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Names

Names of famous people

  • Jacques Cartier

    Made three voyages across the Atlantic, claiming the land for King Francis I of France between 1534 and 1542.

  • John Graves Simcoe

    A a Loyalist military officer. Led Upper Canada to move toward abolition

  • Lieutenant Governor Lord Durham

    Recommended that Upper and Lower Canada be merged and given responsible government

  • Sir Louis-Hippolyte La Fontaine, Robert Baldwin, Joseph Howe

    Worked with British governors toward responsible government

  • Sir Leonard Tilley

    An elected official and Father of Confederation from New Brunswick, suggested the term Dominion of Canada in 1864.

  • Sir John Alexander Macdonald🧑‍💼

    A Father of Confederation, became Canada’s first Prime Minister. His portrait is on the $10 bill💵.

  • Sir George-Étienne Cartier

    The key architect of Confederation from Quebec. Led Quebec into Confederation and helped negotiate the entry of the Northwest Territories, Manitoba and British Columbia into Canada.

  • Louis Riel

    A Canadian politician, a founder of the province of Manitoba, and a political leader of the Métis people.

  • Sir Wilfrid Laurier🧑‍💼

    The first French Canadian prime minister since Confederation and encouraged immigration to the West. His portrait is on the $5 bill💵.

  • Sir Arthur Currie

    A reserve officer, became Canada’s greatest soldier

  • Sir Sam Steele

    A great frontier hero, Mounted Policeman and soldier of the Queen

  • Agnes Macphail

    A farmer and teacher, became the first woman MP.

  • Donovan Bailey

    Donovan Bailey became a world record sprinter and double Olympic gold medallist🏅 in 1996 at the Olympic Summer Games

  • Chantal Petitclerc

    Became a world champion wheelchair racer and Paralympic gold medalist🏅.

  • Wayne Gretzky

    One of the greatest hockey players of all time, played for the Edmonton Oilers from 1979 to 1988

  • Terry Fox

    A British Columbian who lost his right leg to cancer at the age of 18, began a cross-country run, the “Marathon of Hope,” to raise money for cancer research.

  • Rick Hansen

    A British Columbian who circled the globe in a wheelchair to raise funds for spinal cord research

  • Gerhard Herzberg, John Polanyi, Sidney Altman, Richard E. Taylor, Michael Smith and Bertram Brockhouse

    🔬Nobel Prize-winning scientists

  • Alexander Graham Bell

    🔬Hit on the idea of the telephone at his summer house in Canada.

  • Joseph-Armand Bombardier

    🔬Invented the snowmobile, a light-weight winter vehicle

  • Sir Sandford Fleming

    🔬Invented the worldwide system of standard time zones

  • Matthew Evans and Henry Woodward

    🔬Together invented the first electric light bulb and later sold the patent to Thomas Edison who, more famously, commercialized the light bulb.

  • Reginald Fessenden

    🔬Contributed to the invention of radio, sending the first wireless voice message in the world.

  • Dr. Wilder Penfield

    🔬A pioneering brain surgeon at McGill University in Montreal, and was known as “the greatest living Canadian.”

  • Dr. John A. Hopps

    🔬Invented the first cardiac pacemaker, used today to save the lives of people with heart disorders.

  • SPAR Aerospace / National Research Council

    🔬Invented the Canadarm, a robotic arm used in outer space.

  • Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie

    🔬Founders of Research in Motion (RIM) - a wireless communications company known for its most famous invention: the BlackBerry.

  • Sir Frederick Banting of Toronto and Charles Best

    🔬Discovered insulin, a hormone to treat diabetes that has saved 16 million lives worldwide

  • Lieutenant Alexander Roberts Dunn

    Born in present-day Toronto, served in the British Army in the Charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava (1854) in the Crimean War, and was the first Canadian to be awarded the Victoria Cross🎖️.

  • Able Seaman William Hall of Horton

    Nova Scotia, whose parents were American slaves, was the first black man to be awarded the V.C.🎖️ for his role in the Siege of Lucknow during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

  • Corporal Filip Konowal

    Born in Ukraine, showed exceptional courage in the Battle of Hill 70 in 1917, and became the first member of the Canadian Corps not born in the British Empire to be awarded the V.C.🎖️

  • Billy Bishop

    Flying ace Captain. Born in Owen Sound, Ontario, earned the V.C.🎖️ in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, and was later an honorary Air Marshal of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

  • Paul Triquet

    Earned the V.C.🎖️ leading his men and a handful of tanks in the attack on Casa Berardi in Italy in 1943 during the Second World War, and was later a Brigadier.

  • Lieutenant Robert Hampton Gray

    A navy pilot born in Trail, B.C., was killed while bombing and sinking a Japanese warship in August 1945, a few days before the end of the Second World War, and was the last Canadian to receive the V.C. to date.