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How does your class at school work? Does your class 

work together to make sure that everyone is treated 

fairly and everyone has the best chance to do well at 

school?  

How do Canada’s leaders make Canada work for 

everyone?

A long time ago when Canada first became a country we 

made some rules on how we wanted to run a country 

like Canada. They decided way back in 1867 what rules 

we needed to make it work right. Canada will celebrate 

its 150th birthday in 2017 - in just about 2 years from 

now.   The adults still come together, in a city called 

Ottawa, which is in Ontario and talk about their ideas 

and decide if we need to change any rules or make new 

ones.

How do you decide things in your class at school? Who 

makes the rules? Does everybody have a say in the rules? 

Do you also get to have a say or a vote on things that 

happen in your class? When a group of adults are trying to 

get the chance to lead Canada they need to get the votes 

of the people to do it. Just like if your class has a class 

leader or leaders then everybody would have voted to see 

who was the best people for the job.   If people like one 

group they vote for them. And if one of those groups wins 

the most votes then they get to be the leaders of Canada. 

We call this a majority (muh-jawr-i-tee) government 

(guhv-ern-muh-nt). But a group can still lead Canada if 

they don’t have more than half the votes, they just need 

the most, we can call this a minority (mi-nawr-i-tee) 

government. 

Have you ever played in baseball game or a hockey game, there 

are always rules for how you have to play these games. Just like 

those games there is a set of rules for running Canada. All of 

these rules are called laws.You probably know by now that 

Canada is made up of 10 provinces and 3 territories - look at 

the map in the picture on the next page and you will see all of 

them. We live in the province of Alberta. 

All of the provinces and territories agreed on the rules about 

how we run Canada. All those rules together are called the 

Constitution (kon-sti-too-shun). The constitution explains the 

rules clearly, so that everybody knows what they are supposed to 

do.

The most important rules are the ones that make sure each 

person is treated fairly. All of these rules together are called the 

Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These rules make 

sure that each person in Canada is treated just like every other 

person - that everyone is treated the same or equal (ee-kwul).

Have you ever wondered who makes rules (laws) like you can't 

drive faster than 100 kilometers per hour on a big highway 

like the TransCanada Highway? Or you can’t steal or you get in 

trouble? Or you can’t hit someone without getting into trouble? 

How do Canada’s leaders make laws for a whole country? How 

do those rules get to be rules? And then who makes sure that 

everybody follows those laws? 

There are three - 3 - steps that happen to make a law for the 

whole country. The first - 1st -   step that happens is that all 

those people that meet in Ottawa talk about what laws we 

need. They have big meetings called the Parliament (par-

luh-munt) and the Senate (Sen-it) to talk about what laws 

we need to make sure we are safe and happy in Canada. This 

whole thing is called the legislative (lej-is-lay-tiv) branch 

(bran-ch),   and in this step the leaders in Ottawa make new 

laws from the suggestions from people from Canada. 

A Parliament meeting

Once all the leaders in the legislative branch   have 

decided what rules we should have someone has to 

make sure that the rules get told to everyone and 

that everyone knows what they are supposed to be 

doing. The people that do this are called the 

executive (eg-zek-yuh-tiv) branch. The Prime 

Minister of Canada is the most important leader in 

Ottawa - his job is to make sure that   if the idea for a 

new rule is voted on by all the leaders and they agree 

that it is a good idea to have this new rule then he 

makes sure that it becomes a rule and that everyone 

knows about the new   He has a lot of helpers to work 

with him to help let everyone know about all the 

rules.  

Have you ever played in a soccer game or a football game or a 

baseball game? Who is the person that makes sure the rules 

are followed. It is usually someone called a referee, or the 

umpire who makes sure that the rules of the game are being 

followed. When it comes to running a big country like Canada 

we need people who are like our referees or umpires. Some 

of them are easy to spot - a police person in a police car is like 

a referee - he makes sure we all follow the rules of the road. 

If someone’s house is broken into then the police try to catch 

the thief. If a thief is caught where does he go? He has to go 

to court and see a judge. Sometimes bad people end up 

having to go to jail - sometimes it is called prison - if what 

they did is bad enough. All of the people that help to make 

sure the rules get followed by everyone are called the judicial 

(joo-dish-uh-l) branch. Sometimes the judicial branch 

can even ask the legislative branch - the people who 

make the rules - to change a rule if it is unfair.

