Canadian Citizenship Test: Economy practice questions

Use stable structure, not a year's statistics: the currency is the Canadian dollar, the Bank of Canada is the central bank, and services, manufacturing and natural resources are the three broad parts of the economy. A large share of trade is with the United States; ignore any option that quotes a changing percentage.

Question 1

Canada's unit of currency is the

  1. Canadian dollar
  2. Canadian pound
  3. euro
  4. United States dollar, as the only legal tender

Answer: Canadian dollar

The currency is the Canadian dollar. The pound is a historical or foreign unit, the euro is the currency of the euro area, and United States dollars are not Canada's legal tender. Coins are produced by the Royal Canadian Mint; notes are issued through the Bank of Canada.

Question 2

Forestry, mining, oil and gas, and farming sit in which broad part of the economy?

  1. services such as banking and teaching
  2. natural resources
  3. only the work of the Senate
  4. municipal property tax

Answer: natural resources

Those industries are natural resources, one of the three broad parts of the economy alongside services and manufacturing. Banking and teaching are services. The Senate does not operate the forests and mines, and property tax is local revenue, not an industry.

Question 3

A large and long-standing share of Canada's merchandise trade is with

  1. Antarctica
  2. only the provinces, with no foreign customers
  3. the United States
  4. only countries that share Canada's monarch, and with no one else

Answer: the United States

The United States is Canada's main trading partner by a wide margin, which is a structural fact of the economy rather than a single year's budget figure. Antarctica is not a trading state. Provinces trade inside the country and firms also export. Trade is not limited to Commonwealth realms: Canada sells to many countries, with the United States first among them.