Talk:Manitoba

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Good article Manitoba was a nominee for good article, but did not meet the good article criteria at the time. There are suggestions below for improving the article. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
July 15, 2007 Good article nominee Not listed
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Manitoba
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To-do list for Manitoba: edit · history · watch · refresh

✔ I am hoping to do a better job on the Winnipeg Flood of 1950. Does anyone have pictures available to make the section a little more encompassing? jdobbin 23:00, 21 April 2006 (UTC) N Not done

✔ * I just had occasion to refer to the article Geography of Manitoba. While parts of it are well done, section # 3. "Landscape past and present" needs work. I worked on the 1st paragraph a bit but the whole section needs to be rethought to be more geographic and inclusive of the whole province. Any geography buffs reading this; take a look. If you have a minute, please check the section in question. Thanks in advance! --Stormbay 02:45, 8 May 2007 (UTC) Y Done

✔ Somehow, Manitoba is a featured article in the Spanish Wikipedia. Could someone who speaks spanish, or at least understands it come and improve this article using information from the Spanish Wikipedia? Thanks! GrooveDog 14:28, 24 June 2007 (UTC) N Not done

✔ Reference and cite facts Doing...

  • 1 Geography Y Done
  • 2 History N Not done
  • 3 Government N Not done
  • 4 Official language N Not done
  • 5 Demographics Y Done
  • 6 Economy N Not done
  • 7 Transportation N Not done
  • 8 Military Y Done
  • 9 Sports Teams Y Done
  • 10 Map Y Done
Other languages WikiProject Echo has identified Manitoba as a foreign language featured article. You may be able to improve this article with information from the Spanish language Wikipedia.

Contents

[edit] Miscellaneous

An event mentioned in this article is a May 12 selected anniversary

Of all the articles on the Canadian Provinces and the US States, this one is by far the least comprehensive. People, please contribute to this article. Compare the articles on Ontario and Alberta. Winnipeg had the First real Estate board in Canada. When they dug the Red River Floodway they moved more earth then when they made the Suez canal.

I am writing contributions in several areas. The latest is on the economy of Manitoba. I think the article could use more pictures. Can anyone help in that area? jdobbin 16:39, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Official language

Is the official language of Manitoba only English? This page and this page seem to suggest French is also an official language. And St. Boniface has a specific law stating that French is an official language there. Perhaps the Manitoba article should read like the Ontario article: "English, French (in some areas)". Qutezuce 08:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC) Hello.:) I confirm that French is also an official language in Manitoba, Canada. here is the link to a an offical web page. http://www.ocol-clo.gc.ca/archives/articles/2005/anniversary_mb_sk_anniversaire_e.htm

That is a Canadian federal government page—English and French are equal official languages of Canada. That page also outlines some history of French in Manitoba. I believe that French is not a full-blown official language of the province, but that Manitobans have a right to receive provincial government services and education in French. —Michael Z. 2005-12-27 22:26 Z
Does Manitoba have language lesgislation? If not, the term "official language" is misleading. The official languages of Canada are English and French. Fishhead64 16:03, 7 March 2006 (UTC)
Legally, French is an official language according to section 23 of the Manitoba Act, 1870 (which is part of the Canadian constitution by virtue of virtue of the schedule to the Constitution Act 1982). This section states that:
Either the English or the French language may be used by any person in the debates of the Houses of the Legislature and both those languages shall be used in the respective Records and Journals of those Houses; and either of those languages may be used by any person, or in any Pleading or Process, in or issuing from any Court of Canada established under the Constitution Act, 1867, or in or from all or any of the Courts of the Province, The Acts of the Legislature shall be Printed and published in both those languages.
Here is my understanding: the Manitoba Act 1870 provides that French is an official language; beginning around 1890, the Manitoba legislature sought to remove the official status of French (due to a majority English population, and ethnic/cultural/religious conflict between anglophones/francophones and Protestants/Catholics), by ceasing publication of legislation in French and several similar measures, arguably in violation of this section of the Manitoba Act; in 1985, the Supreme Court of Canada found that any law and practice of the Manitoban legislature which violated s. 23 was invalid. So, I would submit that French is an official language of Manitoba, in spite of long-standing efforts of the Manitoba to abolish this official status. I think the statement that French is not an official language in the infobox should be removed, or at least qualified with a statement which better reflects the complex and disputed political/legal issues involved. --SJK 12:17, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