Do you like to watch television (TV) or play games on your 

computer with people who live far away from you or even read 

a book? When we watch TV or listen to the radio in our car or 

watch a movie on our computer or play computer games   or 

read a book we are using media (me-d-ya). Do you know 

why media (me-d-ya) is important to our country? How do 

all of those things help people in Canada? 

Our media tells people about things that are 

happening in Canada and all over the world. The 

leaders of Canada can use the media to tell people 

about themselves, things they do, and what they will 

do to help with our Country. The leaders also listen 

to what the people in Canada have to say to them 

by watching and listening and reading to what is in 

the media. The media is an important part of how 

the government works in Canada because it is 

used by the government to get messages out to 

the people and it allows the government to listen 

to the people about what they want the 

government to do. 

Did you know that sometimes the leaders of Canada change 

their minds. Sometimes a new idea comes along that is better 

than the old one. Did you ever had a good idea for something 

in your class at school? Maybe you had an idea for a new 

game to try during P.E. Well there are people who talk to the 

government all the time about their ideas. They are called 

lobbyists (law-b-ists). A lobbyist is someone, whose job is 

to change our leaders minds. A lobbyist will speak for the 

idea’s that belong to a group of people, and will try to make 

our leaders like the ideas of that group. But not everyone can 

be a lobbyist, there are rules about being a lobbyist that 

our government have made to keep our leaders playing fair. 

Lobbyists have become an important part of how the 

government works because they work for different groups of 

people and try to tell the government what their group 

thinks about what the government should be doing. 

A lobbyist at work.

Chapter 2

Kids make mistakes all the time, even older kids like teenagers. That 

does not mean they're bad people because everyone makes 

mistakes. But some mistakes can get you in trouble with the police. 

If you are a kid under the age of 17 then you probably won't go to 

prison(a place you go if you do a crime). Instead people will 

help you and try and understand why you made that mistake. So 

instead of going to prison with all the other bad people who made 

these mistakes on purpose. The police will make you help your town 

or city you are living in. This is called the youth criminal justice 

act. The youth criminal justice act deals with 12-17 year old's 

who are in trouble with the police. The youth criminal justice 

system gives consequences to kids like community (kuh-myoo-

ni-tee) service - making you do things that help your community. 

You might have to go see someone to help you with problems with 

the police. There are people that work with kids when they get in 

trouble with the police.

If you are between the age of 12 to 14 then you will not 

have to go to prison with all the other bad people unless 

you do something really bad. You also won't get a criminal 

record(a list of things you have done that are against 

the law). This gives young teenagers a second chance to 

prove to their teachers, parents and any other adults that 

they are good kids. For example an older kid is with his 

friend in a store and his friend breaks a window by 

accident, and the two kids get arrested. Instead of the 

police putting the two kids in prison the kid who 

accidentally broke the window might get a fine and may 

have to do community service(an act to help your 

community) and the kid who didn't break the window 

won't have to do anything. So instead of getting a serious 

punishment the youth criminal justice system will give 

the child a reasonable punishment - a punishment that fits 

the crime.

When older people like adults make these kinds of 

mistakes they can go to a place called jail for a night or 

two, or if they do something really bad they can go to  

prison. This is called the criminal code of Canada. The 

criminal code of Canada deals with adults (a person 

over 18). When an adult does something against the law 

that person will have to go to court (a place where 

people go to decide their punishment if they do 

something against the law.)   Most adults who do 

something against the law they will get a criminal record 

- the bad thing they have done go on a list. 

The criminal justice system and the youth criminal 

justice system make sure that children and youth under 

the age of 18 are treated differently then those who are 

over the age of 18 and are adults. Adults know better, but 

kids sometimes don't.

Chapter 3 

                Chapter 4

Have you ever wondered about what makes Canada different 

or unique(yoo-neek) or special - only found in Canada? 

What makes Canada different than other countries, such as 

the United States?

Here’s one thing that makes Canada different or unique:

collective(kuh-lek-tiv) rights(rites).   You can think of 

your class as a collective - a group of people who are 

together for the same reason - you are all in the same class at 

school and that makes your class a collective.All the kids in 

your school are another collective. All the people that live in 

your neighbourhood are a collective and all the people in 

your town or city are a collective and so are all the people 

that live in your province of Canada and as people who live in 

Canada we all share the collective identity of   being 

Canadians.

