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The Canadian way of life

Canada is an immense country. It is very diverse in its people, its landscape, its climate, and its way of life. However, Canadians do share the same important values. These values guide and influence much of our everyday life. These are values of pride, a belief in equality and diversity and respect for all individuals in society. Women, men, children and seniors are all equally respected in Canada. Canadians may be different from each other but it is these shared values that make Canada a friendly, caring, peace loving and secure society in which to live. For nine consecutive years (1994-2002), a United Nations survey found Canada to be among the top three places in the world to live. Conducted every year, the survey evaluates quality of life in 174 countries, using over 200 performance indicators. Canada earned particularly high marks for its access to education, high life expectancy (due to universal health care system); and low crime and violence rates. Canada continues to remain in the top five on the list. In addition, Canada's largest cities -- Vancouver, Toronto and Montreal -- have been recognized as world-class cities in which to live and work, for their cleanliness and safety and for their cultural activities and attractive lifestyles.

Geography Canada is the world’s second-largest country (9,976,140 km2), surpassed only by the Russian Federation. The country is encased by the world’s longest coastline. Distances in Canada can be vast. Consider the Trans-Canada Highway, which at 7,821 km long is longer than the distance from London to Bombay. More than 50 percent of Canada’s land is blanketed with rich forest ranges, accounting for 10 percent of the world’s remaining forests and 20 percent of the world’s remaining wilderness areas. Canada is made up of ten provinces and three territories. The provinces from west to east are: British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and furthest east, the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The territories are the Yukon, the Northwest Territories (NWT), and Nunavut, Canada’s newest territory, formed in 1999 out of the eastern part of the NWT and the homeland of the native Inuit. Canada’s terrain incorporates a number of mountain ranges: the Torngats, Appalachians and Laurentians in the east; the Rocky, Coastal and Mackenzie ranges in the west; and Mount St. Elias and the Pelly Mountains in the north. At 6,050 m, Mount Logan in the Yukon is Canada’s tallest peak. There are some two million lakes in Canada, covering about 7.6% of the Canadian landmass. Canada shares four of the five Great Lakes, the largest sources of fresh water in the world, with the United States. The largest lake situated entirely in Canada is Great Bear Lake (31,326 km2) in the Northwest Territories. At 3,058 km long, the St. Lawrence is Canada’s most important river, providing a seaway for ships from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean. The longest Canadian river is the Mackenzie, which flows 4,241 km through the Northwest Territories. Canada has six time zones. The easternmost, in Newfoundland, is three hours and 30 minutes behind Greenwich Mean Time (GMT). The other time zones are the Atlantic, the Eastern, the Central, the Rocky Mountain and, farthest west, the Pacific, which is eight hours behind GMT. Despite the enormous size of this country, approximately 80 percent of all the people in Canada live in a concentrated area of cities and towns within 100 kilometres of the U.S. border.