Canadian identity and the three founding peoples
See how the guide frames Canadian identity — a free country with an unbroken constitutional tradition — and why it names three founding peoples.
The chapter opens by presenting Canada as a strong and free country whose people take pride in their identity. Two claims anchor that identity. Canada has inherited the oldest continuous constitutional tradition in the world, built step by step out of British parliamentary history without a break. It is also the only constitutional monarchy in North America: the Sovereign is head of state, while elected representatives govern.
The guide links these institutions to “Peace, Order and Good Government,” a phrase from the British North America Act of 1867, Canada’s original constitutional document. That Act is now called the Constitution Act, 1867, so either name can appear in a question. The phrase sums up what Canadians expect of government—stability, lawful authority and sound administration—and fits the guide’s idea of ordered liberty, where law protects freedom.
Next to institutions, the guide places values: ordered liberty, enterprise, hard work and fair play. Belief in them helped Canadians create a prosperous country in a demanding landscape that reaches from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific and up to the Arctic Circle. That success led poets and songwriters to praise Canada as the “Great Dominion,” echoing the name Dominion of Canada adopted at Confederation in 1867.
To understand what being Canadian means, the guide says, you must know the three founding peoples: Aboriginal, French and British. The guide uses the word Aboriginal; Indigenous is more widely used today, and both cover the same three groups—First Nations, Inuit and Métis. Calling them founding peoples describes the country’s historical roots. It ranks no one, and the same chapter goes on to celebrate later immigrants.
Aboriginal peoples and First Nations
Learn where Aboriginal peoples came from, what the term First Nations replaced, where First Nations people live and how Aboriginal rights are protected.
Aboriginal peoples’ ancestors are thought to have come from Asia many thousands of years ago, and their societies were firmly rooted across North America long before the first European explorers arrived. First Nations cultures were many and varied, not a single way of life. What the guide says they shared was a religious outlook built on relationships: with the Creator, with the natural environment and with one another.
The guide divides Aboriginal peoples into three distinct groups. The first was historically called Indian, a word for every Aboriginal person who is not Inuit or Métis; the term First Nations came into use in the 1970s. Roughly half of First Nations people live on reserves, spread over about 600 communities. The rest live off-reserve, mostly in cities, so many First Nations people are urban Canadians.
The guide also gives proportions: about 65% of Aboriginal people are First Nations, 30% are Métis and 4% are Inuit. First Nations is therefore the largest group and Inuit the smallest, even though Inuit homelands cover much of the North. Later census counts differ from the guide’s figures, but that ranking holds. The guide’s photo of Haida artist Bill Reid carving a totem pole shows one of many distinct nations.
Aboriginal and treaty rights are written into the Canadian Constitution. Their starting point was the Royal Proclamation of 1763, issued by King George III. It was the first guarantee of Aboriginal territorial rights and became the foundation for treaty negotiations with newcomers, though the guide acknowledges those treaties were not always honoured. Keep the order straight: the Proclamation came first, treaties grew from it, and constitutional protection came much later.
Inuit and Métis: two distinct peoples
Tell the Inuit and the Métis apart by the meaning of their name, their homeland, their ancestry and their language.
Inuit means “the people” in the Inuktitut language. Inuit communities are small and spread thinly across the Arctic, and their understanding of land, sea and animals allowed them to live in one of the toughest climates on the planet. The guide pictures Inuit children in Iqaluit, the capital of Nunavut, a territory created in 1999 whose population is about 85% Inuit and where Inuktitut is an official language.
The Métis are a distinct people whose ancestry is both Aboriginal and European, and most Métis live in the Prairie provinces. Métis families have French-speaking and English-speaking roots, and Michif is their own dialect. Métis history is closely tied to Louis Riel, who led the Red River Métis when Canada took over the North-West from the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1869, a crisis that led to the creation of Manitoba in 1870.
The word distinct matters for both peoples. Métis does not mean anyone with mixed ancestry; it names a particular people with its own history, culture and language. Likewise, Inuit is not a label for everyone who lives in the North, and Inuit are not a First Nation. Each of the three Aboriginal groups has its own identity, which is why the guide lists them separately.
A quick way to sort the three: Inuit go with the Arctic and Inuktitut, the Métis with the Prairies and Michif, and First Nations with reserve communities across the country as well as cities. Inuit culture returns in Modern Canada, where Kenojuak Ashevak is credited with pioneering modern Inuit art. Expect paired questions, such as which language belongs to which people.
Residential schools, the 2008 apology and renewal
Understand what residential schools were meant to do, how they harmed students, and how the guide describes Aboriginal life today.
