Manitoba foundational text Manitoba Act, 1870
Manitoba ( (listen) MAN-ih-TOH-bə) is a province of Canada at the longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's fifth-most populous province, with a population of 1,342,153 as of 2021, of widely varied landscape, from arctic tundra and the Hudson Bay coastline in the north to dense boreal forest, large freshwater lakes, and prairie grassland in the central and southern regions.
Indigenous peoples have inhabited what is now Manitoba for thousands of years. In the early 17th century, British and French fur traders began arriving in the area and establishing settlements. The Kingdom of England secured control of the region in 1673 and created a territory named Rupert's Land, which was placed under the administration of the Hudson's Bay Company. Rupert's Land, which included all of present-day Manitoba, grew and evolved from 1673 until 1869 with significant settlements of Indigenous and Métis people in the Red River Colony. In 1869, negotiations with the Government of Canada for the creation of the province of Manitoba commenced. During the negotiations, several factors led to an armed uprising of the Métis people against the Government of Canada, a conflict known as the Red River Rebellion. The resolution of the conflict and further negotiations led to Manitoba becoming the fifth province to join Canadian Confederation, when the Parliament of Canada passed the Manitoba Act on July 15, 1870.
Manitoba's capital and largest city is Winnipeg, the seventh most populous municipality in Canada. Winnipeg is the seat of government, home to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba and the Provincial Court. Four of the province's five universities, all four of its professional sports teams, and most of its cultural activities (including Festival du Voyageur and Folklorama) are located in Winnipeg. The city has train and bus stations and an international airport; a Canadian Forces base, CFB Winnipeg, operates from the airport and is the regional headquarters of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.Official languages
Both English and French are official languages of the legislature and courts of Manitoba, according to section 23 of the Manitoba Act, 1870 (part of the Constitution of Canada). In April 1890, the Manitoba legislature attempted to abolish the official status of French and ceased to publish bilingual legislation. However, in 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled in the Reference re Manitoba Language Rights that section 23 still applied, and that legislation published only in English was invalid (unilingual legislation was declared valid for a temporary period to allow time for translation).Although French is an official language for the purposes of the legislature, legislation, and the courts, the Manitoba Act does not require it to be an official language for the purpose of the executive branch (except when performing legislative or judicial functions). Hence, Manitoba's government is not completely bilingual. The Manitoba French Language Services Policy of 1999 is intended to provide a comparable level of provincial government services in both official languages. According to the 2006 Census, 82.8 percent of Manitoba's population spoke only English, 3.2 percent spoke only French, 15.1 percent spoke both, and 0.9 percent spoke neither.In 2010, the provincial government of Manitoba passed the Aboriginal Languages Recognition Act, which gives official recognition to seven indigenous languages: Cree, Dakota, Dene, Inuktitut, Michif, Ojibway and Oji-Cree.
core text primary text essential document basic text fundamental document