page_title: Culture of Canada
section_title: Values
hierarchical_section_title: Culture of Canada / Cultural components / Values
caption_attribution_description: English: Image of the Charter
context_page_description: The culture of Canada embodies the artistic, culinary, literary, humour, musical, political and social elements that are representative of Canada and Canadians. Throughout Canada's history, its culture has been influenced by European culture and traditions, mostly by the British and French, and by its own indigenous cultures. Over time, elements of the cultures of Canada's immigrant populations have become incorporated to form a Canadian cultural mosaic. The population has also been influenced by American culture because of a shared language, proximity, television and migration between the two countries.
  Canada is often characterized as being "very progressive, diverse, and multicultural". Canada's federal government has often been described as the instigator of multicultural ideology because of its public emphasis on the social importance of immigration. Canada's culture draws from its broad range of constituent nationalities, and policies that promote a just society are constitutionally protected.
context_section_description: Canadian values are the perceived  commonly shared ethical and human values of Canadians.  The major political parties have claimed explicitly that they uphold Canadian values, but use generalities to specify them. Historian Ian MacKay argues that, thanks to the long-term political impact of "Rebels, Reds, and Radicals", and allied leftist political elements, "egalitarianism, social equality, and peace... are now often simply referred to...as 'Canadian values.'"
  A 2013 Statistics Canada survey found that an "overwhelming majority" of Canadians shared the values of human rights (with 92% of respondents agreeing that they are a shared Canadian value), respect for the law (92%) and gender equality (91%). Universal access to publicly funded health services "is often considered by Canadians as a fundamental value that ensures national health care insurance for everyone wherever they live in the country."   
  
  The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, was intended to be a source for Canadian values and national unity.  The 15th Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau wrote in his Memoirs that:
  Canada itself could now be defined as a "society where all people are equal and where they share some fundamental values based upon freedom", and that all Canadians could identify with the values of liberty and equality.
  Numerous scholar, beginning  in the 1940s with American sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset;  have tried to identify, measure and compare them with other countries, especially the United States.  However, there are critics who say that such a task is practically impossible.
  Denis Stairs a professor of political Science at Dalhousie University; links the concept of Canadian values with nationalism. [Canadians typically]...believe, in particular, that they subscribe to a distinctive set of values - Canadian values - and that those values are special in the sense of being unusually virtuous.
caption: A copy of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
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