Grade 10: Social Studies

Constitution

Make reasoned ethical judgments about actions in the past and present, and assess appropriate ways to remember and respond (ethical judgment). Key question: What are the strengths and limitations of different forms of government?


Government, First Peoples governance, political institutions, and ideologies. Sample topics:

  • Forms of government and decision-making models (e.g., parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy, consensus, autocracy, republic, monarchy, democracy, theocracy)
  • Consensus-based governance (e.g., Nunavut) and First Peoples self-governance models (e.g., Sechelt, Nisga'a, Tsawwassen)
  • Models for classifying political and economic ideologies (e.g., linear left/right; two-dimensional, such as political compass)
  • Ideologies (e.g., socialism, communism, capitalism, fascism, liberalism, conservatism, environmentalism, libertarianism, authoritarianism, feminism)
  • Levels and branches of government:
    • local, regional, territorial, provincial, federal
    • executive, legislative, judicial


Canadian autonomy. Sample topic: Canada and Britain (e.g., World War I; Statute of Westminster; Constitution Act, 1982)


Domestic conflicts and co-operation. Sample topics:

  • Canadian constitutional issues:
    • Meech Lake Accord
    • Charlottetown Accord
    • Calgary Declaration


Charter of Rights and Freedoms

Government, First Peoples governance, political institutions, and ideologies. Sample topic: Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms


Advocacy for human rights, including findings and recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sample topics:

  • Canadian Bill of Rights and Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  • Supreme Court challenges
  • Anti-racism education and actions


Collective rights

Assess the justification for competing accounts after investigating points of contention, reliability of sources, and adequacy of evidence, including data (evidence). Key question: Whose stories are told and whose stories are missing in the narratives of Canadian history?

Sample activities:

  • Assess the coverage of significant political decisions from different media outlets.
  • Recognize implicit and explicit ethical judgments in a variety of sources.


Assess how underlying conditions and the actions of individuals or groups influence events, decisions, or developments, and analyze multiple consequences (cause and consequence). Key questions:

  • How do different political parties address historical or contemporary problems?
  • What are the causes and consequences of Canada’s multiculturalism policies?
  • To what extent do citizens influence the legislative process?


Make reasoned ethical judgments about actions in the past and present, and assess appropriate ways to remember and respond (ethical judgment). Key questions:

  • To what extent has Canada’s multiculturalism policy been successfully implemented?
  • How successful has Canada’s bilingual policy been, and to what extent is it still necessary?


Canadian autonomy. Sample topic: Canada (Quebec sovereignty movements)


Canadian identities. Sample topics:

  • Francophone identities (e.g., Franco-Ontarian, Acadian, Quebecois, Métis, bilingual)
  • Immigration and multiculturalism:
    • immigration and refugee policies and practices
    • bilingualism and biculturalism (Official Languages Act)
    • multiculturalism policy (Canadian Multiculturalism Act)
    • cultural identities of subsequent generations (e.g., second-generation Japanese Canadian versus Canadian of Japanese descent versus Canadian)


Discriminatory policies and injustices in Canada and the world, including residential schools, the head tax, the Komagata Maru incident, and internments. Sample topics:

  • National or ethnic discrimination:
    • Chinese Immigration Act
    • World War I internments (e.g., nationals of German, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires, including ethnic Ukrainians)
    • Denial of Jewish immigrants in interwar years
    • World War II internments (e.g., Japanese, Italian, German)
    • Africville


Advocacy for human rights, including findings and recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sample topics:

  • Supreme Court challenges
  • International declarations (e.g., UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child; UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)
  • Anti-racism education and actions
  • Other protest and advocacy movements (e.g., Pride, women’s liberation, inclusion)
  • Redress movements for historic wrongs (e.g., Japanese-Canadian Legacy Project, Truth and Reconciliation)
  • Federal and provincial apologies (e.g., apology for Chinese Head Tax and Chinese Exclusion Act; Chinese Historical Wrongs Consultation Final Report and Recommendations regarding head tax and discriminatory treatment of Chinese immigrants; apologies for internments, residential schools, Komagata Maru)


