<P> In addition to the issues of Quebec sovereignty, a number of crises shook Canadian society in the late 1980s and early 1990s . These included the explosion of Air India Flight 182 in 1985, the largest mass murder in Canadian history; the École Polytechnique massacre in 1989, a university shooting targeting female students; and the Oka Crisis of 1990, the first of a number of violent confrontations between the government and indigenous groups . Canada also joined the Gulf War in 1990 as part of a US - led coalition force and was active in several peacekeeping missions in the 1990s, including the UNPROFOR mission in the former Yugoslavia . </P> <P> Canada sent troops to Afghanistan in 2001, but declined to join the U.S. - led invasion of Iraq in 2003 . In 2011, Canadian forces participated in the NATO - led intervention into the Libyan Civil War, and also became involved in battling the Islamic State insurgency in Iraq in the mid-2010s . </P> <P> Canada occupies much of the continent of North America, sharing land borders with the contiguous United States to the south, and the US state of Alaska to the northwest . Canada stretches from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west; to the north lies the Arctic Ocean . Greenland is to the northeast and to the southeast Canada shares a maritime boundary with the Republic of France's overseas collectivity of Saint Pierre and Miquelon, the last vestige of New France . By total area (including its waters), Canada is the second - largest country in the world, after Russia . By land area alone, however, Canada ranks fourth, the difference being due to it having the world's largest proportion of fresh water lakes . </P> <P> Canada is home to the world's northernmost settlement, Canadian Forces Station Alert, on the northern tip of Ellesmere Island--latitude 82.5 ° N--which lies 817 kilometres (508 mi) from the North Pole . Much of the Canadian Arctic is covered by ice and permafrost . Canada has the longest coastline in the world, with a total length of 243,042 kilometres (151,019 mi); additionally, its border with the United States is the world's longest land border, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi). </P>

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