Question: On what date did three British colonies joined to form the federal dominion of Canada?
About the article "Canada", section "Abstract".

Candidate passages:
The territorial evolution of Canada began when, on 1 July 1867, three colonies of British North America were united into the federal Dominion of Canada through Confederation.
One of these colonies split into two new provinces, and three other colonies joined later.
As a British colonial possession, Canada continued to accrete new provinces and territories and evolved over decades into an independent nation.
Before being part of British North America, the constituents of the Dominion of Canada were part of the colonies of Canada and Acadia in New France, which were gradually ceded to Great Britain and later the United Kingdom after defeat in several wars.
The French influence lived on, as the French language was common in the initial provinces of Canada, and remains one of the two official languages of the country.
The central expanse of Canada was originally settled by the Hudson's Bay Company of the Kingdom of England, which had a royal monopoly over trade in the region; Rupert's Land was named after the company's first director, Prince Rupert of the Rhine.
The North West Company later moved into a large portion of the region, and competition and minor hostilities between the two companies forced their merger.
What was to become the Colony of British Columbia was claimed as part of New Spain and Russian America, until 1793 and 1825 respectively, and was for a time shared with the United States as what was known to Americans as the Oregon Country, until in 1846 the border was extended west from the Rockies to the Pacific along the 49th Parallel.
Since it was formed, Canada's external borders have changed seven times, and it has grown from four provinces at Confederation to ten provinces and three territories.
It has only lost significant territory in the border dispute with the Dominion of Newfoundland over Labrador, which later joined Canada as the 10th province. 
Canadian Confederation () was the process by which the federal Dominion of Canada was formed on July 1, 1867.
On that day, three British colonies became four provinces of the new dominion.
The existing United Province of Canada was divided into the new provinces of Ontario and Quebec, and two other colonies, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, also became provinces of the new Dominion of Canada. 
The term "Dominion" is employed in the Constitution Act, 1867 (originally the British North America Act, 1867), and describes the resulting political union.
Specifically, the preamble of the act states: "Whereas the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have expressed their Desire to be federally united into One Dominion under the Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, with a Constitution similar in Principle to that of the United Kingdom..." Furthermore, Sections 3 and 4 indicate that the provinces "shall form and be One Dominion under the Name of Canada; and on and after that Day those Three Provinces shall form and be One Dominion under that Name accordingly".
Usage of the phrase "Dominion of Canada" was employed as the country's name after 1867, predating the general use of the term "dominion" as applied to the other autonomous regions of the British Empire after 1907.
The phrase "Dominion of Canada" does not appear in the 1867 act nor in the Constitution Act, 1982, but does appear in the Constitution Act, 1871, other contemporaneous texts, and subsequent bills.
References to the "Dominion of Canada" in later acts, such as the Statute of Westminster, do not clarify the point because all nouns were formally capitalised in British legislative style.
Indeed, in the original text of the Constitution Act, 1867, "One" and "Name" were also capitalised.
Frank Scott theorised that Canada's status as a Dominion ended with the Canadian parliament's declaration of war on Germany on 9 September 1939.
From the 1950s, the federal government began to phase out the use of "Dominion", which had been used largely as a synonym of "federal" or "national" such as "Dominion building" for a post office, "Dominion-provincial relations", and so on.
The last major change was renaming the national holiday from Dominion Day to Canada Day in 1982.
Official bilingualism laws also contributed to the disuse of "dominion", as it has no acceptable equivalent in French.
While the term may be found in older official documents, and the Dominion Carillonneur still tolls at Parliament Hill, it is now hardly used to distinguish the federal government from the provinces or (historically) Canada before and after 1867.
Nonetheless, the federal government continues to produce publications and educational materials that specify the currency of these official titles.
Defenders of the title "Dominion"—including monarchists who see signs of creeping republicanism in Canada—take comfort in the fact that the Constitution Act, 1982 does not mention and therefore does not remove the title, and that a constitutional amendment is required to change it.
The final election for the Province of Canada took place in 1863.
By this time, most liberals and conservatives were in favour of representation by population and confederation.
George Brown led a group of Upper Canadian liberals to form a coalition with the Upper Canadian conservatives and the Lower Canadian Bleus, and began a discussion on confederation of all of the British North America colonies.
The confederation project received wide support from Upper Canada, general opposition from the maritimes and Lower Canada was divided.
Confederation, was eventually achieved when 3 of the 6 colonies joined together to become the first four provinces of Canada.
This election was followed by the first federal election, the Canadian federal election, 1867, and later on the first provincial elections.
1867 marked the beginning of two founding myths: the founding of the Canadian nation in English Canada and the pact between two founding peoples in French Canada.
When Canada became a Dominion of the British Empire, the Conservatives and Liberals retained their names, while the former Reformers became Liberal-Conservatives, and continued to work very closely with the Conservative Party. 
The foundation of "Dominion" status followed the achievement of internal self-rule in British Colonies, in the specific form of full responsible government (as distinct from "representative government").
Colonial responsible government began to emerge during the mid-19th century.
The legislatures of Colonies with responsible government were able to make laws in all matters other than foreign affairs, defence and international trade, these being powers which remained with the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
Nova Scotia and the Province of Canada (which included modern southern Ontario and southern Quebec) were the first Colonies to achieve representative government, in 1848.
Prince Edward Island followed in 1851, and New Brunswick and Newfoundland in 1855.
All except for Newfoundland and Prince Edward Island agreed to combine in a new federation named Canada from 1867.
This was formalised by British Parliament in the "British North America Act 1867".
"(See also: Canadian Confederation)."
Section 3 of the Act referred to the new entity as a "Dominion", the first such entity to be created.
From 1870 the Dominion included two vast neighbouring British territories that did not have any form of self-government: Rupert's Land and the North-Western Territory, parts of which later became the Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and the separate territories, the Northwest Territories, Yukon and Nunavut.
In 1871, the separate Crown Colony of British Columbia became a Canadian province, Prince Edward Island joined in 1873 and Newfoundland in 1949.
The conditions under which the four separate Australian colonies – New South Wales, Tasmania, Western Australia, South Australia – and New Zealand could gain full responsible government were set out by the British government in the "Australian Constitutions Act 1850".
The Act also separated the Colony of Victoria (in 1851) from New South Wales.
During 1856, responsible government was achieved by New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania, and New Zealand.
The remainder of New South Wales was divided in three in 1859, a change that established most of the present borders of NSW; the Colony of Queensland, with its own responsible self-government, Western Australia did not receive self-government until 1891, mainly because of its continuing financial dependence on the UK Government.
After protracted negotiations (that initially included New Zealand), six Australian colonies with responsible government (and their dependent territories) agreed to federate, along Canadian lines, becoming the Commonwealth of Australia, in 1901.
In South Africa, the Cape Colony became the first British self-governing Colony, in 1872.
(Until 1893, the Cape Colony also controlled the separate Colony of Natal.)
Following the Second Boer War (1899–1902), the British Empire assumed direct control of the Boer Republics, but transferred limited self-government to Transvaal in 1906, and the Orange River Colony in 1907.
[[Image:Dominion-of-new-zealand.gif|right|thumb|300px|"The New Zealand Observer" (1907) shows prime minister Joseph Ward as a pretentious dwarf beneath a massive ‘dominion’ top hat.
The caption reads:"The Surprise Packet:"Canada: "Rather large for him, is it not?
"Australia: "Oh his head is swelling rapidly.
The hat will soon fit.
"]]The Commonwealth of Australia, the Dominion of New Zealand and the Dominion of Newfoundland were officially given Dominion status in 1907, followed by the Union of South Africa in 1910.