Nearly one-fifth of Canadian workers are in manufacturing. Industry is highly mechanized and includes petroleum products, car manufacture, food and metal processing. Ontario contains most of the car factories, is the main steel producer and has important aircraft, electronics and electrical machinery sectors. Quebec has textiles, paper and wood products, clothing, chemicals and engineering.
Inevitably, most international trade is with the USA, and nearly half of Canada's manufacturing industry is owned by American firms. Us president John F. Kennedy told the Canadian parliament in 1061: 'geography has made us neighbors, history has made us friends, economics has made us partners and necessity has made us allies.'
The Americans are largely responsible for a recent surge in tourism, which has taken the industry into Canada's top eight export earners, employing about one person in ten. Vast open spaces draw the fisherman, hunter, canoeist and camper, mostly from the USA, but many from Britain, continental Europe and japan. The need to safeguard areas of beauty has long been recognized, and the first national park was set up at BANFF in 1885.
NIAGARA FALLS and the Rocky Mountains are world-famous, and tourists are also attracted to the historic city of Quebec, the old part of Montreal, modern TORONTO with its CN tower - the world's tallest freestanding building - and the fishing ports of the eastern Maritime Provinces.
Travel is mostly by car or aircraft. Railways carry most freight, but passenger trains are few outside the Montreal-Toronto-WINDSOR area. Exceptions are the popular routes through the Rockies, especially the Banff Vancouver line.
Three-quarters of the 25 million Canadians live in urban areas, and over half in metropolitan areas of more than 100 000 population. Only three metropolitan areas have more than a million people: Toronto, with 3 million, Montreal (2.8 million) and Vancouver (1.25 million). Like most North American urban areas, major Canadian cities have centres dominated by skyscrapers.
Canada at a glance
Area 9 976 139 km2 (3 851 793 sq miles) population 25 650 000
Capital Ottawa government federal parliamentary monarchy
Currency Canadian dollar = 100 cents languages English, French religion Christian (47% roman catholic, 41% protestant)
Climate continental; arctic in north; maritime near coast (especially in British Columbia). Average temperature in Ottawa ranges from -15 to - 6°C (5-21°F) in January to 15-26°C (59-79°F) in July main primary products cereals, fruit and vegetables, livestock, rapeseed, tobacco, linseed, timber, fish; oil and natural gas, coal, copper, zinc, titanium, iron, lead, asbestos, nickel, salt, uranium, potash
Major industries agriculture, forestry, paper and other timber products, food processing, iron and steel, engineering, mining, transport equipment, chemicals, fertilizers, oil and gas refining, cement
Main exports motor vehicles, machinery, cereals and other foodstuffs, natural gas, chemicals, paper, crude oil and products, coal metal ores, timber, wood pulp
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