Discover Canada: Key Dates and Facts for the Citizenship Test

The Canadian citizenship test is 20 questions in 45 minutes, and you need 15 correct to pass. Every question comes from one place: the official study guide, Discover Canada: The Rights and Responsibilities of Citizenship. The guide is free and not very long. The difficulty is that it is dense, and the history section in particular runs together.

This article pulls out the dates and facts candidates most need, and puts them in an order that makes them easier to remember. Read it alongside the guide, not instead of it.

Who Canadians are

Start here, because these terms appear throughout the test:

• Indigenous peoples: First Nations, Inuit and Métis. The Métis are a distinct people of mixed Indigenous and European ancestry. The Inuit live mostly in the Arctic.
• Three founding peoples: Aboriginal, French and British, as the guide describes them.
• Two official languages: English and French.

Early contact and New France

• Around 1000: Vikings reach Newfoundland, at L'Anse aux Meadows.
• 1497: John Cabot maps Canada's Atlantic shore.
• 1534 to 1542: Jacques Cartier makes three voyages and claims land for France. The word "Canada" comes from kanata, an Iroquoian word for village.
• 1604: The first European settlement north of Florida, founded by French explorers.
• 1608: Samuel de Champlain founds Quebec City.
• 1759: The British defeat the French at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, at Quebec City.
• 1774: The Quebec Act allows religious freedom for Catholics and restores French civil law.

Hook: France founded Quebec (1608) and lost it about 150 years later (1759). The Quebec Act came 15 years after that.

Toward self-government

• 1791: The Constitutional Act divides the Province of Quebec into Upper Canada (later Ontario) and Lower Canada (later Quebec).
• 1812 to 1814: The War of 1812. The United States invades, and is repulsed. Laura Secord and Chief Tecumseh are among the people the guide names.
• 1840: Upper and Lower Canada are united as the Province of Canada.
• 1848: Nova Scotia becomes the first British North American colony to have responsible government.

Confederation and how Canada grew

This is the most tested part of the history section. Learn it as a sequence.

• 1867: Confederation. The British North America Act creates the Dominion of Canada from four provinces: Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. Sir John A. Macdonald becomes the first Prime Minister. July 1 is now Canada Day.
• 1870: Manitoba joins, and the Northwest Territories become part of Canada.
• 1871: British Columbia joins, with the promise of a railway.
• 1873: Prince Edward Island joins.
• 1885: The Canadian Pacific Railway is completed, with the last spike driven in British Columbia.
• 1898: Yukon becomes a territory, during the Klondike Gold Rush.
• 1905: Alberta and Saskatchewan join.
• 1949: Newfoundland and Labrador joins, the last province.
• 1999: Nunavut is created from the eastern part of the Northwest Territories.

Hook: four provinces in 1867, then roughly west and east alternately: Manitoba, BC, PEI, then the prairies (Alberta, Saskatchewan), and Newfoundland last. Canada now has 10 provinces and 3 territories.

The wars

• 1914 to 1918: The First World War. In April 1917, the Canadian Corps captures Vimy Ridge, often described as the birth of Canadian national feeling.
• November 11: Remembrance Day. Canadians wear poppies.
• 1939 to 1945: The Second World War. On D-Day, June 6, 1944, Canadians land at Juno Beach in Normandy.
• 1950 to 1953: The Korean War.

Rights and modern Canada

• 1918: Most Canadian women gain the right to vote in federal elections.
• 1940: Quebec grants women the vote.
• 1965: The red and white maple leaf flag is raised for the first time.
• 1969: The Official Languages Act.
• 1980: "O Canada" becomes the official national anthem.
• 1982: The Constitution is amended and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is added.

The guide traces Canadian rights back to the Magna Carta of 1215. If a question asks about the oldest source of these traditions, that is usually the answer.

Government in one paragraph

Canada is a federal state, a parliamentary democracy and a constitutional monarchy. The Sovereign is head of state, represented federally by the Governor General and in each province by a Lieutenant Governor. The Prime Minister is head of government. Parliament has three parts: the Sovereign, the appointed Senate and the elected House of Commons. Senators are appointed on the Prime Minister's advice and serve until age 75. Each province has an elected legislature led by a premier. The capital, Ottawa, was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1857.

Symbols and people worth knowing

• The maple leaf, the beaver, the Crown, the fleur-de-lys and the coat of arms.
• The Victoria Cross, the highest honour for bravery.
• Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best, who discovered insulin.
• Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the telephone.
• Terry Fox, whose Marathon of Hope in 1980 raised money for cancer research.

Learn your own province

The guide has a section on the regions, and questions can ask about where you live. Know your provincial capital, the name of your premier role, your main industries and your region. It is a small amount of reading for reliable marks.

How to study this list

Read a section of Discover Canada, then close it and write down everything you can remember. Then answer practice questions on that section. The test checks recall, not recognition, and rereading only trains recognition. Our Canadian test study guide has a four-week plan, and our free mock exam lets you see where you stand.

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