47 Fun Facts About Canada Day

Which monarch was on the throne when Canada came into being on July 1, 1867?

Victoria had been queen for 30 years. A decade earlier she had been asked to settle the squabble over a capital, and her officials made sure the choice was Ottawa.

In 1867 the Province of Canada became Quebec and which province?

Ontario and Quebec had been yoked together as one colony since 1841. Splitting it meant that three colonies went into Confederation and four provinces came out.

Which act patriated the constitution and ended the British Parliament's power to make laws for Canada?

The Canada Act, 1982 was passed in London at Canada's request and carried the new Constitution Act, proclaimed at a rainy ceremony in Ottawa that April. Quebec's premier refused to sign on.

Which Canadian team traditionally plays at home on Canada Day in red jerseys instead of its usual colours?

The Toronto Blue Jays swap blue for red each July 1. Since the Montreal Expos left for Washington in 2004 they have been the only big-league baseball club in Canada, so the whole country claims them.

In which province did a newspaper mark July 1, 1867, with a mock death notice for the old colony?

Nova Scotia's Morning Chronicle announced the death of "the free and enlightened Province", and protesters in Halifax burned the premier in effigy. That year the province's voters sent anti-Confederates to 18 of its 19 seats in Ottawa.

Dominion Day became a holiday in 1879 under which prime minister?

John A. Macdonald had won back office the year before. A first bill to make July 1 a holiday was withdrawn in 1869 after MPs objected, and the one that passed came from a British Columbia senator.

Which prime minister had the government start organizing Dominion Day events in 1958?

John Diefenbaker hoped a yearly show would renew pride in Canada's British heritage. The first one, on Parliament Hill, featured a 21-gun salute and the trooping of the colour.

Which cabinet minister, the first woman in a federal cabinet, organized the first official Dominion Day show in 1958?

Ellen Fairclough, a chartered accountant from Hamilton, had joined the cabinet a year earlier. She went on to run the immigration department, where she rewrote the rules to make them less racially exclusive.

Who cut Canada's giant centennial cake on Parliament Hill in 1967?

Queen Elizabeth II did the honours. Another centennial guest fared worse: three weeks later Charles de Gaulle cried "Vive le Québec libre" in Montreal, drew an official rebuke and went home early.

Which royal couple joined the Canada Day crowds on Parliament Hill in 2011?

Prince William and Catherine had married two months earlier and were on their first tour together. Organizers reported record-breaking crowds on the Hill that day.

The On-to-Ottawa Trek of jobless men ended in a Dominion Day riot in 1935 in which city?

Regina was where the trekkers, who had ridden freight trains from Vancouver to protest conditions in relief camps, were stopped on the prime minister's orders. When police moved in on their July 1 rally, a riot left two people dead.

Dominion Day was renamed Canada Day in 1982, during which prime minister's final term?

Pierre Trudeau was in office, yet the change was not his government's doing. It came from a Liberal backbencher's private bill, which slipped through a nearly empty Commons that July.

The first July 1 officially called Canada Day, in 1983, was also the birthday of which visiting royal?

Princess Diana turned 22 that day in Edmonton, where she and Prince Charles were guests at the World University Games. The British team held up cards spelling out "Happy Birthday Diana".

On Dominion Day 1958, engineers blew up a dam to flood a string of Ontario villages for which project?

The St. Lawrence Seaway and its power dam drowned the "Lost Villages" and uprooted some 6,500 people. About 70,000 came to watch a promised wall of water, but the flood crept in over four days.

The federal "Celebrate Canada" festivities end on Canada Day, but which national day opens them on June 21?

National Indigenous Peoples Day was set on the summer solstice because many First Nations, Inuit and Métis communities already celebrated on that date. Multiculturalism Day follows on June 27.

The Order of Canada, created on Dominion Day 1967, has three grades; which is the highest?

Companion ranks above Officer and Member. When the Order began it had no such ladder: there were only Companions and a Medal of Service, and the three grades came later.

Which railway linked the first coast-to-coast radio hookup on July 1, 1927?

CN had built a radio network in the 1920s to entertain passengers on its trains, and it linked stations from coast to coast for the Diamond Jubilee. Sold to a federal commission in 1933, it grew into the CBC.

Which governor general, the first born in Canada, spoke on Dominion Day in the CBC's first cross-country TV broadcast?

Vincent Massey spoke from Parliament Hill in 1958 on the very day a new chain of microwave relay towers went into service, carrying live television from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific for the first time.

Which pioneering MP joins two Fathers of Confederation and a First Nations senator on the 2017 Canada 150 banknote?

Agnes Macphail became the first woman elected to the House of Commons in 1921. She spent years there pressing for prison reform, and her campaign helped bring about a royal commission on the penal system.

Ottawa's main Canada Day show moved off Parliament Hill in 2022 to which riverside site beside the Canadian War Museum?

LeBreton Flats, already the home of the Bluesfest music festival each July, took over because the Centre Block of Parliament was closed for years of renovation.

Which Quebec tradition, set on July 1 by a 1970s law, keeps Montrealers busy on Canada Day?

Moving Day used to fall on May 1, when most leases ended. Quebec shifted it to July 1 so that children would not have to change schools before the year was over.

Which WWI battle began on July 1, 1916, a date one future province marks as Memorial Day?

The Somme cost the British army almost 20,000 dead on its first day. At Beaumont-Hamel one regiment sent 780 men forward, and only 68 answered roll call the next morning.

What did Chinese-Canadians call July 1 after the 1923 Chinese Immigration Act?