Domestic conflicts and co-operation. Sample topics:

  • Quebec sovereignty:
    • Quiet Revolution
    • October Crisis
    • Parti Québécois
    • Bloc Québécois
    • Bill 101
    • 1980 and 1995 referenda


Federal/Provincial relations

Domestic conflicts and co-operation. Sample topics:

  • Quebec sovereignty:
    • Quiet Revolution
    • October Crisis
    • Parti Québécois
    • Bloc Québécois
    • Bill 101
    • 1980 and 1995 referenda


Indigenous rights

Assess how underlying conditions and the actions of individuals or groups influence events, decisions, or developments, and analyze multiple consequences (cause and consequence). Key questions:

  • To what extent have First Peoples influenced the development of economic and political policy in Canada?
  • How do humans’ relationships with land impact political and economic ideologies?
  • How do different political parties address historical or contemporary problems?
  • To what extent do citizens influence the legislative process?


Make reasoned ethical judgments about actions in the past and present, and assess appropriate ways to remember and respond (ethical judgment). Key question: What are the strengths and limitations of the Indian Act for First Peoples?


Government, First Peoples governance, political institutions, and ideologies. Sample topics:

  • Forms of government and decision-making models (e.g., parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy, consensus, autocracy, republic, monarchy, democracy, theocracy)
  • Consensus-based governance (e.g., Nunavut) and First Peoples self-governance models (e.g., Sechelt, Nisga'a, Tsawwassen)
  • Indian Act:
    • Crown- and federal government–imposed governance structures on First Peoples communities (e.g., band councils)


Canadian identities. Sample topic: First Peoples identities (e.g., status, non-status, First Nations, Métis, Inuit)


Discriminatory policies and injustices in Canada and the world, including residential schools, the head tax, the Komagata Maru incident, and internments. Sample topic:

  • National or ethnic discrimination:
    • Indian Act (e.g., residential schools, voting rights, reserves and pass system, Sixties Scoop, and the White Paper)


Advocacy for human rights, including findings and recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sample topics:

  • Truth and Reconciliation Commission report and calls to action (e.g., access to elders and First Peoples healing practices for First Peoples patients; appropriate commemoration ceremonies and burial markers for children who died at residential schools)
  • Supreme Court challenges
  • International declarations (e.g., UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child; UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples)
  • Anti-racism education and actions
  • First Peoples protest and advocacy movements (e.g., National Indian Brotherhood, Oka Crisis, Idle No More)
  • Other protest and advocacy movements (e.g., Pride, women’s liberation, inclusion)
  • Redress movements for historic wrongs (e.g., Japanese-Canadian Legacy Project, Truth and Reconciliation)
  • Federal and provincial apologies (e.g., apology for Chinese Head Tax and Chinese Exclusion Act; Chinese Historical Wrongs Consultation Final Report and Recommendations regarding head tax and discriminatory treatment of Chinese immigrants; apologies for internments, residential schools, Komagata Maru)


Domestic conflicts and co-operation. Sample topics:

  • First Peoples actions:
    • involvement in Meech Lake Accord
    • Oka Crisis, Gustafsen Lake Standoff, Ipperwash Crisis, Shannon’s Dream (Attawapiskat)
    • Idle No More
  • National and regional First Peoples organizations:
    • National Indian Brotherhood
    • Assembly of First Nations


Treaty rights

Compare and contrast continuities and changes for different groups at particular times and places (continuity and change). Key question: How has the Canadian government’s relationship with First Peoples regarding treaties and land use changed or stayed the same?


