Browse "Communities & Sociology"

When European settlers, missionaries and government agents began arriving on the coast of BC in the 20th century they were bewildered and appalled by one particular custom practised by the indigenous people living there: the potlatch.

Bannock [Old English bannuc, "morsel"], a form of bread that served as a staple in the diets of early settlers and fur traders. It took the form of a flat round cake or pancake. Ingredients included unleavened flour, lard, salt, water and sometimes baking powder.

The term "Baptist" is derived from the name given to Christians who were baptized after they made a profession of faith, rather than baptized as infants. Baptists are distinct from other Christians who practice "paedo" or "infant" baptism. In the 2011 National Household Survey (NHS), 635,840 Canadians identified as Baptist.

The Basilian Fathers, or Congregation of St Basil, founded in France in 1822, are now centred in Toronto. They came to Canada in 1850 and in 1852 founded St Michael's College there.

Eight people, including seven teenage athletes from Bathurst, New Brunswick, died in January 2008 when their school van collided with a transport truck on a snowy highway. The disaster triggered an inquest and a public campaign by some of the grieving mothers that exposed safety flaws in the way schoolchildren are transported to off-site events.

The Battle of Ridgeway is also known as the Battle of Lime Ridge or Limestone Ridge. It was fought on the morning of 2 June 1866, near the village of Ridgeway and the town of Fort Erie in Canada West (present-day Ontario). Around 850 Canadian soldiers clashed with 750 to 800 Fenians — Irish American insurgents who had crossed the Niagara River from Buffalo, New York. It was the first industrial-era battle to be fought exclusively by Canadian troops and led entirely by Canadian officers. It was the last battle fought in Ontario against a foreign invasion force. The battlefield was designated a National Historic Site in 1921.

Big Brothers and Sisters of Canada (BBSC) is a national mentoring organization that provides support to more than 300 Canadian communities, comprising 160 local member agencies. Its mandate is to provide high-quality, volunteer-based mentoring programs to children and youth.

This article is currently being translated into English.

The Black Cross Nurses (BCN) is an auxiliary group intended for female members of the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). The BCN was modeled on the nurses of the Red Cross. Its first chapter was launched in Philadelphia in May 1920. Under the leadership of Henrietta Vinton Davis, the BCN quickly became one of the UNIA’s most popular and iconic auxiliary groups. Offering a safe and inviting place for the Black community, UNIA halls became important cultural hubs in many cities and towns across Canada, where BCN divisions were also established. Although they were not professionally trained nurses, members of the BCN were expected to provide care and advice on matters of health and hygiene.

Located in Cherry Brook, near Dartmouth (Halifax Regional Municipality), the Black Cultural Centre for Nova Scotia has been open to the public since 1983. It is run by the Black Cultural Society, created in 1977. The centre is both a museum and a gathering place where people can explore the history and heritage of Black communities in Nova Scotia.

In early Canada, the enslavement of African peoples was a legal instrument that helped fuel colonial economic enterprise. The buying, selling and enslavement of Black people was practiced by European traders and colonists in New France in the early 1600s, and lasted until it was abolished throughout British North America in 1834. During that two-century period, settlers in what would eventually become Canada were involved in the transatlantic slave trade. Canada is further linked to the institution of enslavement through its history of international trade. Products such as salted cod and timber were exchanged for slave-produced goods such as rum, molasses, tobacco and sugar from slaveholding colonies in the Caribbean. 

This is the full-length entry about Black enslavement in Canada. For a plain language summary, please see Black Enslavement in Canada (Plain Language Summary).

(See also Olivier Le Jeune; Sir David Kirke; Chloe Cooley and the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada; Underground Railroad; Fugitive Slave Act of 1850; Slavery Abolition Act, 1833;  Slavery of Indigenous People in Canada.)

"Have we read our own authors such as Dionne Brand, Afua Cooper and George Elliott Clarke? Do we know that the story of African-Canadians spans four hundred years, and includes slavery, abolition, pioneering, urban growth, segregation, the civil rights movement and a long engagement in civic life?"

— Lawrence Hill

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is a decentralized movement to end anti-Black racism. It was founded as an online community in the United States in 2013 in response to the acquittal of the man who killed Black teenager Trayvon Martin. Its stated mission is to end white supremacy and state-sanctioned violence and to liberate Black people and communities. The Black Lives Matter hashtag (#BlackLivesMatter) has been used to bring attention to discrimination and violence faced by Black people. BLM has chapters in the United States and around the world. There are five chapters in Canada: Toronto (BLM-TO), Vancouver (BLM-VAN), Waterloo Region, Edmonton, and New Brunswick.

The Blackfoot Confederacy, sometimes referred to as the Blackfoot Nation or Siksikaitsitapi, is comprised of three Indigenous nations, the Kainai, Piikani and Siksika. People of the Blackfoot Nation refer to themselves as Niitsitapi, meaning “the real people,” a generic term for all Indigenous people, or Siksikaitsitapi, meaning “Blackfoot-speaking real people.” The Confederacy’s traditional territory spans parts of southern Alberta and Saskatchewan, as well as northern Montana. In the 2016 census, 22,490 people identified as having Blackfoot ancestry.

Bois-Brûlé is a 19th-century term for a mixed-blood Indigenous person or a Métis person.

Bollywood, a playful word derived from Hollywood and the city of Bombay, refers specifically to the Hindi-language films produced in Mumbai (formerly Bombay), India, the city known as the heart of the South Asian film industry.

Quebec’s Consultation Commission on Accommodation Practices Related to Cultural Differences (Commission de consultation sur les pratiques d'accommodement reliées aux différences culturelles) was launched by Liberal premier  Jean Charest on 8 February 2007. It was called in response to heightened public tensions concerning the reasonable accommodation of ethno-cultural and religious minority groups, mainly of Muslims, Sikhs and Jews by the historically Catholic French-Canadian majority population in the province. The commission was co-chaired by Université du Québec à Chicoutimi professor  Gérard Bouchard and McGill University professor emeritus Charles Taylor. It subsequently came to be known as the Bouchard-Taylor Commission.

Brethren in Christ (identified as "Tunkers" in Canada in the 19th century) were a group of Christians who shared the Anabaptist belief in adult baptism.

The colony of British Columbia was founded in 1858 in response to the Fraser River Gold Rush. (See also The Fraser River Gold Rush and the Founding of British Columbia.) The colony established representative government in 1864 and merged with the colony of Vancouver Island in 1866. In May 1868, Amor De Cosmos formed the Confederation League to bring responsible government to BC and to join Confederation. In September 1868, the Confederation League passed 37 resolutions outlining the terms for a union with the Dominion of Canada. The terms were passed by both the BC assembly and the federal Parliament in 1871. The colony joined Canada as the country’s sixth province on 20 July 1871. The threat of American annexation, embodied by the Alaska purchase of 1867, and the promise of a railway linking BC to the rest of Canada, were decisive factors.

The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools is a Catholic religious order founded by Jean-Baptiste de La Salle in France in 1680. In Canada, members are generally referred to as Christian Brothers or De La Salle Brothers. They are not to be confused with the Congregation of Christian Brothers who were founded by Edmund Rice in Ireland in 1802 and whose members in Canada were also called Christian Brothers or Irish Christian Brothers. The Brothers of the Christian Schools were a major force in Catholic education in Canada, especially in Quebec. They first arrived in Montreal in 1837, then experienced numeric growth, geographic expansion and a solid reputation over the next 125 years. The Brothers underwent a significant exodus and decline in vocations with the dramatic religious and social changes spawned by the Second Vatican Council and the Quiet Revolution.