Profiling Of Canada

History:

Canada is a country occupying most of northern North America, extending

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 and its common border with the United States to the south and
northwest is the longest in the world.

The land occupied by Canada was inhabited for millennia by various

groups of Aboriginal people. 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 America
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.

A federation consisting of ten provinces and three territories, Canada is

governed as a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy
with Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state. It is a bilingual and multicultural
country, with both English and French as official languages both at the
federal level and in the province of New Brunswick. 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, and UN.

ECONOMY:

Canada is one of the world's wealthiest nations, with a high per-capita

income, and it is a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) and the G8. It is one of the world's top ten
trading nations. Canada is a mixed market, ranking lower than the U.S. on
the Heritage Foundation’s index of economic freedom but higher than most
western European nations. The largest foreign importers of Canadian
goods are the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. In 2008,
Canada's imported goods were worth over $442.9 billion, of which $280.8
billion was from the United States, $11.7 billion from Japan, and $11.3
billion from the United Kingdom.

As of October 2009, Canada's national Unemployment rate was 8.6%.

Provincial unemployment rates vary from a low of 5.8% in Manitoba to a
high of 17% in Newfoundland and Labrador. For immigrants in the country
five years or less, the unemployment rate reached 13.9% in October 2009.
Canada was home to 69 of the 2000 corporations in the 2008 Forbes
Global 2000 compilation of the world's largest companies, ranking the
nation 5th globally.

As of 2008, Canada’s total government debt burden is the lowest among

the G8. The OECD projects that Canada's debt-to-GDP ratio will decline to
19.5% in 2009, which is less than half of the projected average of 51.9% for
all G8 countries. According to these projections, Canada's debt burden will
have fallen by more than 50 percentage points from its peak in 1995, when
it was the second-highest in the G8. In 2008–09, the federal debt increased
by $6.1 billion to $463.7 billion. In the past century, the growth of the
manufacturing, mining, and service sectors has transformed the nation
from a largely rural economy to a more industrial and urban one. Like other
First World nations, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service
industry, which employs about three quarters of Canadians. Canada is
unusual among developed countries in the importance of its primary sector,
in which the logging and petroleum industries are two of the most
important.

Canada is one of the few developed nations that are net exporters of
energy. Atlantic Canada has vast offshore deposits of natural gas, and
large oil and gas resources are centered in Alberta. The immense
Athabasca Oil Sands give Canada the world's second-largest oil reserves,
behind Saudi Arabia. In Quebec, British Columbia, Newfoundland &
Labrador, New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, and Yukon, hydroelectricity
is an inexpensive source of renewable energy when compared to other
alternatives.

Canada is one of the world's most important suppliers of agricultural

products, with the Canadian Prairies being one of the most important
producers of wheat, canola, and other grains. Canada is the largest
producer of zinc and uranium, and is an important global source of many
other natural resources, such as gold, nickel, aluminum, and lead. Many
towns in the northern part of the country, where agriculture is difficult, are
sustainable because of nearby mines or sources of timber. Canada also
has a sizable manufacturing sector centered in southern Ontario and
Quebec, with automobiles and aeronautics representing particularly
important industries.

Representatives of the Canadian, Mexican, and United States governments

sign the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1992.

Economic integration with the United States has increased significantly

since World War II. This has drawn the attention of Canadian nationalists,
who are concerned about cultural and economic autonomy in an age of
globalization, as American goods and media products have become
ubiquitous. The Automotive Products Trade Agreement of 1965 opened the
borders to trade in the auto manufacturing industry. In the 1970s, concerns
over energy self-sufficiency and foreign ownership in the manufacturing
sectors prompted Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s Liberal government to
enact the National Energy Program (NEP) and the Foreign Investment
Review Agency (FIRA).

In the 1980s, Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives

abolished the NEP and changed the name of FIRA to “Investment Canada”
in order to encourage foreign investment. The Canada – United States
Free Trade Agreement (FTA) of 1988 eliminated tariffs between the two
countries, while the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)
expanded the free-trade zone to include Mexico in the 1990s. In the mid-
1990s, the Liberal government under Jean Chretien began to post annual
budgetary surpluses and steadily paid down the national debt. The 2008
global financial crisis caused a recession, which could boost the country's
unemployment rate to 10%.

Demographics of Canada:

Population:

• In 2004, Canada’s population reached 31.9 million. Since 2001,

Canada’s total population has grown by 3%, or 925,000 people.
• From a provincial perspective, population growth between 2001 and
2004 was greatest in Western Canada. The territory of Nunavut reported
an increase of 5.3% in their population over this three-year period. The
Northwest Territories followed closely behind with an increase of 4.9%.
• While many provinces experienced population increases between
2001 and 2004, the population fell in others. The most significant
decreases were in Newfoundland, where the population decreased by
1.0%, and in Saskatchewan (0.5%).