Government, First Peoples governance, political institutions, and ideologies. Sample topics:

  • Indian Act:
    • title, treaties, and land claims (e.g., Nisga'a Treaty, Haida Gwaii Strategic Land Use Decision, Tsilhqot'in decision)


Canadian autonomy. Sample topic: Canada (treaties with First Peoples)


Individual rights

Assess how underlying conditions and the actions of individuals or groups influence events, decisions, or developments, and analyze multiple consequences (cause and consequence). Key questions:

  • How do different political parties address historical or contemporary problems?
  • What are the causes and consequences of Canada’s multiculturalism policies?
  • To what extent do citizens influence the legislative process?


Canadian identities. Sample topic:

  • Immigration and multiculturalism:
    • immigration and refugee policies and practices
    • multiculturalism policy (Canadian Multiculturalism Act)
    • cultural identities of subsequent generations (e.g., second-generation Japanese Canadian versus Canadian of Japanese descent versus Canadian)


Discriminatory policies and injustices in Canada and the world, including residential schools, the head tax, the Komagata Maru incident, and internments. Sample topics:

  • Political discrimination:
    • Persecution, detention, and expulsion of suspected agitators
  • Discrimination on intellectual and physical grounds:
    • Employment and inclusion rights
    • Institutionalization
    • Forced sterilizations


Senate

Make reasoned ethical judgments about actions in the past and present, and assess appropriate ways to remember and respond (ethical judgment). Key questions:

  • What are the strengths and limitations of different forms of government?
  • Should the Canadian Senate be abolished, reformed, replaced, or maintained?


Government, First Peoples governance, political institutions, and ideologies. Sample topics:

  • Forms of government and decision-making models (e.g., parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy, consensus, autocracy, republic, monarchy, democracy, theocracy)
  • Levels and branches of government:
    • local, regional, territorial, provincial, federal
    • executive, legislative, judicial


Electoral reform

Make reasoned ethical judgments about actions in the past and present, and assess appropriate ways to remember and respond (ethical judgment). Key question: Should the electoral system in Canada be reformed?


Government, First Peoples governance, political institutions, and ideologies. Sample topics:

  • Forms of government and decision-making models (e.g., parliamentary democracy, constitutional monarchy, consensus, autocracy, republic, monarchy, democracy, theocracy)
  • Consensus-based governance (e.g., Nunavut) and First Peoples self-governance models (e.g., Sechelt, Nisga'a, Tsawwassen)
  • Models for classifying political and economic ideologies (e.g., linear left/right; two-dimensional, such as political compass)
  • Ideologies (e.g., socialism, communism, capitalism, fascism, liberalism, conservatism, environmentalism, libertarianism, authoritarianism, feminism)
  • Levels and branches of government:
    • local, regional, territorial, provincial, federal
    • executive, legislative, judicial
  • Indian Act:
    • Crown- and federal government–imposed governance structures on First Peoples communities (e.g., band councils)
    • title, treaties, and land claims (e.g., Nisga'a Treaty, Haida Gwaii Strategic Land Use Decision, Tsilhqot'in decision)
  • Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  • Elections and electoral systems:
    • election campaigns
    • minority and majority governments
    • proposals for electoral reform and alternative election systems


Women's rights

Discriminatory policies and injustices in Canada and the world, including residential schools, the head tax, the Komagata Maru incident, and internments. Sample topics:

  • Women’s rights:
    • women’s suffrage, the Persons Case
    • The Royal Commission on the Status of Women (RCSW)
    • Contraceptives and abortion
    • Sexism


Advocacy for human rights, including findings and recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sample topic:

  • Protest and advocacy movements (e.g., Pride, women’s liberation, inclusion)


LGBTQ rights

Discriminatory policies and injustices in Canada and the world, including residential schools, the head tax, the Komagata Maru incident, and internments. Sample topics:

  • LGBT2Q+:
    • same-sex marriage
    • Decriminalization of homosexuality
    • LGBT2Q+ civil liberties
    • Sexism


Advocacy for human rights, including findings and recommendations of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Sample topic:

  • Protest and advocacy movements (e.g., Pride, women’s liberation, inclusion)