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The Manitoba Act provided for the admission of Manitoba as Canada’s fifth province. It received royal assent and became law on 12 May 1870. It marked the legal resolution of the struggle for self-determination between people of the Red River Colony and the federal government, which began with Canada’s purchase of Rupert’s Land in 1870. The Act contained protections for the region’s Métis. However, these protections were not fully realized. As a result, many Métis left the province for the North-West Territories.

Alberta joined Confederation along with Saskatchewan in 1905, when the two new provinces were created out of a section of the Northwest Territories.

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.

Québec became one of the founding members of the Dominion of Canada on 1 July 1867 when it joined New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Ontario in Confederation.

Saskatchewan joined Confederation along with Alberta in 1905, when the two new provinces were carved out of the Northwest Territories (NWT).

Yukon entered Confederation in 1898, after a gold rush boom led Canada to create a second northern territory out of the Northwest Territories (NWT).

The Rush-Bagot Agreement (or Rush-Bagot Treaty) was signed in 1817 by Acting Secretary of State Richard Rush and Sir Charles Bagot, British minister in Washington. The treaty reduced the number of military ships on the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain and helped secure the Canadian-American border.

The North-West Mounted Police (NWMP) was the forerunner of Canada's iconic Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Created after Confederation to police the frontier territories of the Canadian West, the NWMP ended the whiskey trade on the southern prairies and the violence that came with it. They helped the federal government suppress the North-West Resistance and brought order to the Klondike Gold Rush. The NWMP pioneered the enforcement of federal law in the West, and the Arctic, from 1873 until 1920.

The 1215 agreement between King John of England and his barons provided the foundation for English common law, which spread throughout the English-speaking world. Magna Carta is the first example of a king of England consenting to written limits on his power drafted by his subjects. The Magna Carta (or Great Charter) informs the legal system in English Canada, and the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.