading for national Canadian news
• 1963- Canadian Criminal Cases journal stops referring to "laws of the Dominion" in introduction
• 1952- The Canadian Almanac stops using "Dominion of Canada" as the country's formal full name
• 1964- The Canadian Almanac stops referring to the "Dominion Government" (instead, "Federal Government")

.........Moxy (talk) 15:54, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It's true that Canada phased out it's use gradually, but the independent declaration of war is generally accepted as the Constitutional precedent that established Canada's functional independence to the British Monarch. That is confirmed by Heard's 1990 quotation of Scott above. It also explains WHY the Canadian government stopped referring to Canada as a Dominion; it was a deliberate and significant act by the Canadian government to assert its independence from the British Monarch. It was a way of consolidating Canada's first act of total independence in its foreign affairs. That's not me saying it; it's the constitutional scholars quoted above. Again, almost all constitutional scholars agree with Scott's opinion. --soulscanner (talk) 22:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I've added Scott's opinion at Dominion#Canada. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 16:49, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok then i have added it to Name of Canada#Use of Canada and Dominion of Canada...Question is F. R. Scott the guy we are taking about...just trying to find some info on the author himself and if thats his link?Moxy (talk) 17:18, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I assume that's the same Frank Scott.

I would remove his opinion from Name of Canada. As I've already said, the name Dominion for Canada was never related to the country's former status as a Dominion. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:23, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok with me ...we should link up his name wherever the statement is as he is a members of the Order of Canada.Moxy (talk) 17:26, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 17:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

It's more complicated than that. The reason Canada eliminated Dominion from it's name was because of its colonial implications. It originally was used to indicate Canada as a colonial possession of the British Monarch, and later as a semi-autonomous polity; this is pointed out both in Heard, in Scott, and even in other texts shown here. It's important to understand why Canada stopped using the monicker.--soulscanner (talk) 22:06, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Dominion was originally selected as a name unique to Canada, a compromise in place of the word "kingdom" that Macdonald wanted. It was only later, as other British colonies gained the same level of self-governance as Canada achieved at Confederation that the name "Dominion" gained a wider, pan-Empire meaning. Nobody's arguing against the fact that, by the late 1920s, the Commonwealth governments - including Canada's - began to slowly drop the use of the word "Dominion". What's questioned is the assertion that the process had a definitive end for Canada on 7 December 1939 and what relation that has to the name of Canada. --Ħ MIESIANIACAL 23:16, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Based on what I've read, I'd say that "Dominion" was never part of the name, but rather a status descriptor, indicating the Canadian government's subservience to the crown. Gopher65_talk 23:31, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Same shi'ite from the soul, no different smell than before his hiatus (almost a year from 2009). There is no clear need to change any of this content. Bosonic dressing (talk) 17:39, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

As for what 'Dominion' is, it was conferred as the country's title (as sourced in the article) -- regardless if certain editors disbelieve that -- and remains that, though it is disused. Bosonic dressing (talk) 21:38, 25 December 2010 (UTC)