Because Canada is a huge and diverse country, I decided in this article to consider Newfoundland as the region studied and the rest of Canada as the exterior of the region.

Presentation of the country’s government

The government manages the executive power in Canadian territory. Canada is a constitutional monarchy. Indeed, Elizabeth II is also the queen of Canada because she is the chief of the commonwealth. We can see her figure on Canadian 20 CAD bills.

But the government chief is the Prime Minister Stephen Harper, chief of the conservatory party of Canada which received the majority vote in 2011. Its political orientation emphasises the creation of employment through low taxes, improving the communication between the available employment and unemployed people, investing in big infrastructures such as roads and common transports, balancing the budget and reforming the immigration system concerning temporary work of foreigners.

So let me give you some advices for your internship or temporary work. If you want to work in Canada, I advise you to look for an employer as soon as you have the responses concerning the destinations. Indeed, you must have the letter of acceptance of your employer before asking for a working permit. The application for a working permit takes time and you must have it when you arrive in Canada. You can apply for your permit after you arrive but it will be more difficult and you should go to the French embassy which is not in St John’s so it will cost you a lot. Moreover, you will see, the four months pass very quickly so it is great to have our full time to enjoy there and not doing papers. I didn’t find an employer before leaving France so I searched again once arrived I in St John’s but still did not find a job. So I found a volunteering in United States.

Regional geopolitical context

Provinces have a huge power.

Newfoundland and Labrador was a British and French colony since the 16^th century and became independent in the 19^th century. With the confederation of 1949, it became a province of Canada.

Its official flag was adopted in 1980. The blue represents the sea, the white: snow and ice, the red: efforts of settlers, and the gold represents their confidence. The blue triangles remind us of the Union Flag to highlight the British heritage. The two red triangles represent the two parts of the region: Labrador (land) and Newfoundland (island).

Since the collapse of the cod fishery at the beginning of the 90’, the economy in Newfoundland has been depressed, followed by a decrease of population.

10 years after, the growth restarted moderately because of the exploitation of energy and resources. Now, the largest part of the economy is the service industry followed by mining of iron and nickel, oil production, manufacturing and tourism. But the fishing industry is still an important part of the economy, and aquaculture is growing.

External regional conflicts

The Grand River land dispute started to have a huge importance in 2006, the date on which a demonstration raised awareness about First Nation land claims in Ontario.

The land in dispute in Caledonia is 40 hectares: some want this land to be giveback to native people whereas some support the project of Enco Industries, which is the development of the residential subdivision: Douglas Creek Estates.

Internal conflicts :

This content comes, for a large part, from my Newfoundland culture and society lesson. I advise you to take this course because, besides being really interesting, it is easy to validate. Indeed, we must read extracts of texts for every two weeks. We have an exam on each session in which we must answer one of three questions. At the end of the semester, depending on our grades, the teacher told us whether or not we were required to do the final exam.  

To begin with: as for me, there are few tensions inside the territory of Canada. Indeed, during my semester, I never heared on TV remarks concerning a special big conflict in Canada.

Here, I suppose that most of the conflicts in Newfoundland are disagreements concerning ethnicity.

Newfoundland has a huge story!

Indeed, Newfoundland has been discovered at the beginning of the 16^th century and was settled during the following decades. Settlements took time because, at the beginning, there were only year-round fishers. Before, there were two main Indian groups living here: the Beothuk’s and the Mi’kmaq.

The Beothuk’s, because of their way of life and the little settlement at the beginning, didn’t have much contact with Europeans. But the more villages were settled on the coast, the more they moved to live inland. But the climate in Newfoundland is hard so they lack food and, for many other reasons, the Beothuk’s disappeared in 1829.

The picture on the right is a painting of the last one.

Mi’kmaq had more contacts with European settlers because they took part of the trade of fish and seal, but, as for Beothuk’s, they moved inland because of European settlements. The creation of the railway in 1898 made the European economic activity move inland by the development of the wood trade.  First, the Mi’kmaq people worked as guides, but the European exploitation of inland resources lead to diminishing the number of Mi’kmaq. Today, some Indian people are still here. By the 70’s, the creation of the native association of Newfoundland allowed the protection of a certain amount of land. But in 2008, The Mi’kmaq signed to be referred as a “landless band”.