Talk:Canada/Archive 3

message: Do many other country sites have sections devoted to the origin of the name? Since the name of Canada is so contentious (Canada vs Dominion of Canada) and there is already an article Canada's Name, why is the Naming section still there? Is there a REDIRECT from Dominion of Canada? The article is getting quite long and we are getting warning messages about its length.--BrentS 17:29, 19 Jan 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Canada's Name: Canada vs Dominion of Canada - Again! (see above)

message: The chart that lists the provinces/territories, their capitals, and the regions in whcih they are located concerns me. There is a thousand ways to carve Canada up into regions, and there will never be any agreement on the correct way to do it. I suggest deleting the regions from this chart as it is inherently POV and subject to debate. That debate can be caried on in the article about the regiosn of Canada, instead on the main page for the country. Comments? Ground Zero 19:02, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I reiterate my comments, especially because some uninformed anonymous editor keeps try to put Newfoundland and Labrador into the Maritimes. If it happens again, I'll go ahead and remove this contentious and unnecessary part of the table, unless someone can provide a compelling reason to keep it. Ground Zero 16:05, 23 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Regions

message: An anonymous editor inserted a note that Canada is "more formally known as the Confederation of Canada without any explanation. Let's be clear: the Government of Canada is the organization in charge of these things. It calls the country "Canada", and not anything else. How can it be "formally known as" something that the Government of Canada or its constitution does not call it? 
*Canada is a confederation, but it is not formally the "Confederation of Canada". 
*It was established as a dominion, and therefore commonly called the "Dominion of Canada", but it is no longer. 
*One can contruct a theoretical argument that it is a kingdom, but no one calls it that.
*It is definitely not the "Most Serene Borealic Suzerainty of the United Provinces and Miscellaneous Territories of Canada" even if you have a very reason why is should be called that.
Wikipedia is not the place to promote your pet project of changing Canada's name and/or description. Rant completed. Thank you for your time. Ground Zero 18:12, 29 Apr 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: More name woes

message: There has been some back-and-forth in edits about where French is commonly spoken in Ontario: eastern and southern Ontario, or eastern and northern Ontario.  While there are many francophones in southern Ontario, they form only a small percentage of the population; it is northern Ontario that (together with eastern Ontario) contains most communities with a large percentage of francophones, such as North Bay, Timmins, Kapuskasing, and Hearst.  David 18:10, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)
:Maybe this should read, "eastern, north-eastern and south-western Ontario" to reflect the francophone communities around Windsor. In fact there are probably more francophones living in Mississauga than in either the NE or SW, but the fact is that they do not have communities, but live in the middst of other linguistic groups. Ground Zero 17:11, 1 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Have you ever been to Mississauga? You could go to Square One and never hear anyone ever speak French. In fact, Statistics Canada validates my qualitative assessment: there are only 7,910 francophones in the 'Sauga, making up a little under 2% of the population. Sudbury, on the other hand, has 43,340 francophones making up 28.2% of the population. Tiny Hearst has 5,080 francophones, making up 88.9% of that community's population. Darkcore 04:10, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  French in Ontario 

message: The first sentence says Canada is the northern-most country in the world. Looking at a map, it appears part of Greenland is farther north. Which is correct? NoAccount 02:41, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: That's an opinion rather than a matter of fact. Greenland is not a sovereign state but it could arguably claim to be a country. -- Derek Ross |  Talk 23:22, 2 August 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Northern-most country 

message: Why are the links to this article on the front page showing in red? --Jfruh 03:07, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Fallout from the page move crap earlier. -- Cyrius|✎ 04:33, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Front page links broken? 