Collective rights (rites) - rights are things we are 

allowed to do because we are part of a collective. You are 

part of the collective of your class and your class is 

allowed to do certain things that maybe other classes at 

your school are not - maybe because of the grade that you 

are in. Collective rights belong to groups of people and 

are an important part of the laws in Canada. Like we 

learned in Chapter 1 all the rules that tell the leaders how 

to run Canada go together to make up the Constitution. 

In our Constitution we have collective rights to make 

sure that everyone knows that some groups of people 

have a   collective identity (i-den-ti-tee). Like we 

learned earlier the First Nations, Inuit and Métis groups in 

society have special collective rights. Our constitution 

makes sure that create a society where people of different 

identities belong. 

enter text here

Collective rights are part of what makes Canada work. 

How the government treats these special groups has been 

agreed to by everyone that in Canada. Throughout Canada's

history, laws that affect collective rights, and the promises 

of the government to make sure that everyone follows these 

laws has made for tricky times Canadians but because 

everybody thought that these collective rights were 

important we all go along with it. 

One of the important groups that has collective rights are 

the First Nations people. 

First Nations people lived here in Canada before any other 

people came here from anywhere else. These First Nations 

people were nice enough to share the lands and the things 

on the land in peace.

 The reason they are called First Nations people is that 

they lived in Canada first - before the people from Europe 

came to live here. Sometimes these people are called native 

peoples, sometimes they were called aboriginal (ab-uh-

rij-uh-nl) people sometimes they are called Indigenous 

(in-dij-uh-nus) people - in the old days they were called 

some not so nice names like Indians or Eskimos (Es-kuh-

mohs) or heathens (hee-th- uh-nz). The reason they 

were called heathens was that the First Nations people 

did not believe in the same God as the ‘white man’ or ‘pale 

face’ - as the First Nations people called them - because 

our skin was mostly white. The government (guv-ern-

ment) believed that because they did not believe in God 

that they could not decide things for themselves and that 

they would need help from the government. Canada’s 

government the people who run the country. They talked it 

over and decided what help they would give to the First 

Nations people and how much money they were going to 

spend looking after them. 

First Nations people wanted to be sure about their future 

because the new people coming to Canada were causing 

problems for them. These new people did things a lot 

differently than the First Nations people. One of the 

problems was about money - First Nations people didn’t 

use money like we do today so they didn’t understand how 

it worked - they had never really had to buy anything - 

they just hunted and gathered up the things they needed 

and shared and traded with each other without using 

money. The new people also brought other kinds of 

problems with them - things like sickness that the First 

Nations people had never had, like smallpox. The new 

people also did not understand how to live with nature and 

were very greedy and did things like kill all the buffalo just 

so they could have the fur from them to send back to their 

countries in Europe like England and France.

enter text here

One of the main reasons that the government of Canada 

needed the First Nations people to share their land in 

peace is that they wanted to build one of the longest  

railways in the world to join the province (prov-ins) of 

British Columbia (B.C.) to the rest of Canada. It was more 

than 4,000 kilometers long. This railway also was to open 

the western part of the Canada and make it much easier for 

people to be able to move to the provinces of Alberta, 

Saskatchewan and B.C. from the eastern part of Canada. 

The main part of the work was done on this railway between 

1881 and 1885 after the government had made some deals 

with the First Nations about how they would share their 

land to build the railroad.   The province of B.C. joined in the 

country of Canada in 1871 just a few years after the railway 

was finished. Finally Canada had a railroad that went all the 

way across Canada that people could use to go right across 

the country. 

In 1870 Manitoba decided to join the Canadian 

confederation (kun-fed-uh-rey-shun-all the 

provinces together) of provinces in 1870 as a 

bilingual   (bi-ling-gyoo-uh-l) province (meaning 

the people could speak English or French - whichever 

they liked most).   The people of Manitoba were able 

to go to Catholic schools (the money came from the 

government for schools that believed the same as the 

Catholic church - some of you might go to a Catholic 

church). Many French people were Catholic so it made 

sense to have Catholic schools. There were also 

Protestant schools that served the people. It was 

important to Manitoba to join confederation (kuh 

n-fed-uh-rey-shuh-n) as a  bilingual   (bi-ling-

gyool) province.

Did you know that in Canada it is a law that you are 

allowed to speak English or French, whichever one you 

choose. Maybe you even go to a French Immersion school. 

