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Sovereignty is an abstract legal concept. It also has political, social and economic implications. In strictly legal terms, sovereignty describes the power of a state to govern itself and its subjects. In this sense, sovereignty is the highest source of the law. With Confederation and the passage of the British North America Act, 1867, Canada’s Parliament was still legally under the authority of the British Parliament. By 1949, Canada had become fully sovereign in relation to Great Britain. This was due to landmark legislation such as the Statute of Westminster (1931). The Constitution Act, 1982 swept away Britain’s leftover authority. Questions of sovereignty have also been raised by Indigenous peoples in Canada and by separatists in Quebec. The latter, for a time, championed the concept of sovereignty-association.

The Knights of Labor, the leading labour reform organization in the late 19th century, played a key role in the development of the working-class consciousness in Canada. It was also an important player in the development of the Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and interceded with authorities to improve living standards for the working class. The movement fell victim to internal conflict and the successes of other unions, and began fading out at the end of the 1890s.

The Ku Klux Klan is an outlawed, racist, ultra-conservative, fraternal organization dedicated to the supremacy of an Anglo-Saxon, Protestant society.

Muscular Dystrophy Canada (MDC) was founded in 1954 by a group of parents who had children with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Now a national voluntary health organization with offices across Canada, MDC is dedicated to fighting over 40 different neuromuscular disorders.

Since 1965 the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (previously Canadian Postal Employees Association) has been involved in approximately 19 major disputes over several complex issues.

Canada has a long tradition of an active and vocal peace movement. The Mennonites and Quakers, guided by a philosophy of nonviolence, have consistently spoken out against war and militarism.

Antigonish Movement, a social and economic movement sponsored by the Extension Department of St Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Corporatism was originally a 19th-century doctrine which arose in reaction to the competition and class conflict of capitalist society.

Sisterhood of St John the Divine, see CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS COMMUNITIES.

The National Order of Québec (Ordre national du Québec) was instituted 20 June 1984.

IWW propaganda was disseminated primarily in street meetings. In 1912, when Vancouver authorities tried to ban street demonstrations, the Wobblies started and won a spectacular free-speech fight.

There are more than 75 000 charities in Canada. They range in size from low-budget, neighbourhood-centred Meals on Wheels services to national healthcare and educational institutions with budgets of almost $1 billion. The majority of registered charities, some 40%, are places of worship.

The first significant attempt to organize on an industrial basis was undertaken in the 1880s by the KNIGHTS OF LABOR, which advocated unity of the producing classes and opposed employer blacklists and discrimination.

Based on the Lower Canadian Frères Chasseurs, Hunters’ Lodges were American secret societies that aimed to liberate the Canadian colonies from the tyranny of British thralldom. With estimates ranging from 15,000 to 200,000 members, lodges counted on much support from borderlanders, from Maine to Wisconsin, who were disillusioned and frustrated with the social, economic and political changes that shook 1830s America. Though they failed to liberate Canada, losing key military encounters near Prescott and Windsor in November and December 1838, their importance was significant enough that they had forced the American president, Martin Van Buren, to send a military force to the American-Canadian border to ensure that the neutrality between the United States and Britain was strictly followed. For months, Hunter activities dominated American foreign and internal policy.

Société de Saint-Vincent de Paul, Catholic organization dedicated to works of charity. It was founded in 1833 by Frederic Ozanam, a 20-year-old Sorbonne student in Paris.

“Hippies” is a term used to describe young people who participated in the 1960s counterculture movement, which originated in the United States and spread throughout Canada in the second half of that decade. As a noun, “hippie” was a play on the adjective “hip,” which was used to describe young bohemians who lived in Greenwich Village in New York City, and in San Francisco, in the 1950s and early 1960s. Hippies were part of the “baby boom” generation, born immediately following the end of the Second World War (see Baby Boomers in Canada). This demographic wave was significant enough to transform Canadian society; by the mid-1960s more than half of Canada’s population of 20 million was under the age of 25.

Two societies, one formed in Montreal and the other in Toronto in the mid-1930s, for the purpose of presenting recitals by the best Canadian and foreign organists. The name was chosen in honour of Casavant Frères, the noted organ builders.

Vancouver Women's Musical Society (formerly the Vancouver Woman's Musical Club). Founded in 1905 by Mrs B.T. Rogers, Mrs J.J. Banfield, Mrs C.M. Beecher, (first president 1905-7), and others and incorporated in 1916 under the guidance of Esther Beecher Weld and Mrs Walter Coulthard.

The Women's International League for Peace and Freedom was founded 1915 in The Hague, the Netherlands, by women active in the Women's Suffrage movement in Europe and North America. These women wished to end WWI and seek ways to ensure that no more wars took place.