message: --Instead of having all of these skyline photos sprinkled randomly throughout the article, shouldn't there be a section called "Important Cities" like the one under the United States? There's currently nothing in this article that lists the top 10 (or 20) Canadian cities/metropolitan areas. --Jleon 15:46, 23 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Important Cities 

message: But Canada is never refered to as such in common dialog, I have never heard Canada called a state in my 20 years of living here. It is always called a country. However, according to the strict defintion found at country, state is the proper word to be used. The dictionary defintion is not as strict though, and therefore country could be used. Going with the strict defintion is fine, but, and here is the big but, all the articles on the states of the USA must explicitly state that they are not actually states. But are just called states. Fair is only fair. --metta, The Sunborn 19:45, 26 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Canada may be a state 

message: Why does this article forget to mention that Canada borders France, more specifically it's overseas département, Saint-Pierre et Miquelon.  Have we already had any discussion on this?  I don't think it would make the article *too* much more legnthy to include something similar to "In addition to the United States, Canada also shares it's border with the French département of Saint-Pierre and Miquelon on the Grand Banks."  Have we made any decisions on this?
*Quite right!  I'll add something. E Pluribus Anthony 18:44, 3 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Saint-Pierre Et Miquelon?

message: What is the status of the capital Ottawa? I was told that it didn't belong to Ontario and was something like a federal district or territory (like Washington DC, Canberra or Brasilia). The list of provinces and territories doesn't mention Ottawa however. Could someone please clarify, please? Thanks! Luis rib 11:18, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: Ottawa is part of Ontario. The mealy-mouthed coiners of neologisms will try to tell you of a mythical place called "Ottawa-Hull" or "The National Capital Region". Ottawa has four seats in Parliament, and oddly enough they all voted Liberal - well, it is pretty much a company town. --Wtshymanski 14:53, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: ok. Thx. Luis rib 14:59, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Ottawa's status

message: Since this concept appears in the second paragraph of the article, I have reverted the recent edit that put it in the first paragraph as well. The first paragraph covers the important concept that Canada is a constitutional monarchy, and that our head of state is HM the Queen. I am sure that readers can wait to get to the second paragraph to learn that Canada is a Commonwealth Realm. Let's not try to load up the intro paragraph with too much information, please. Ground Zero 16:40, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Commonwealth Realm

message: There seems to be an error regarding the Canada East and Canada West provinces. Nowhere does it state the two provinces were amalgamated into the province of Canada. Thus, on Confederation, four colonies cominbed to form the "Dominion of Canada", not three colonies.
:They were merged in 1841. See Province of Canada for the details. Indefatigable 03:59, 9 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  four colonies when canada was formed 

message: i've added a neutrality box for the timed being due to some things that aren't certain, of which are listed above, although it may not be needed, there is no harm in keeping it there temporarily.  (Unsigned comment by 172.215.9.116).
:Who are you & what issues do you want to discuss? Since you have only contributed to wikipedia for one day, there is no record of issues you have been involved in --JimWae 22:52, 2005 Jun 10 (UTC)
::I'm going to remove the box.  A neutrality box should mark the beginning of a discussion on POV issues.  The person who placed it there gave no indication of his/her concerns.  I'm happy to leave it there if he/she had provided some justification.  
HistoryBA 23:05, 10 Jun 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neutrality 

