Country Profile Canada Ireland

Country Profile: Canada

Canada is the second largest country in the world after Russia. Its population is only about one-fifth of Russia's however.
Nearly 90% of Canadians live within 200 km of the border with the United States, which means that Canada contains vast expanses of wilderness to the north
After the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, the challenge of securing the 9,000-km Canada-US border from possible terrorist infiltration prompted both countries to look at ways of sharing information.
Immigration has helped to make Canada one of the world's richest nations, and the country is largely free of racial tension.
Canada's indigenous peoples make up less than two per cent of the population.
Separatist aspirations in the predominantly French-speaking province of Quebec are a major domestic issue.

A referendum in 1995 saw advocates of an independent Quebec only narrowly defeated.

Country Profile: Ireland

Although the history of Ireland has seen troubled times, its people have always been associated with a love of music, storytelling.

For centuries British dominion to Ireland gave rise to unrest which erupted into violence with the Easter Rising of 1916 when independence was proclaimed. The rising was crushed and many of its leaders executed but the campaign carried on
.
In the early 1920s, 26 counties of Ireland gained independence from London following negotiations which led to partition. The island's other six counties, part of the province of Ulster, remained in the United Kingdom.

Since joining to the European Community in 1973, The Republic of Ireland has accelerated its growth from a largely agricultural society into a modern, technologically ? advanced economy.