Canada is the USA neighbor to the north. Larger than the USA. Canada is the second largest country in the world even though its population is much smaller than that of the USA. Canada is divided into 10 provinces and 2 territories :four Atlantic or Maritime provinces – Newfoundland ,Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick , and Nova Scotia ; Quebec , the largest province in Canada; three Prairie Provinces-Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta; British Columbia; the Northwest Territories and Yukon Territories which make up more than one third of Canada’s land. Canada is very rich in rivers and lakes: St. Lawrence, Nelson, Churchill and Mackenzie rivers are the most important .Its largest lakes are 4 of the Great Lakes ,which Canada shares with the USA – Ontario, Superior ,Huron, Erie.

GOVERNMENT

Canada is a self-governing federal union of 10 provinces and 2 territories within the British Commonwealth of Nations. The British monarch, i.e. Queen Elizabeth 2, Is Head of State and is represented in the country by the Governor-General. The Canadian Parliament is composed of 2 houses, the Senate and the House of Commons. The Head of the Government is the Prime minister.

ECONOMY.

Like the USA Canada began as an agricultural country. Today, however, it is one of the world’s leading industrial countries. The two major agricultural regions of Canada are the southern part of the Prairie Provinces and southern Ontario and Quebec , along the St. Lawrence River. The major industrial region in Canada includes the southern parts of Ontario and Quebec. Many of the industries are heavy industries such as steel making and automobile manufacturing. Toronto is a major shipping and processing center. Montreal has large oil refineries and is an important banking center. Among Canada’s wealth of natural resources are minerals and forests. Canada’s largest forests are the sources of a lumber and paper industry. In fact , Canada is the world’s largest manufacturer of newsprint .Another of Canada’s natural resources is fishing. The country ranks 4 in the world in the value of its fish exports. Some of the best fishing grounds in the world are off the shores of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

COMMON GROUND, DIFFERENT DREAMS.

“Canadians are generally indistinguishable from the Americans” wrote American Journalist Richard Starnes in 1965 ,”and the surest way of telling the two apart is to make the observation to a Canadian”.

Canadians who live near the border live in their nation’s banana belt , the most temperate climate Canada offers. Americans on the border live in the deep north. Popular perceptions are flip-flopped near the border , for here Canada has sophisticated urban centers like Vancouver and Toronto and dense network of roads and agriculture. The US has mostly hardscrabble farms and vacation cities .the US and Canada share the longest undefended border in the world. Each year more than a hundred million people approach 96 legal crossings and thousands of informal ones. The US immigration act of 1986 gave amnesty to illegal aliens who had come to the States before 1982 and forbade business to employ these who arrived after this date. Scared of deportation , many aliens in the USA turned to Canada .Canada has always been an option for the refugees of war and conscience in America , starting with the 100,000 Loyalists who fled the revolutionary War because their attachment to British King was stronger then their stomach for rebellion. Blacks escaping slavery rode the Underground railroad to freedom in Canada before the Civil War .And in the 1960s more than 20,000 young Americans chose Canada over the war in Vietnam