From the 1800s into the 1980s, the federal government sent many Aboriginal children to residential schools. The aim was to educate them and to assimilate them, absorbing them into mainstream Canadian culture. Assimilation is the key word: the system tried to replace Aboriginal identities rather than support them. Because children lived at the schools, away from home, the damage reached their families and later generations too.
The guide does not soften the harms. The schools lacked proper funding and made students’ lives hard, and some children suffered physical abuse. Most use of Aboriginal languages and cultural practices was forbidden, so many students lost the ability to speak their family’s language or take part in its traditions. That loss of language and culture is why the schools are remembered as far more than a failure of education.
The federal government made a formal apology to former students in 2008. The guide calls the apology Ottawa’s, using the capital as shorthand for the national government that ran the schools. A note on dates: the guide says the system lasted until the 1980s, but the last federally run residential school actually closed in 1996. For the test, use the guide’s wording and remember 2008 as the year of the apology.
The guide does not end on harm. It describes Aboriginal peoples today as having regained pride and confidence, and it highlights significant achievements in four fields: agriculture, the environment, business and the arts. Artists such as Bill Reid and Kenojuak Ashevak, both featured in the guide, are examples. Keep the story in order: a policy of assimilation, forbidden languages, the 2008 apology, then renewed pride and achievement.
English and French: official languages, Acadians and Quebecers
Learn the guide’s language figures, the only officially bilingual province, and the separate histories of Acadians and Quebecers.
The guide says modern Canadian society grew mostly out of two Christian civilizations that settlers carried over from Europe, one English-speaking and one French-speaking. English and French still shape daily life for most people and are Canada’s two official languages. Federal law obliges the national government to serve the public in both, everywhere in the country—a duty set out in the Official Languages Act of 1969, explained further in Modern Canada.
The guide counts about 18 million Anglophones, whose first language is English, and 7 million Francophones, whose first language is French. Most Francophones live in Quebec, but about one million are spread across Ontario, New Brunswick and Manitoba, and smaller groups live in other provinces. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province. Many test-takers expect Quebec here, but Quebec is predominantly French-speaking rather than officially bilingual.
The Acadians are descended from French colonists who started settling the region now called the Maritimes in 1604. From 1755 to 1763, while Britain and France were at war, over two-thirds of Acadians were forcibly removed from their homeland, an ordeal known as the Great Upheaval. Acadians endured and held on to their identity; today their culture thrives, as the guide’s photo of an Acadian fiddler in Grande-Anse, New Brunswick, suggests.
Quebecers—the people of Quebec—are overwhelmingly French-speaking. Most descend from about 8,500 French settlers of the 1600s and 1700s—colonists along the St. Lawrence, not in Acadia—and have preserved their own identity, culture and language. In 2006 the House of Commons recognized that the Québécois form a nation within a united Canada. Quebec is also home to about one million Anglo-Quebecers, whose roots go back some 250 years.
English Canadians, unity in diversity and becoming Canadian
See how British settlers shaped English-speaking Canada, what John Buchan meant by unity in diversity, and what the guide expects of newcomers.
English-speaking Canada took its basic way of life from settlers, soldiers and migrants from England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland—hundreds of thousands of them, arriving from the 1600s into the 20th century. Generations of British-origin pioneers and builders, joined by other groups, put money and labour into the new country and suffered real hardship building it. That history is why English speakers are generally called English Canadians, whatever their ancestry.
British settlers also brought institutions that still define Canadian government: parliamentary democracy, the common law and constitutional monarchy. The guide’s photos show the traditions living on, from a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Montreal to a Highland dancer at the Glengarry Highland Games in Maxville, Ontario. Irish and Scottish heritage are part of English Canada, so the label describes a language community, not only ancestry.
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir, served as a well-liked Governor General from 1935 to 1940; the guide shows the 15th Governor General in a Blood (Kainai First Nation) headdress. Speaking to the Canadian Club of Halifax in 1937, he urged immigrant groups to hold on to their own character while each added something to the country’s, learning from one another and valuing the new loyalty their union created. That is unity in diversity.
The guide then sets an expectation under the heading Becoming Canadian. Some Canadians come from places torn by war or conflict, but having lived through that is no excuse for importing violence, extremism or hatred into Canada. People becoming citizens are expected to accept democratic principles, the rule of law among them. Diversity is welcomed within one legal framework: cultural traditions are respected, and no group stands above Canadian law.
A land of immigrants: origins, languages, faiths and equal rights
Cover the guide’s picture of diversity: where Canadians come from, the languages and religions they practise, and equal legal protection for gay and lesbian Canadians.