Under the “Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms” 

you can be equal and different at the same time. The  

Charter of Rights and Freedoms makes sure that you 

are free and safe because of who you are and keeps your 

place in this great country. It says we can be different from 

one another and that we are all the same in the eyes of 

the government. In Canada we believe in sharing our 

different cultures (kuhl-chers). Maybe you or your mom 

and dad or grandma or grandpa came from another 

country to Canada. Maybe you have special holidays or eat 

different food or maybe you wear some different clothes 

during family time. That’s one of the nicest things about 

our country is that it is ok to be different. 

In our Canadian Charter of Rights and 

Freedoms we decided that French and English 

would the languages of Canada. As Canadians 

this means that there is a law that says we can 

speak whichever one want when we talk to the 

government about things. English and French 

are known as our “official (uh-fish-uhl) 

languages.” Official just means that these are 

the two languages that everybody agrees that 

anyone can speak - of course there are lots of 

other languages in Canada because many 

people come from different countries and speak 

different languages than English or French.

As we already learned First Nations people can also be 

called Aboriginal people.These were the first people that 

were here which is why we call them First Nations - besides 

what the people back then called Indians there were also 

people living up in the far north of Canada that we first called 

Eskimos but later learned to call Inuit. There were another 

kind of people in Canada that started being born real early in 

our history that are different from the Aboriginal and Inuits 

and they were the Métis (Ma-teez) - they were children of 

one of the Aboriginal people and a white person who came to 

Canada, especially the ones who came real early in the history 

of Canada and were French - they came from the country of 

France in Europe. For a long time in the history of Canada the 

Métis people wanted to be treated like a special people just 

like the First Nations people but it took a really long time 

before the governments finally said that they really were a 

special people and that they should have some 

In 1982 the Métis  asked the Canadian government 

to say that they were also special people just like the 

First Nations people. The government of Canada 

agreed and made a new law saying that the Métis 

would be special people in Canada. 

In 1990 Alberta’s government passed a new law that 

gave Métis their own land to live on. This new law 

allowed the Métis people to make their own rules on 

the land where they live. It was like they got their 

own new country. The Métis were finally allowed to 

get the money from the oil that is under the ground 

on the land that they were given. This means they 

have money to do the things they want to do. 

CHAPTER 5 

If you asked your mom or dad where your family started, you 

will probably find out that they were born in a different country 

than Canada and came here during some point in their life. That 

process they used to get to Canada is something called 

immigration. immigration is something that still goes on in our 

world. There are many positive and negative things that go with 

immigration. In this chapter we will look at Canada’s rules and 

policies (po-li-sees - these are like rules or laws) for 

immigration. We will also look at the problems people have 

with it and how our country’s leader can benefit from it. 

When you become a citizen of Canada you have to swear to the 

country that you will follow the rules and always do the right 

thing for Canada. As soon as you become a citizen you then have 

the right to vote.

• How do economic, political, health, and security factors 

influence Canada’s immigration policies?

All of these things do stuff to this country’s immigration 

policies. Most immigration is related to things dealing with 

economics – Canada needs strong and mighty workers for our 

economy and immigrants to have more life chances in this 

country. Political factors are anything that is related to leaders 

here or in other countries. Our leaders increase or decrease 

how many immigrants get here based on what they think will 

give them the best chance of being the leader for many more 

years. Immigrants are required to pass a scanner that looks 

for sicknesses because Canadians do not want to have people 

that might make other people sick or cost our health places a 

lot of money. Canada also wants to be sure people who will do 

bad things to their country and people are not allowed to 

enter.

• What impact does increasing immigration have on Aboriginal 

peoples and communities?

Most Aboriginal people are mad because they think 

immigrants are being treated to better things by our country’s 

leader than they are. They say that immigrants are taking 

chances away from them like filling up workplaces and not 

being able to hire new people and not being able to get into 

good work training places for the same reasons. Imagine if 

you were a kid on your hockey team that always does well 

and you’re good at it, but then some new person comes along 

and snatches your position away from you, you would be 

really mad right? well this is how the aboriginal people feel.

• How are provincial Leaders able to influence and implement 

immigration policies?

Provincial leaders are able to make certain immigrants part of 

their province because of a system they created. This system is 

called the Provincial Nominee Program. It is there so 

Provincial leaders can choose who gets into their province based 

on what things they are good at and where their skills are 

needed. When you play a game at school like floor hockey and 

the captain chooses their team members, he/she makes sure 

that the people that are chosen first are the ones that they know 

are good at floor hockey. This is sort of what immigrants have to 

go through in order to get into a certain province. The province 

of Quebec often asks for people who want to come to Canada 

and who already speak French because their province is French-

speaking. In Alberta they have a lot of oil so when oil workers 

want to come to Canada they often are asked for by Alberta.

