Canada: Media System

• Main Author: Beaty, Bart
• Format: Other/Unknown Material
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2008
• Subjects: Arctic; Arctic Ocean; Canada; Pacific
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/9781405186407.wbiecc002; https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1002%2F9781405186407.wbiecc002; https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1002/9781405186407.wbiecc002

Canada is the world's second‐largest country by land area, occupying most of the northern part of North America between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and extending north to the Arctic Ocean. Originally founded as a union of British and former French colonies, Canada became a dominion in 1867 and gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1982. It is a federal constitutional monarchy with a parliamentary democracy comprised of ten provinces and three territories. An officially bilingual nation, nearly 60 per cent of the population have English as a mother tongue, while 23 percent have French. Canada adopted an official policy of multiculturalism in 1988, and its population of nearly 33 million people is composed of no fewer than 34 ethnic groups that number at least 100,000 people. Canada is a technologically advanced and industrialized nation whose diversified economy is heavily reliant on trade with the United States, with which it shares land borders to the south and northwest.