when did canada become independent of the british empire
History of Canada In 1981, the Canadian House of Commons and Senate passed a resolution requesting that the British Parliament enact a package of constitutional amendments which would end the last powers of the British Parliament to legislate for Canada and would create an entirely Canadian process for constitutional amendments. The resolution set out the text of the proposed Canada Act, which also included the text of the Constitution Act, 1982.[220] The British Parliament duly passed the Canada Act 1982, the Queen granting Royal Assent on March 29, 1982, 115 years to the day since Queen Victoria granted Royal Assent to the Constitution Act, 1867. On April 17, 1982, the Queen signed the Proclamation on the grounds of Parliament Hill in Ottawa bringing the Constitution Act, 1982 into force, thus patriating the Constitution of Canada.[221] Previously, the main portions of the constitution had existed only as an act passed of the British parliament, though under the terms of the Statute of Westminster, it could not be altered without Canadian consent.[222] Canada had established complete sovereignty as an independent country, with the Queen's role as monarch of Canada separate from her role as the British monarch or the monarch of any of the other Commonwealth realms.[223]
Indian independence movement On 3 June 1947, Viscount Louis Mountbatten, the last British Governor-General of India, announced the partitioning of British India into India and Pakistan. With the speedy passage through the British Parliament of the Indian Independence Act 1947, at 11:57 on 14 August 1947 Pakistan was declared a separate nation, and at 12:02, just after midnight, on 15 August 1947, India also became a sovereign and democratic nation. Eventually, 15 August became the Independence Day for India, due to the ending of British rule over India. On that 15 August, both Pakistan and India had the right to remain in or remove themselves from the British Commonwealth. In 1949, India decided to remain in the commonwealth.
British Empire Though Britain and the empire emerged victorious from the Second World War, the effects of the conflict were profound, both at home and abroad. Much of Europe, a continent that had dominated the world for several centuries, was in ruins, and host to the armies of the United States and the Soviet Union, who now held the balance of global power.[179] Britain was left essentially bankrupt, with insolvency only averted in 1946 after the negotiation of a $US 4.33Â billion loan from the United States,[180] the last instalment of which was repaid in 2006.[181] At the same time, anti-colonial movements were on the rise in the colonies of European nations. The situation was complicated further by the increasing Cold War rivalry of the United States and the Soviet Union. In principle, both nations were opposed to European colonialism. In practice, however, American anti-communism prevailed over anti-imperialism, and therefore the United States supported the continued existence of the British Empire to keep Communist expansion in check.[182] The "wind of change" ultimately meant that the British Empire's days were numbered, and on the whole, Britain adopted a policy of peaceful disengagement from its colonies once stable, non-Communist governments were available to transfer power to. This was in contrast to other European powers such as France and Portugal,[183] which waged costly and ultimately unsuccessful wars to keep their empires intact. Between 1945 and 1965, the number of people under British rule outside the UK itself fell from 700 million to five million, three million of whom were in Hong Kong.[184]
British America British America gained large amounts of new territory following the Treaty of Paris (1763) which ended British involvement in the Seven Years' War. At the start of the American War of Independence in 1775, the British Empire included twenty colonies north and east of New Spain (present-day areas of Mexico and the Western United States). East and West Florida were ceded to Spain in the Treaty of Paris (1783) which ended the American Revolution, and then ceded by Spain to the United States in 1819. The remaining continental colonies of British North America formed the Dominion of Canada by uniting between 1867 and 1873. The Dominion of Newfoundland joined Canada in 1949.