British Parliament proclaimed the British North America Act; with this, Ontario, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia were made into the Dominion of Canada. Ever since this event a number of events and trends have threatened to pull Canada apart, but ultimately held it together. Such a large, varied, and sparsely settled nation resisted any obvious prescriptions of nationalism, and often, it seemed that the differences between the people and cultures that have lived in Canada were all that mattered. Nevertheless, Canada has been threaded together with first, the expansion of the railroad; second, its successful contribution to and advancement from the pressures of World War; and third, its devotion to maintaining a peaceable and pluralistic existence. Superficially, Canada seems to be a haphazardly thrown together nation, in which the land and the people tend to defy any typical characterizations. Yet, it is just this diversity that grants Canada its character:...
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