Provinces and territories of Canada

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Canada consists of ten provinces and three territories. The major difference between a Canadian province and a Canadian territory is that a province is a creation of the Constitution Act, while a territory is created by federal law. Thus, the federal government has more direct control over the territories, while provincial governments have many more competences and rights.

Provinces have a great deal of power relative to the federal government, having a large measure of control over spending on social programs such as medicare, education, welfare, and the like. They receive "transfer payments" from the federal government to pay for these, as well as exacting their own taxes.

Prime minister Paul Martin surprised some observers in late 2004 by expressing his personal support for all three territories gaining provincial status 'eventually'. He cited their importance to the country as a whole and the need to assert sovereignty in the Arctic, particularly as global warming could make that region more open to exploitation. [1]

Provincial and territorial legislatures are unicameral, having no second chamber equivalent to the Canadian Senate. Originally a few provinces did have such bodies, known as legislative councils, but these were subsequently abolished, Quebec's being the last in 1968. In most provinces, the single house of the legislature is known as the Legislative Assembly except in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador, where it is called the House of Assembly, and Quebec where it is called the National Assembly. Ontario has a Legislative Assembly but its members are Members of the Provincial Parliament or MPPs. The legislative assemblies use a procedure similar to that of the Canadian House of Commons. The head of government of each province, called the premier, is generally the head of the party with the most seats. This is also the case in Yukon, but the Northwest Territories and Nunavut have no political parties at the territorial level. The Queen's representative to each province is the lieutenant-governor. Each of the territories has a commissioner in the place of a lieutenant-governor. These terminological differences are summarized below.

Contents

1 Provincial and territorial terminology compared with federal

2 Provinces of Canada

3 Territories

4 See also

Provincial and territorial terminology compared with federal

Canada	Governor General	Prime Minister	Parliament	House of Commons	Member of Parliament
Quebec	Lieutenant Governor	Premier	Legislature	National Assembly	Member of the National Assembly
Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador				House of Assembly	Member of the House of Assembly
Ontario				Legislative Assembly	Member of the Provincial Parliament
Other provinces					Member of the Legislative Assembly
Territories	Commissioner				Member of the Legislative Assembly

Provinces of Canada

Canada's ten provinces are listed here with their capitals, and the dates that they joined Confederation:

Province	Abbreviation	Postal abbreviation	Capital	Date of Confederation
Ontario	Ont. or ON	ON	Toronto	July 1, 1867
Quebec	Que., QC or PQ	QC	Quebec City	July 1, 1867
Nova Scotia	NS	NS	Halifax	July 1, 1867
New Brunswick	NB	NB	Fredericton	July 1, 1867
Manitoba	Man. or MB	MB	Winnipeg	July 15, 1870
British Columbia	BC	BC	Victoria	July 20, 1871
Prince Edward Island	PEI	PE	Charlottetown	July 1, 1873
Saskatchewan	Sask.	SK	Regina	September 1, 1905
Alberta	Alta. or AB	AB	Edmonton	September 1, 1905
Newfoundland and Labrador	NL (formerly Nfld.)	NL (formerly NF)	St. John's	March 31, 1949

Territories

There are three territories in Canada. They lie primarily north of 60° latitude North. Many islands in Hudson Bay and in the Arctic Ocean are part of these northern territories, listed here with their capitals and the date they joined the Confederation.

Territory	Abbreviation	Postal abbreviation	Capital	Date of Confederation
Northwest Territories	NWT	NT	Yellowknife	July 15, 1870
Yukon	YK or YT	YT	Whitehorse	June 13, 1898
Nunavut	NU	NU	Iqaluit	April 1, 1999

Note: Canada did not acquire any new land to create Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan, or Nunavut. All of these originally formed part of the Northwest Territories.

British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island were separate colonies before joining Canada. Ontario and Quebec were united before Confederation as the Province of Canada.

Manitoba and the Northwest Territories were created in 1870 from Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory. The land of the Northwest Territories at that time was all of current western Canada, except British Columbia and southern Manitoba, and the northern three-quarters of Ontario and Quebec. In 1999 Nunavut was created from the eastern portion of the Northwest Territories. The Yukon Territory lies in the western portion of the north, while Nunavut is in the east.

Nunavut's population is about 85% Inuit, while the population of the Northwest Territories is only about 10% Inuit, 40% First Nations and Métis, and 50% non-aboriginal.

The combined territories are the most sparsely populated region in Canada, with less than 100,000 people spread across a huge area. They are often referred to as a single region for organizational purposes.