|
Event
Information:
Canada
Day (French: Fête du Canada),
formerly Dominion Day (French: Le
Jour de la Confédération), is the
national day of Canada, a federal
statutory holiday celebrating the
anniversary of the July 1, 1867,
enactment of the British North
America Act (today called the
Constitution Act, 1867), which
united three British colonies into a
single country, called Canada,
within the British Empire.
Originally called Dominion Day, the
name was changed in 1982, the year
that Canada gained full independence
from the United Kingdom. Canada Day
observances take place throughout
Canada as well as internationally.
Most
communities across the country will
host organized celebrations for
Canada Day, usually outdoor public
events, such as parades, carnivals,
festivals, barbecues, air and
maritime shows, fireworks, and free
musical concerts, as well as
citizenship ceremonies for new
citizens. There is no standard mode
of celebration for Canada Day;
professor of International Relations
at the University of Oxford Jennifer
Welsh said of this: "Canada Day,
like the country, is endlessly
decentralized. There doesn't seem to
be a central recipe for how to
celebrate it—chalk it up to the
nature of the federation."
However, the locus of the
celebrations is the national
capital, Ottawa, Ontario, where
large concerts, presided over by the
governor general, are held on
Parliament Hill, as well as other
parks around the city and in Hull,
Quebec.
Parliament Hill (French: Colline du
Parlement), colloquially known as
The Hill, is an area of Crown land
on the southern banks of the Ottawa
River in downtown Ottawa, Ontario.
Its Gothic revival suite of
buildings, the parliament buildings,
serves as the home of the Parliament
of Canada and contains a number of
architectural elements of national
symbolic importance. Parliament Hill
attracts approximately 3 million
visitors each year.
Originally the site of a military
base in the 18th and early 19th
centuries, development of the site
into a governmental precinct began
in 1859, after Bytown was chosen by
Queen Victoria as the capital of the
Province of Canada. Following a
number of extensions to the
parliament and departmental
buildings and a fire in 1916 that
destroyed the Centre Block,
Parliament Hill took on its present
form with the completion of the
Peace Tower in 1927. Since 2002, an
extensive $1 billion renovation and
rehabilitation project has been
underway throughout all of the
precinct's buildings; work is not
expected to be complete until after
2020.
Local
Weather:
|