Urban or Rural:

• Canada’s population is primarily urban based. Data from the 2001

Census revealed that 79.6% of Canadians – or 23,585,940 people –
resided in urban centre’s, with the remainder, 20.4%, living in rural
locations. Ontario and British Columbia reported the highest
concentrations of urban dwellers in 2001.
 • Not surprisingly, the largest proportion of Canada’s rural population
lived in the Territories. Nunavut was the highest at 67.6%.

Births:

• The number of births in Canada reached 331,522 in 2002/03, a slight

increase (1.3%) from 2000/01.
• Over this two-year period (2000/01 to 2002/03), most provinces and
territories saw a decrease in the number of annual births. However,
Ontario reported a 3.3% increase in annual births during this period.
• Among Canadian provinces and territories, seven reported declines
in the number of annual births between 2000 and 2003. The largest
decrease was in the Northwest Territories, with a drop of 7.6%. The
Yukon also reported a decline of 4.3% over this period.
• Of the 331,522 births reported in Canada in 2002/03, most were in
Ontario (39.6%) and Quebec (21.7%).
• The average age of mothers giving birth in 2002 was 29.5 years – up
a full year from 1992, when the average age was 28.4 years. Mothers in
Nunavut were the youngest in the country, with an average age of 25.1
years. Among the provinces, Saskatchewan had the youngest mothers,
with an average age of 27.5 years.
Fertility:

• Fertility rates are a measure of the average number of children that

women will bear during their lifetime. Between 2001 and 2002, the
fertility rate among Canadian women fell slightly, from 1.51 to 1.50. In
2000, fertility rates in Canada hit an all-time low – falling to 1.49.
• Canada’s fertility rate falls midway among many of the other
industrialized nations. Countries such as the United States, France and
Australia have fertility rates which exceed 1.5, while Germany, Japan
and Italy all have fertility rates lower than those of Canada.
• Nunavut had the highest fertility rate in Canada for 2002, at 3.04.
Among the provinces, Saskatchewan (at 1.82) reported the highest
fertility rate, in sharp contrast to Newfoundland’s low rate of 1.31 births
per woman.

Life Expectancy:

• In 2001, a newborn Canadian had a life expectancy of 79.6 years; for

Canadians aged 65, their life expectancy was an additional 19 years.
• In British Columbia, life expectancy from birth was the highest in
Canada, at 80.4 years, and seniors in that province had a life
expectancy of 19.7 years. The lowest life expectancy rate was in
Nunavut, with a rate of 69.4 years from birth, and 15.5 years from the
age of 65.
 • In 2002/03, there were 227,630 deaths reported in Canada. Perhaps
not surprisingly, the largest numbers were recorded in Ontario with
85,950 deaths, followed by Quebec with 54,585.
• The death rate per 1,000 populations in Canada that year was 7.2.
The highest rate was in Ontario, at 9.0 deaths per 1,000 populations,
and the lowest rate was in the Northwest Territories, at 4.2 deaths per
1,000 populations.

Facts and Statistics:

Location: Northern North America, bordering the North Atlantic Ocean on

the east, North Pacific Ocean on the west, and the Arctic Ocean on the
north, north of the conterminous US.
Capital: Ottawa
Climate: varies from temperate in south to subarctic and arctic in north
Population: 33,212,696 (July 2008 est.)
Ethnic Make-up: British Isles origin 28%, French origin 23%, other
European 15%, Amerindian 2%, other, mostly Asian, African, Arab 6%,
mixed background 26%.
Religions: Roman Catholic 42.6%, Protestant 23.3% (including United
Church 9.5%, Anglican 6.8%, Baptist 2.4%, Lutheran 2%), other Christian
4.4%, Muslim 1.9%, other and unspecified 11.8%, none 16% (2001
census).
Government: constitutional monarchy that is also a parliamentary
democracy and a federation.

Language in Canada:
A multitude of languages are spoken in Canada. According to the 2006
census, English and French are the preferred language ("home language",
or language spoken most often in the home) of 67.1% and 21.5% of the
population, respectively. English and French are recognized by the
Constitution of Canada as "official languages," which means that all laws of
the federal government are enacted in both English and French and that
federal government services are required to be available in both languages.

The five most widely-spoken non-official languages are Chinese (the home
language of 2.6% of Canadians), Punjabi (0.8%), Spanish (0.7%), Italian
(0.6%), and Arabic (0.5%).

Cultural Diversity:

Canada is culturally diverse. This goes back to the 1890s when it began
inviting people from all over the world to settle in the country to help it
develop and grow. Canadian immigration policy was historically open,
welcoming and egalitarian in its philosophy. This has also manifest into the
psyche of the nation where people are encouraged and to retain their
cultural identities, traditions, languages and customs.

People:

Canadians are generally a tolerant, polite and extremely community-

oriented people. Although they are individualistic in terms of their basic
cultural traits, they nevertheless place a great deal of emphasis on the
individual's responsibility to the community. This is seen as giving balance
and a good quality of life.
Politics of Canada:

Canada is divided into 308 electoral districts (or ridings). Voters in each
district elect one Member of Parliament (MP) to send to the House of
Commons. There are two chambers in the Canadian Parliament
(Bicameral) which consists of the House of Commons (308 seats) and the
Senate (normally limited to 105 senators). The House of Commons is
elected by direct popular vote to serve five-year terms. The Senate
members are appointed to serve until reaching 75 years of age by the
governor general and selected on the advice of the Prime Minister.

