Five questions about Canada – Quick Quiz answers

By Kay McMahon, 29 November 2010

We asked you five quick trivia questions about Canada. Here are the answers:

1. Canada consists of how many provinces?
   Ten. Here’s the full list (year of confederation in brackets): Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick (1867), Manitoba (1870), British Columbia (1871), Prince Edward Island (1873), Saskatchewan, Alberta (1905), Newfoundland & Labrador (1949). There are also three territories: Northwest Territories (1870), Yukon (1898), Nunavut (1999).
2. The name “Canada” originally came from an Iroquoian word meaning what?
   Village or settlement. The original word was kanata; in 1535, inhabitants of what’s now the Quebec City region used it to direct French explorer Jacques Cartier to the village of Stadacona. Cartier used the word to refer to the whole area ruled by the chief of Stadacona, and it stuck.
3. What was the name of Canada’s first Prime Minister and where (city, country) did he come from?
   John Alexander Macdonald of Glasgow in Scotland. Originally the Premier of the Province of Canada (now the provinces of Ontario and Quebec), he was instrumental in bringing about the confederation with the Maritime territories of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, for which he was knighted. The knighthood was announced on the day that the Dominion of Canada came into existence, 1 July 1867.
4. What is the capital city of Canada?
   Ottawa. The Province of Canada formed by the union of Upper Canada (mostly English-speaking) and Lower Canada (French-speaking) in 1841 changed capital six times. It wasn’t until 1866 that Ottawa (which lies on the border of Ontario and Quebec) was finally settled on, by which time moves towards confederation and Dominion status were well under way.
5. Canada became the first part of the British Empire to achieve Dominion status in 1867. In what year did it break the last constitutional link with the UK?
   1982. The British North America Act 1867 formed much of the basis of modern Canada’s constitution and gave the new Dominion considerable autonomy. Subsequent Acts extended those powers, right up to the British North America (No. 2) Act 1949, which gave the Parliament of Canada the right to amend Canada’s constitution in some respects but not all. The Canada Act 1982 was the final Act in this process.

How did you get on? Why not let us know?