I have edited the article in accord with the above. Having read some of the judgements of the Supreme Court of Canada on this matter, the Canadian constitution requires French to be an official language of Manitoba for legislative and judicial purposes, but not executive purposes. So, one cannot really say there is any single official language(s) of Manitoba, but rather different sets of official languages for different purposes. So I changed the infobox to that French is an official language of Manitoba's legislature and courts.--SJK 12:56, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

It seems you've done some serious research in this area. There is also the matter of St. Boniface. On this page for The City of Winnipeg Charter Act it says:
The city shall provide an office in historic St. Boniface where the municipal services prescribed by by-law under subsection 460(1) (by-law for implementation) for the purposes of this subsection are provided in both official languages.
So it appears St. Boniface has special consideration in this matter that should probably also be mentioned. Qutezuce 23:05, 21 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Section Twenty-one of the Canadian Charter

I found this in the Canadian Charter article, and I think it is relevant to end this argument once and for all. Many articles on bilingualism state that both Manitoba and NB are bilingual, yet some say only NB is.

The Manitoba Act, which created the province of Manitoba in 1870 and is considered part of the Constitution of Canada, contains similar language rights. Section 23 of that Act states that everyone may speak in English or French in the legislature and in Manitoba courts, and that the records of the legislature must be kept in both languages. These rights, too, are not duplicated by the Charter but are reaffirmed by section 21 of the Charter.

This is the actual words:

21. Nothing in sections 16 to 20 abrogates or derogates from any right, privilege or obligation with respect to the English and French languages, or either of them, that exists or is continued by virtue of any other provision of the Constitution of Canada.

And this is another clarification of the purpose of the section:

Thus, section 21 clarifies that language rights regarding English and French in the Constitution of Canada, outside the Charter, remain valid and are not limited by the language rights within the Charter. --- Disinclination 00:29, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Name

More can be edited or mentioned about what the name means. Manitou, abah, means "where the Great Spirit sits"

I was under the impression that it meant "the god that speaks", which is what some Louis Riel books mention. Dan Carkner 17:14, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
Yes, but Riel was Metis, and subsequently, Roman Catholic. Manitoba's came from Aboriginal languages, which were not connected with Catholicism. Aboriginals had their own religion, which is why it means Great Spirit, which Riel most likely interpretated as their highest God, or something similar. It is mentioned in the article where Manitoba's name may have come from. Disinclination 21:02, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
OK, but I was under the impression that it was Métis who named Manitoba. (They spoke Cree as well.)Dan Carkner 03:18, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
Ah, they did? Well, I stand corrected. However, the definition still stands as Great Spirit, rather than God. Disinclination 04:16, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Water area

Statscan's figures are different from the province's. The other number and 17% figure came from Manitoba conservation—fisheries [1]. For sake of comparison with other provinces, the Statscan figure (which site cites Natural Resources Canada) should be retained, but I'd be curious to see how the two different values were derived—strangely, the province's area of "lakes" is larger than the federal government's area of "freshwater". —Michael Z. 2006-01-23 20:36 Z

Sorry, I had no idea there was a dispute for the figures. Thanks for finding out what the convention was. jdobbin 21:47, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
No problem. But you should be careful in copying information from websites, it looks like you copied the sentence verbatim, which you can't do because that text wasn't under the GFDL. Qutezuce 23:09, 23 January 2006 (UTC)
Weird. I didn't see the sentence. I took the information down from the provincial tables. jdobbin 23:35, 23 January 2006 (UTC)

No dispute—merely a discrepancy between two sources; I imagine they simply use different data or or a different methodology in deriving these figures. Like I said, the federal government figure is probably the one to use in the general context, particularly in comparisons with other provinces. —Michael Z. 2006-01-24 01:02 Z

The article states, "...contains the tenth-largest fresh water lake in the world[3], Lake Winnipeg..."; however, here on Wikipedia's List_of_lakes_by_area, Lake Winnipeg clocks in at number 11. I'm not a specialist on lake sizes (heh), but it seems to me that consistency either way would be nice. phrawzty 15:27, 10 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Mennonites in Manitoba

Who know something more about Mennonites and German settlements in Manitoba? Gruß, Simon.

[edit] This seems a bit of a gloss

Negotiations between the provisional government and the Canadian government resulted in the creation of the province of Manitoba and its entry into Confederation in 1870. Originally the province was only 1/18 of its current size and square in shape - it was known as the "postage stamp province." It grew progressively, absorbing land from the Northwest Territories until it attained its current size by reaching 60°N in 1912.

