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Sexual abuse of children has been defined in Ontario as abuse that includes "any sexual intercourse, sexual molestation, exhibitionism or sexual exploitation involving a child that could be a violation of the Criminal Code or render the child in need of protection under the Child Welfare Act.

Until it was amended in 1982 the Criminal Code contained the offence of rape. The offence required proof that a man had sexual intercourse with a woman other than his wife without the woman's consent. It was punishable by up to life imprisonment.

Social history is a way of looking at how a society organizes itself and how this changes over time. The elements that make up Canada’s social history include climate and geography, as well as the transition to industrialization and urbanization.

Sociology is the study of human relationships, the rules and norms that guide them, and the development of institutions and movements that conserve and change society.

The Vertical Mosaic (TVM) is the title of an iconic book by Canadian sociologist John Porter (1921‒79). Published in 1965, TVM is Porter’s most famous and influential book, and established him as one of the major figures in Canadian social science in the 20th century.

Women have looked to the law as a tool to change their circumstances, while at the same time the law is one of the instruments which confirms their dependent status as citizens (see Status of Women). The first phase of the Women's Movement, in proclaiming that women were capable of reason as well as reproduction and nurturing, claimed a place for women in the public sphere, while also relying upon the concept of "separate spheres" to delineate their areas of strength and competence.

Women's Studies (also referred to as Feminist Studies) is a generic label for a diverse and fast growing area of knowledge. The first few courses in Women's Studies were taught at Canadian universities in the early 1970s.

Although women have always been well represented in schools as students and teachers, it is possible, by examining women's participation in schooling, to understand how that participation has both reflected and produced the unequal position of women in society.

Curing, the restoration of well-being for the community and health for the individual, was a vital part of Indigenous religious practice. The best known of several curing societies among the Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) of the lower Great Lakes was the False Face Society.

There is no such thing as "the Canadian family." Membership in a family, the activities of those members in and out of the household, and the relationship among members varies with economic conditions and also with regions, historical periods, SOCIAL CLASS, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity.

Alberta Culture and Multiculturalism (Alberta Culture until 1987). Department established in 1975 by the government of the province of Alberta.

If life expectancy is any indication of health, Canadian women are, on average, much healthier than they were 70 years ago. The life expectancy of female babies born in 1921 was 61 while female babies born today are expected to live to age 82.

Adoption, is the legal process of severing ties between a child and his or her biological parents (or "birth parents" as they are called today), who are unable or unwilling to care for the child, and creating new ties between a child and people who are not her or his natural parents.

For centuries the law has accepted the cessation of heartbeat and respiration as the determination of death, but now the heart can be removed, the breathing stopped and blood pumped by machines without preventing the individual's resumption of lucid consciousness.

The fleur-de-lys, a symbol of the French presence in North America, has featured on the Québec flag since 1948 and appears on the flags of a number of other French-speaking communities in Canada and the United States.

The Aboriginal population is the most rural in Canada. One-half of a million Aboriginal people are committed to the land by heritage, by rights in a rural land base, and by a broad range of bureaucratic mandates provided by the federal government. These conditions are supported by the Constitution Act, 1982, a legal guarantee that is unique in the world for an Aboriginal population with a predominantly hunting heritage.

Language is a form of communication. More specifically, language is a communication system based on human sounds. There are, however, other forms of communication systems based on touch, scent, movement, colour, gesture and even the electrical impulses that pass through computers.

While the exact origin of the powwow is unknown, these celebrations were adopted and adapted by various Indigenous communities across North America throughout the 20th century.

Chiac (also spelled chiak or chiaque) is a specific type of discursive switching between French and English among individuals who are highly bilingual and have Acadian French as their mother tongue but Canadian English as their first or second language.

The question of what it means to be a Canadian has been a difficult and much debated one. Some people see the question itself as central to that identity. Canadians have never reached a consensus on a single, unified conception of the country. Most notions of Canadian identity have shifted between the ideas of unity and plurality. They have emphasized either a vision of “one” Canada or a nation of “many” Canadas. A more recent view of Canadian identity sees it as marked by a combination of both unity and plurality. The pluralist approach sees compromise as the best response to the tensions — national, regional, ethnic, religious and political — that make up Canada.