Since the 1800s, people born in Canada have made up most of its population. Canada is still called a land of immigrants because, for two centuries, millions of newcomers have built the country and defended it. The guide highlights Olympian Marjorie Turner-Bailey of Nova Scotia, descended from Black Loyalists, escaped slaves and free people of African origin who fled the United States, where slavery was still legal, in the 1780s.
In the guide’s list, the largest ethnic groups are English, French, Scottish, Irish, German, Italian, Chinese, Aboriginal, Ukrainian, Dutch, South Asian and Scandinavian, and since the 1970s Asia has been the main source of immigrants. The guide’s photos range from Ismaili Muslims at the Calgary Stampede to Ukrainian festivities in Vegreville, Alberta. Many homes use non-official languages: in Vancouver about 13% speak a Chinese language at home, and in Toronto 7%, making Chinese languages second only to English there. That describes those two cities, not the country, and English and French remain the only official languages.
Most Canadians, by a wide margin, describe themselves as Christian. Catholics form the biggest religious group, with a range of Protestant churches next. Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Sikh and other faith communities are growing, and so is the share of people reporting no religion. Newer census data show the Christian share falling and the no-religion group growing considerably, but use the guide’s description on the test.
The state has traditionally worked with faith communities to advance social welfare, harmony and mutual respect, run schools and health care, resettle refugees, and protect freedom of religion, religious expression and conscience. Gay and lesbian Canadians are fully protected and treated equally under the law, including the right to civil marriage; since the guide was written, federal human rights law has also explicitly protected gender identity and expression (2017). In the guide’s summing-up, all these communities, joined by a shared Canadian identity, form today’s multicultural society.
Key facts to remember
- Indigenous Peoples lived in what is now Canada long before European settlement. First Nations, Inuit and Métis have distinct histories, cultures and rights.
- The word Inuit means “the people” in Inuktitut. Métis communities developed a distinct identity from First Nations and European ancestry.
- The guide describes Indigenous, French and British peoples as Canada’s three founding peoples.
- English and French are Canada’s two official languages and have equal status in federal institutions.
- Quebec is the principal centre of French-speaking culture in Canada, while Francophone communities also live across the country.
- Canada’s diversity includes many ethnic and religious communities; freedom of religion and equality under the law apply to everyone.
Check yourself
- Who are the three founding peoples described in the guide?
- Indigenous peoples, French people and British people.
- Who are the Métis, and what does Inuit mean?
- Métis are a distinct people of mixed First Nations and European ancestry; Inuit means “the people” in Inuktitut.
- What does official bilingualism mean at the federal level?
- English and French have equal status in Parliament and federal institutions. New Brunswick is the only officially bilingual province.
Practice questions
Eight questions shaped like the official test: one right answer out of four, with the reason it is right. The timed twenty-question exams are in the app.
Which three groups does Discover Canada call the founding peoples?
- Inuit, Métis and Acadians
- Indigenous, French and British
- English, Irish and Scottish
- French, British and Americans
Answer: Indigenous, French and British. The guide identifies Indigenous, French and British peoples as the three founding peoples.
What does the word Inuit mean in Inuktitut?
- The North
- The hunters
- The people
- The land
Answer: The people. Inuit means “the people” in Inuktitut.
Who are the Métis?
- Any new immigrants to the Prairies
- A distinct Indigenous people of First Nations and European ancestry
- Only French-speaking First Nations people
- People living north of the Arctic Circle
Answer: A distinct Indigenous people of First Nations and European ancestry. The Métis are a distinct Indigenous people whose communities developed especially in the Prairies.
In what year did the federal government formally apologize to former residential school students?
- 1982
- 1999
- 2008
- 2015
Answer: 2008. The federal government issued a formal apology in 2008.
Which province is officially bilingual?
- Quebec
- Ontario
- New Brunswick
- Manitoba
Answer: New Brunswick. New Brunswick is the only province that is officially bilingual.
What happened to many Acadians between 1755 and 1763?
- They built the Canadian Pacific Railway
- They were deported during the Great Upheaval
- They created Nunavut
- They settled Vancouver Island
Answer: They were deported during the Great Upheaval. More than two-thirds of the Acadians were deported during the Great Upheaval.
What are Canada’s two official languages?
- English and Inuktitut
- French and Michif
- English and French
- French and Cree
Answer: English and French. English and French are Canada’s two official languages.
How does the guide frame multiculturalism?
- Each group follows separate laws
- Diversity exists within shared citizenship and law
- Only founding peoples shape Canada
- Religion replaces democratic principles
Answer: Diversity exists within shared citizenship and law. Canada’s diversity operates within a shared commitment to citizenship, democratic principles and the rule of law.