I'm not a Manitoban, but I know that's an oversimplification and leaves out some crucial details, such as that all Manitoban legislation had to be ratified by the federal government for many years, to prevent any risk of secession or restive political behaviour; Manitoba was a proxy-province of the federal government (I'm trying to think - it might have been Ontario that had the right to veto Manitoban laws; have to find that book again....). The other point that struck me is that the new province was deliberately kept small to keep it from being powerful; if it had been on the scale that Riel had imagined (and the prov govt) had wanted, it would have stretched to the Rockies; essentially the whole of the Northwest Territories west of Nipigon was the idea. A dispute during Manitoba's expansion with Ontario saw the Lakehead-Kenora tossed to Ontario, which bullied the smaller province over the issue in a dispute known as the Rat Portage War (just a verbal war). Needless to say, a larger Manitoba with more resources and a Great Lakes port would have been a very different component in Confederation; and the Prairies, if not limited by Central Canadian restrictions on industrial growth and the type of settlement allowed, would have been one province on the same scale and population as Ontario or Quebec are now. And we can't have that, can we? So three provinces, ultimately, all kept on a leash and economically restricted; Alberta was lucky about that oil thing; but it was meant to be as emasculated as baby-size Manitoba; the whole place, though, could have been called Saskatchewan (from Saskatchewan Territory). This all may sound POV but I'll find the book(s) I learned this from and come back with cites....Skookum1 08:14, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

that is interesting, you should try to find sources about that for sure. Dan Carkner 14:23, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The legal status of logos

I am writing because I'm trying to determine the legal status of Manitoba's various logos. I'm especially interested in the stylized bison logo and the wordmark. This is because these symbols are used in highway shields, and I'm planning on uploading graphics of the shields for use in Manitoba highway articles and with the Interstate 29 article, which links to Manitoba highways at the international border. Before I proceed, though, I need to determine how the logos are legally handled. If they are copyrights, I will use an appropriate low-res image and a fair use tag. Otherwise, I can proceed with an SVG graphic. The point is, I need to know before I can proceed. Any information on the matter would be greatly appreciated.--WhosAsking 23:35, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

  • Upon further research on the matter, I'm inclined to believe the logos are protected. Therefore, I will proceed under Fair Use restrictions. —WhosAsking 15:25, 15 August 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little late here, but see Wikipedia:Copyrights for general discussion, Wikipedia:Logos for more specific guidelines. You may find the following copyright tags useful for image pages:

  • template:Logo
  • template:Symbol
  • template:Seal
  • template:Wayfinding

 —Michael Z. 2006-12-15 01:38 Z

[edit] 101 provinces?

Since when does Canada have 101 provinces? Disinclination 23:22, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Official languages

Currently, page claims EN and FR. Isn't is that the only officially bilingual province is NB? elpincha 15:05, 30 January 2007 (UTC)

This is right. Officially, the only bilingual province is New Brunswick. Quebec is French and the other provinces are English. How does 4% of native French speakers makes French a "de facto" language in Manitoba? German speakers are 3% of the population, should German be another "de facto" language? --74.13.201.191 01:43, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

A commonly repeated claim here in Canada is that NB is the only officially bilingual province. I assume that means it has specific laws on the provicial books, where other provinces do not. It would have nothing to do with federal language laws. A question: Why does the article quote at such length from the Morton book about the general strike if, as is stated immediately following the quote, there are other histories that are "considerably better"? Inkwell7 16:11, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Forest

Two issues here - arborvitae? As someone with a botany background and experience with Forest in Manitoba, I have never heard of cedar refered to as arborvitae, only as eastern white cedar. I'm not contesting the term itself, but applying the term to an area where it is not used seems silly. Secondly, there is VERY little cedar growing in Manitoba, and nearly all of it confined to the lower southwest and possibly riding mountain park area. It certainly does not constitute a significant part of the native vegetation, and should be noted as such. I will make this change, unless someone else has something to add about this. Halogenated 01:47, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] GA On Hold

This article is currently on hold for the following reasons:

  • According to WP:MOS the lead for and article of this size should be longer and heading should not repeat the title of the article.
  • I would suggest removing the "Manitoba in fiction" section and incorporate any useful infomation into the articles body, as it sounds like a trivia section.
  • For an article of this size I would recommended at least 2 citations for each section (1 for smaller sections) to make the article more verifiable.

Hope this help. If you disagree with any of these comments feel free to take it to WP:GA/R. Tarret 20:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Failed

It's past the 7-day maximum hold period, and some concerns by the original reviewer have not been addressed. Citations are still lacking for an article of this length, and the lead is still too short. Carson 04:52, 15 July 2007 (UTC)