Modern Canada

The First World War (1914–1918)

More than 600,000 Canadians served in the First World War from a national population of just eight million. 66,000 were killed and 170,000 wounded. The four-day Battle of Vimy Ridge in April 1917, where all four divisions of the Canadian Corps fought together for the first time, is remembered as a moment of national emergence. Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, a Canadian army doctor, wrote *In Flanders Fields* after the second battle of Ypres.

Women win the vote

Women won the right to vote in federal elections in 1918, after decades of advocacy led by suffragists including Nellie McClung and the Famous Five. Only Quebec — at the provincial level — held out until 1940. Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to Parliament in 1921.

Between the wars and the Depression

Prosperity in the 1920s gave way to the Great Depression of the 1930s. One in four workers lost their jobs at the depth of the slump. The federal Bank of Canada was created in 1934 to manage monetary policy through such storms.

The Second World War (1939–1945)

Over one million Canadians and Newfoundlanders served in the war effort — out of a population of 11.5 million. 44,000 were killed.

• D-Day, June 6, 1944 — 14,000 Canadian troops stormed Juno Beach in Normandy.
• The Royal Canadian Navy grew to become the third-largest navy in the world.
• The Royal Canadian Air Force trained nearly half of all Allied pilots through the British Commonwealth Air Training Plan.

The post-war decades

Canada was a founding member of the United Nations (1945) and NATO (1949). Canadians peacekeepers, an idea championed by Lester B. Pearson (who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957), served around the world.

The Quiet Revolution and bilingualism

In the 1960s, Quebec underwent rapid modernization, secularization, and a powerful assertion of French-Canadian identity. The federal Official Languages Act of 1969 made English and French equal in all federal institutions. Two referendums on Quebec sovereignty — 1980 and 1995 — both produced No majorities, but the second only narrowly.

Multiculturalism and patriation

Pierre Elliott Trudeau's government formally adopted multiculturalism as policy in 1971 — Canada was the first country in the world to do so. In 1982, the Constitution Act transferred full constitutional authority from the United Kingdom to Canada and added the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II signed the document in Ottawa on April 17, 1982.

Modern Canada

Canadian soldiers served with distinction in the Gulf War, the Balkans, and in Afghanistan, where 158 lost their lives. Canada continues to take in roughly 400,000 immigrants a year — one of the highest per-capita rates in the developed world.