Trade and Investment:

Canada is an important trade and investment partner for British companies

of all sizes and across the spectrum of business activity. Canada is one of
the world’s richest and most developed countries, ranks among the top ten
industrial powers and is recognised as having one of the highest standards
of living in the world. With low inflation and steady economic growth,
Canada offers good trade and investment opportunities for British
companies in many sectors e.g. energy, food and drink, aerospace and
biotechnology. A recent study comparing business costs in Canada,
Europe and the USA placed Canada ahead of other G7 countries across a
broad range of business operating costs. Canada’s market economy has
maintained a varied structure with both small companies and multinational
giants playing important parts. Natural resources remain a major factor, but
the growth of hi-tech industries often involving small dynamic enterprises, is
of ever increasing significance. The Canadian Government announced
plans in 2002 to invest $108m into the Canadian digital content industry.
Service industries too have increased greatly in recent years and along
with the possible expansion of the privatisation programme by Federal and
Provincial governments, opportunities are expected to continue to present
themselves over a number of sectors. The proximity of the huge US market
to much of Canada’s industrial activity (based largely in Ontario and
Quebec), Canada’s close relationship with the UK, its well-educated and
skilled labour force help create a good business environment with
opportunities for British companies in most sectors including services.
There are also good opportunities for strategic business partnerships and
technology transfers between UK and Canadian companies. The market
remains very receptive to British products and Canadian businesspeople
are familiar with UK business practices. Neglecting business opportunities
in Canada by failing to recognise its strategic role in tackling the wider
NAFTA region - could prove costly for UK companies.

Trade in goods:

Canada is the UK's third largest export market outside Europe, the US and
China. The value of UK goods exported to Canada totalled approximately
£3.6 billion in 2008. Energy products, industrial goods and machinery
products dominated UK goods exported to Canada in 2008. Between
January-May 2009 the value of UK exports was £1.5 billion.

Trade in services:
The UK is Canada’s primary European trading partner. Canada is the UK’s
11th largest market, with exports reaching £3.3bn in 2007. The UK is the
second largest foreign direct investor in Canada after the US.

Business Climate:
"This country offers many compelling competitive advantages to potential
foreign investors, including a highly skilled work force, low production and
R&D costs, and a high standard of living," notes Canada Prime Minister
Jean Chretien. And for non-U.S. investors, he adds, "Our proximity to the
United States and its marketplace makes Canada a prime location for
foreign investors. More and more, foreign companies wishing to access the
American markets establish themselves here in Canada."

Canada is, in fact, pushing to open up to more international markets to

increase trade and investment from outside the U.S. Canada is committed
to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Chretien says that the
FTAA is the best way of forging connections throughout the hemisphere.
Such trade agreements are expected to help lessen the impact of U.S.
downturns in the future.

"While [Canada] remains a very attractive choice for international traders

and investors, Canada's significant bilateral trade with the U.S. will dampen
the country's overall economic growth in 2001," reports World Trade
magazine. "But efforts to liberalize other international markets for Canada's
services exports could help to offset declines in trade with the U.S."
As Canada moves forward in its efforts to develop new trader partners, it is
also moving ahead in terms of its business climate. According to the
Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), an arm of The Economist, Canada is
expected to be the fourth-best place in the world to do business over the
next five years -- moving up one spot from the last five-year forecast in
1996. EIU's survey ranks the world's 60 largest countries based on 70
factors such as regulation, trade laws and the availability of finance.

In order to maintain, if not improve, that spot on the best places to do

business list, Canada has made significant tax cuts to benefit corporate
investors. As part of the federal government's CA$100-billion, five-year tax
reduction plan (the largest tax cut in the country's history), general income
tax rates will be reduced to 21 percent by 2004. At year-end 2000, the
corporate tax rate stood at 28 percent, but on Jan. 1, 2001, the government
made a one-point cut, bringing the rate down to 27 percent. Further two-
point cuts will take effect in each of the following three years.

In addition, the capital gains inclusion rate was again reduced to one-half
as of Oct. 18, 2000. To help businesses expand and prosper through
greater access to capital, the government also announced the tax-free
rollover of capital gains on qualified small-business investments (where
they are reinvested in another small business) was expanded as of Oct. 18,
2000.
"These tax changes," says Chretien, "will give investors, business and
all Canadians a competitive edge in the new economy."

-- Tracy Heath
Bibliography
http://www.fco.gov.uk/en/travel-and-living-abroad/travel-advice-by-country/country-
profile/north-central-america/canada

http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/resources/global-etiquette/canada.html

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0107386.html

http://www.siteselection.com/issues/2001/nov/p718/