• How does Quebec use immigration to 

strengthen the French language in Canada?

Quebec makes immigrants go through a french 

school because they want to make sure they 

speak french instead of english so that the 

french people can get their language more 

popular throughout Canada. This is also why 

you have to take french in school. Even if you 

don’t have to take french in school, it’s still in 

the school system because the french want to 

empower their language over the english 

language.

• How does the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms affect 

immigration?   

When an immigrant gets to Canada they then get all the things that 

you or I might get like toys or being able to go to sporting events 

like hockey or basketball. The only thing they do not have access to 

is voting. Also once they get here from wherever they are coming 

from they then have to explain their case to Canada and why they 

think they should be able to stay here. It’s like if you wanted to get 

into a new club at your school, so you go and find out information 

about it and then you have to explain to people why you think you 

should be in that club. And if they think you have a good enough 

reason for being there then you can join it. We do the same as 

Canadians to new immigrants who come here. They are welcomed 

here with open arms, just like how your mom and dad would hug 

you when you get home from school.

• How much does Canada benefit from immigration?

Canada does not have enough people to keep our country 

working the way it should. So the new immigrants that 

come from other places help us to make sure we have 

enough people to do all the work that needs to be done. 

Also you may not believe it but Canada is going down or 

shrinking in people size, so the immigrants make sure 

that they come here and help the number of people in our 

country increase - going up. The immigrants also help 

us learn about their culture and we can learn about where 

they started and what their beliefs are. They also give our 

leader connections to other world leaders so we can be 

bigger and stronger.

This chart shows immigration on the blue line and 

births on the red line in Canada between 1850 and 

the year 2000. Time is across the bottom and 

numbers in hundreds of thousands is across the left.  

This shows that there have been high periods of

lower and higher immigration which was often 

because we needed people to work here.   

Chapter 6 

What if you had to make all the money decisions for your home? 

What things would you spend your money on? How would you make 

sure you had enough money to keep living in your house? These 

are things your parents have to think about when you ask for 

things you want and they also have to think about money when 

they think about things they want. If you told your parents you 

wanted to buy a video game, they would probably say that is a bad 

idea and you should spend more time thinking about if it’s worth it 

to buy that game. Most likely you would get upset and try to 

explain why you need that game and this might cause a fight within 

your family. This is what economics (ek-uh-nom-iks) are like. It’s 

about what to make, grow, eat, sell and buy, and how to make sure 

that everyone gets the things they need. 

In this chapter we will discover new things about the economic 

system in Canada and of Canada’s friend, the United States.

• What are the principles (prin-suh-puh ls) of a market 

economy?

In a market economy valuables (val-yoo-uh-buh ls) - the 

things that we want to buy or use -   are owned privately (pri-

vit-ly) - meaning that they are not owned by the government 

and people like you and me are the ones that make choices on 

how to use them. Private businesses own and look after the 

valuables and sell their items to the buyers. The buyers are the 

ones who make all the choices. Supply and demand is the most 

important thing that makes up the cost of the items - (supply is 

how much of an item stores have and demand is how many 

people want to buy that item). Have you ever wanted something 

really bad that you saw on tv but when you went to the store 

there were none left - well the store can charge people more for 

it then because so many people want it. This is why gold costs so 

much - so many people want it but there isn't much of it. 

• What is the role of the consumer (kun-soo-mer) in 

market and mixed economies?

Consumers are the people who make the choices in 

both economies. If you go out and buy something 

like a video game or a baseball bat then after you 

purchase (pur-chus - just means to buy)those 

things you have then become a consumer. When 

you buy these items or things then you are choosing 

that the company who made that video game will do 

good and be successful (suk-ses-ful)because you 

bought their item. If you didn’t buy that video game 

then you would be choosing to let that business fail. 

Consumers are very important to the economy. 

• What do the things that you buy say about you?

Did you ever stop to think about the things you need 

to live and the things you want. We need to have 

food and water but do we need a new video game? 

People like me and you buy things because we want 

it, we want it because it we like the toy or the game. 

You might ask your parents to buy you something 

like new shoes because everyone else is wearing 

them and you want to be cool like them but do you 

need them?

If your parents buy something really expensive, like a 

big boat, then they might feel like they are like 

people. Do you ask your parents to buy things you 

don't really want - not too often likely. 

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