message: Here is the edit that I believe to be POV, with the particularly POV parts in bold:
:The 1982 patriation of the constitution and the procedures for amending it, came about in accordance with Constitutional tradition as confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada. After years of discussions on amending the British North America Act, in November 1981, following exhaustive meetings over a period of several days between Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, members from the Federal Cabinet, and the Premiers of each Canadian Province, a new Constitution for the nation was agreed to. Like the constitutional amending formula of the United States of America and other world democracies, unanimous approval of all provinces or states of the nation is not required. The delegation from the Province of Quebec, consisting of the Premier and selected cabinet officials, were all members of the Parti Québécois whose goal was to obtain Quebec independence from Canada and to make Quebec a separate nation. Although many attempts were made to accommodate the demands of the Quebec delegation, the agreement for a new constitution came about without the Quebec delegation's concurrence. As a result, some Quebec nationalists refer to the night when the agreement was reached as the "Night of the Long Knives."
The way this is written leads the reader, in my opinion, to the conclusion that Trudeau's ptriation of the constitution without Quebec's agreement was perfectly reasonable, and that the only reason that Quebec did not sign was that the PQ had no interest in doing so. I agree that the PQ has a vested interest in not signing, but it should also be noted that the Quebec Liberal Party supported the PQ in this. Furthermore, my opinion about the PQ should not be reflected in the article because I cannot substantiate it. I cannot show that Levesque was bargaining in bad faith as is suggested here. Bringing up the spearatist agenda of the PQ again (it does appear elsewhere in the article) is what leads the reader. e should let him or her draw his/her own conclusions instead of leading.
Furthermore, I think this is way too much detail to put into this article. A fuller discussion of this event should, and probably does, appear in otehr articles, like History of Canada.
The previous wording was much more suitable in length, although I think it merits a re-draft. This is what it said previously:
:The patriation of the constitution, with procedures for amending it, was agreed to one night in November 1981. Quebec nationalists refer to that night as the Night of the Long Knives—because the agreement came about without the consent of Quebec's delegation.
Here is how I would re-phrase that (after deleting the lengthier description that A. Lafontaine added):
:The federal government and the governments of nine provinces agreed to the patriation of the constitution, with procedures for amending it, at a meeting of First Ministers in November 1981. Quebec did not agree to the changes, and Quebec nationalists refer to that night as the Night of the Long Knives. 
Ground Zero 8 July 2005 16:50 (UTC)
Either of these shorter versions is preferable to what is there now. A longer version can go in the Politics or Constitution articles. DJ Clayworth 8 July 2005 16:56 (UTC)
*I agree with DJ Clayworth. Keep it brief. The in-depth stuff can go in the particular subject articles. This is an article about Canada not politics or constitution of. DoubleBlue (Talk) 8 July 2005 18:19 (UTC)
Just for the record, the Liberal Party of Quebec voiced disapproval to a new Constitution without Quebec's signature, but it never supported the demands the Separatist government's delegation made. And, exactly what should Trudeau and the other Premiers have done: Abandon the creation of our own new Constitution and Charter of Rights?Or, should they have given in to all the demands of the Separatists? These Constitutional conferences started under Lester Pearson and then John Robarts co-chaired the Task Force on Canadian Unity and then the "Confederation of Tommorrow" conferences. By 1982, it had gone for more than ten years. A. Lafontaine 8 July 2005 17:34 (UTC)
I'm not going to argue this with you because we are trying to write an encyclopaedia article, not revive old battles. The fact that you refer to "the Separatist government" indicates your point of view on this issue. Levesque was not there because he was a separatist. he was there as the Premier of the elected Government of Quebec, whether we like it or not. This issue is covered at Constitutional history of Canada, and does not belong in this already-exceeding-the-recommended-size-for-articles overview article. Ground Zero 8 July 2005 17:48 (UTC)
* present BOTH POVs in the branch article - I think it legitiamte to point out  (there) that Quebec was holding out for unanimous consent & that such is very uncommon in any other constitutional process. NPOV does not mean no POV - rather that each be presented in a balanced way. Btw, I'd like to have more information about: what did Rene do when he found out what had happened? - and did he not have any idea the meeting was going on? is there any evidence he was purposely kept out? How many people & who were in the Kitchen? --JimWae 2005 July 8 18:47 (UTC)
**Yes, Night of the Long Knives (1981) could certainly use some expansion. I am pretty tired of the arguments about that night and Levesque and Trudeau and the other premiers intentions so I am not interested in doing it though. DoubleBlue (Talk) 8 July 2005 18:56 (UTC)
: As to wheter Lévesque was trying to hold out or not, it might be good to remember that he was the instiguator of the sovereignty-association option and not a full on separatist. It is my understanding that he was not purposfully trying to derail the process but rather to appropriate for Québec the largest amount of autonomy he could get which would have gone a long toward achieving his goal of a much looser canadian confederation.
: This is of course *my* understanding so don`t take this for gold, just some food for thought.--Marc pasquin 15:21, 22 July 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: POV edit