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Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN) is the world’s first Indigenous national broadcaster dedicated to Indigenous programming. First broadcast on 1 September 1999 in Winnipeg, Manitoba, APTN provides various content, including news, dramas and documentaries. Aimed at diverse audiences, APTN offers programming in Indigenous languages, English and French. It broadcasts into more than 11 million Canadian households and businesses, a significant portion of which are located in remote areas. APTN mainly generates revenue for operations through subscriber fees, advertising sales and partnerships.

It is difficult to generalize about definitions of Indigenous rights because of the diversity among First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples in Canada. Broadly speaking, however, Indigenous rights are inherent, collective rights that flow from the original occupation of the land that is now Canada, and from social orders created before the arrival of Europeans to North America. For many, the concept of Indigenous rights can be summed up as the right to independence through self-determination regarding governance, land, resources and culture.

Indigenous self-government is the formal structure through which Indigenous communities may control the administration of their people, land, resources and related programs and policies, through agreements with federal and provincial governments.

In the first decade of the 19th century, relations between Great Britain and the United States deteriorated, primarily due to the widening influence of the Napoleonic Wars. At the centre of this movement, two Shawnee brothers implored Indigenous peoples to unite in order to defend their dwindling lands against the growing incursions of Anglo-American settlers and the United States government. The promise of an Indigenous state never came to fruition. After the War of 1812, the United States and Britain found it more advantageous to ignore Aboriginal title.

Long before the arrival of European visitors, the Cree of northern Saskatchewan used the area's rivers for communication. Travellers carried information by canoe from community to community.This article was originally published in Maclean's Magazine on September 6, 1999

Abortion is the premature ending of a pregnancy. Inducing an abortion was a crime in Canada until 1988, when the Supreme Court of Canada struck down the law as unconstitutional. Since then, abortion has been legal at any stage in a woman’s pregnancy. Abortion is publicly funded as a medical procedure under the Canada Health Act. (See Health Policy.) However, access to abortion services differs across the country. Despite its legalization, abortion remains one of the most divisive political issues of our time.

Academic freedom commonly means the freedom of professors to teach, research and publish, to criticize and help determine the policies of their institutions, and to address public issues as citizens without fear of institutional penalties.

Academy String Quartet. Group associated with the Canadian Academy of Music, Toronto, and led by Luigi von Kunits. It performed at academy functions as early as 1912, and accompanied the academy's Madrigal Society in 1913.

Acadia University is located in Wolfville, NS. In 1828, the Baptist Education Society of Nova Scotia founded Horton Academy in Horton [Wolfville], NS. Ten years later in 1838, the Baptists established Queen's College, sharing the Horton facilities.

Acadian cinema (films by francophone filmmakers from Canada’s Maritime provinces) consists of about 300 documentaries and 50 fiction and animated films. The first films by Acadian filmmakers were shot in 1956. The National Film Board’s Studio Acadie opened in Moncton, New Brunswick, in 1974. As of 2017, about 10 independent, French-language film production companies were operating in Moncton and Caraquet, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The original Acadians were from France. Acadia is now part of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The French first began settling in Acadia during the first decade of the 17th century. In 1713, the British took over Acadia. They expelled the Acadians in the 1750s. The British did not trust the Acadians. The expulsion of the Acadians is also known as the Great Upheaval. The expulsion of the Acadians was tragic. In the 1760s, the British let the Acadians come back. Acadia remains alive and well today in the Maritimes. Thousands of Canadians are the descendants of the Acadians. (This article is a plain-language summary of the Acadian Expulsion. If you are interested in reading about this topic in more depth, please see our full-length entry, Acadian Expulsion (The Great Upheaval).)

​For a long time, there was little awareness of or research into the Acadians’ rich folklore. However, in the late 1930s and the 1940s, pioneers such as Joseph-Thomas LeBlanc and Father Anselme Chiasson began to promote the spread of Acadia’s repertoire of songs and oral traditions. Later, during the 1950s, Luc Lacourcière and his followers at Université Laval’s Archives de folklore gathered substantial collections of tales, legends and songs. Up to the 1990s, extensive research was undertaken throughout Acadia.

​The term “Acadian literature” is associated with literary works created by francophones in the Maritimes.

​Theatre came to Acadia with the first French colonists, and by the 1970s, French-language theatre in the Maritimes was a significant part of the region’s flourishing arts scene.

This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on August 2, 2004. Partner content is not updated.