When was the Canadian Pacific Railway completed?

Discover Canada records this date with a single, vivid sentence. The guide writes: On November 7, 1885, a powerful symbol of unity was completed when Donald Smith (Lord Strathcona), the Scottish-born director of the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), drove the last spike. The date the test wants is therefore November 7, 1885.

The political backstory is part of the same passage. Discover Canada says: "British Columbia joined Canada in 1871 after Ottawa promised to build a railway to the West Coast." So the CPR was not just a technical project — it was the literal fulfilment of a federal promise made fourteen years earlier, the price of British Columbia's entry into Confederation in 1871.

The construction of the CPR is also where Discover Canada introduces the story of Chinese labour in Canada. The guide writes: "The project was financed by British and American investors and built by both European and Chinese labour. Afterwards the Chinese were subject to discrimination, including the Head Tax, a race-based entry fee. The Government of Canada apologized in 2006 for this discriminatory policy." So the date November 7, 1885 sits at the centre of two threads: the building of national unity, and an episode of discrimination the guide describes openly.

The closing line of the passage is one of the most quoted in Discover Canada: "After many years of heroic work, the CPR's 'ribbons of steel' fulfilled a national dream." The phrase "ribbons of steel" is the guide's own — and the dream was the dream of a country that, in Sir Leonard Tilley's Bible-inspired phrase, would have "dominion from sea to sea."

The question is testing whether new citizens have remembered an exact, specific date — month, day and year — from Discover Canada's account of national-building. The guide commits to November 7, 1885, attached to a named person (Donald Smith, also called Lord Strathcona) and a named act (driving the last spike).

The wrong answer choices each test the reader. July 1, 1867 is the date of Confederation itself — important, but a different event. Other dates in the early 1890s and 1900 do not appear in Discover Canada's description of the CPR. The completion is firmly tied to one autumn day in 1885.