Humiliation Day answered a law that shut the door on almost all Chinese immigration. People wore badges reading "Remember the Humiliation" and boycotted the July 1 festivities until the act was repealed in 1947.

Which aerobatic team traditionally performs a flyover at the Parliament Hill show?

The Snowbirds got their name in 1971 from a contest among elementary school children at their base in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan. The air force team still flies from there.

Which federal department organizes the Parliament Hill Canada Day shows?

Canadian Heritage stages the noon and evening shows and helps fund local celebrations across the country. In 2022 it had to move the main stage off the Hill because of construction on Parliament's Centre Block.

Which Quebec holiday on June 24 competes with Canada Day for attention?

Saint-Jean-Baptiste Day is Quebec's Fête nationale. Rival or not, Ottawa counts it among the four national days that its Celebrate Canada fund supports, one week before July 1.

Which London square, overlooked by Canada House, has hosted a big Canada Day party for expatriates?

Trafalgar Square has had Canada for a neighbour since 1925, when the country's High Commission moved into the Greek Revival building on its edge, which is why the party lands there.

Which Indigenous group planned peaceful Canada Day protests in major cities in 2021?

Idle No More asked people to gather in orange shirts instead of celebrating, after unmarked graves were found at former residential schools. The movement was begun in late 2012 by four women from Saskatchewan.

Which former Saskatchewan premier is known as the father of the medicare plan that took effect there on July 1, 1962?

Tommy Douglas had left for federal politics a year earlier, so his successor faced the doctors' strike that began the same day. In 2004 CBC viewers voted Douglas the Greatest Canadian.

Which 1931 British law gave Canada and the other Dominions legislative equality with Britain?

The Statute of Westminster put into law a 1926 declaration that Britain and its Dominions were equal in status. At Canada's own request one power stayed in London: changing the Canadian constitution.

Which centennial song had schoolchildren across the country singing behind "Pied Piper" Bobby Gimby in 1967?

Ca-na-da, with its chorus of "one little, two little, three Canadians", was the hit of the centennial. Gimby, a writer of radio jingles, had earned his Pied Piper nickname with an earlier song for Malaysia.

Which American aviator flew to Ottawa as a guest of honour at the Diamond Jubilee of Confederation in 1927?

Charles Lindbergh landed the Spirit of St. Louis in Ottawa on July 2, six weeks after crossing the Atlantic. One of the army pilots escorting him was killed when two planes collided on arrival.

Which prime minister pushed the Maple Leaf flag through Parliament against fierce opposition in 1964?

Lester Pearson wanted a flag with no colonial symbols. The debate ran for six months and ended only when the government cut it off, and the flag first flew on February 15, 1965.

How many points does the maple leaf on Canada's flag have?

11 points: the first drawings showed 13, but tests in a wind tunnel found that a leaf with fewer points blurred less when the flag was flapping.

Which historian designed the maple leaf flag adopted in 1965?

George Stanley's single-leaf design won the flag committee 14 to 0 thanks to a misjudged tactic. Conservative members backed it expecting the Liberals to vote for the prime minister's three-leaf favourite.

Which flag served as Canada's de facto national flag before 1965?

The Canadian Red Ensign was a British merchant flag with Canada's shield added. A 1945 order let it fly on federal buildings until the country chose a flag of its own, which took another 20 years.

Which king's 1921 proclamation of Canada's coat of arms is traditionally credited with making red and white the national colours?

George V's proclamation gets the credit, though it never mentions national colours in so many words. Red is said to recall the cross of Saint George and white the old royal emblem of France.

Who composed the music of "O Canada"?

Calixa Lavallée spent much of his life south of the border. The man who wrote Canada's anthem served in the Union Army during the American Civil War and died in Boston.

Whose 1908 English lyrics became the basis for the official words of "O Canada"?

Robert Stanley Weir, a Montreal judge, wrote his words for the 300th anniversary of Quebec City. Parliament has kept adjusting them: in 2018 "in all thy sons command" became "in all of us command".

What does the Order of Canada's Latin motto mean?

They desire a better country comes from the Letter to the Hebrews. In the Bible the better country is a heavenly one: the verse describes believers who felt like strangers on earth.

What shape forms the Order of Canada's insignia?

A snowflake of six points was given its final form in 1967 by Bruce Beatty. By one account he took the idea from snow falling on an Ottawa afternoon, then checked it against a scientist's catalogue of snow crystals.

Which part of Ottawa's Centre Block alone survived the 1916 fire?

The Library of Parliament was joined to the main building by a single corridor, and a clerk had its iron doors shut before the flames arrived. Everything else had to be rebuilt.

Which Parliament Hill tower's carillon first rang on Dominion Day 1927?

The Peace Tower was built as a memorial to Canadians killed in the First World War. Its bells were first played for the Diamond Jubilee, in a ceremony that radio carried across the country.

Which province hosted the first conference to consider Confederation but joined only in 1873?

Prince Edward Island hosted the Charlottetown Conference of 1864, then turned Confederation down. It joined nine years later because a railway-building spree had left the colony close to bankruptcy.

Which Father of Confederation was assassinated in 1868?

Thomas D'Arcy McGee, one of the 36 Fathers of Confederation, had been an Irish rebel in his youth. He turned against the Fenians in Canada, and a man linked to them was hanged for his murder.

Which province joined Canada as its tenth province, in 1949?

Newfoundland needed two referendums in 1948. A return to independence led the first vote, and joining Canada won the run-off with only about 52 per cent.

Which territory became Canada's third in 1999?

Nunavut means "our land" in Inuktitut. It was carved out of the Northwest Territories under a land claims agreement that gave the Inuit a territory to govern themselves.