Postwar prosperity and international engagement

Between 1945 and 1970 Canada drew closer to the United States and other trading partners and enjoyed one of the strongest economies among industrialised nations. Like Australia and New Zealand, Canada gradually developed its autonomy and made significant contributions internationally.

United Nations (UN) — Canada is a founding member and a leading peacekeeping nation.
Korean War (1950–53) — Canada took part in the UN operation defending South Korea: 500 dead, 1,000 wounded.
NATO — North Atlantic Treaty Organization, a military alliance of Western democracies created during the Cold War.
NORAD — North American Aerospace Defence Command, a joint Canada-U.S. command.
The Commonwealth — Canada is a leading member, with the King as Head of the Commonwealth.
La Francophonie — international association of French-speaking nations co-founded by Canada in 1970.
G7 — Canada is one of the seven major advanced economies.

Canada and Quebec — Quiet Revolution and Official Languages

French-Canadian society and culture flourished after the war. The 1960s in Quebec are known as the Quiet Revolution — an era of rapid social and political change. Many Quebecers sought to separate from Canada.

1963 — Parliament establishes the Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism.
1969 — the Official Languages Act guarantees French and English federal services across Canada.
1970 — Canada helps found La Francophonie, the international association of French-speaking countries.
1980 — Quebec sovereignty defeated in a provincial referendum.
1982 — the Constitution is amended without Quebec's agreement.
1995 — sovereignty defeated in a second referendum.

1982 — Patriating the Constitution and the Charter

In 1982 the Constitution of Canada was patriated — final authority over Canada's Constitution moved from Britain to Canada. Queen Elizabeth II proclaimed the amended Constitution in Ottawa.

A changing society — votes, refugees and multiculturalism

1948 — Japanese-Canadians, the last group of Asian-Canadians denied the vote, gain the right to vote.
1960 — Aboriginal peoples are granted the right to vote.
Today — every citizen 18 and over may vote.
1956 — Canada welcomed about 37,000 Hungarians fleeing Soviet tyranny.
1975 — after the Communist victory in Vietnam, over 50,000 Vietnamese sought refuge in Canada.
By the 1960s — one-third of Canadians had origins that were neither British nor French; multiculturalism became central to Canadian identity.

Arts and culture

Group of Seven (founded 1920) — landscape painters who captured Canada's rugged wilderness; their members included Tom Thomson (associate) and Lawren Harris.
Emily Carr — painted the forests and Aboriginal artifacts of the West Coast.
Les Automatistes — Quebec pioneers of modern abstract art in the 1950s, notably Jean-Paul Riopelle.
Louis-Philippe Hébert — Quebec sculptor of historical figures.
Kenojuak Ashevak — pioneered modern Inuit art with prints and soapstone sculptures.
Writers — Stephen Leacock, Louis Hémon, Robertson Davies, Margaret Laurence, Mordecai Richler, Michael Ondaatje, Rohinton Mistry.
Filmmakers — Denys Arcand, Norman Jewison, Atom Egoyan.

Great Canadian discoveries and inventions

Alexander Graham Bell — invented the telephone at his summer house in Canada.
Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best (with Macleod and Collip) — discovered insulin in 1922 at the University of Toronto, saving millions of lives worldwide. Banting won the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1923.
Sir Sandford Fleming — invented the worldwide system of standard time zones.
Joseph-Armand Bombardier — invented the snowmobile.
Reginald Fessenden — contributed to the invention of radio and sent the first wireless voice message in the world.
Matthew Evans and Henry Woodward — invented the first electric light bulb and sold the patent to Thomas Edison.
Dr. Wilder Penfield — pioneering brain surgeon at McGill University in Montreal, "the greatest living Canadian".
Dr. John A. Hopps — invented the first cardiac pacemaker.
SPAR Aerospace / National Research Council — created the Canadarm, a robotic arm used on the U.S. Space Shuttle and the International Space Station.
Mike Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie (Research In Motion, RIM) — invented the BlackBerry smartphone.
James Naismith — invented basketball in 1891.

Canadian sports heroes

Wayne Gretzky — "The Great One", widely regarded as the greatest Canadian hockey player of all time.
Donovan Bailey — in 1996 set the world record in the 100 m sprint and won double Olympic gold at the Atlanta Summer Games.
Chantal Petitclerc — world champion wheelchair racer and Paralympic gold medallist.
Terry Fox — after losing a leg to cancer he launched the Marathon of Hope in 1980 to raise money for cancer research; ran across much of Canada before the disease forced him to stop.
Rick Hansen — circled the globe in a wheelchair (the Man in Motion World Tour) to raise funds for spinal-cord injury research.
Phil Edwards — track athlete, won bronze for Canada at three Olympic Games.

Geography honoured in names

Mount Logan, in the Yukon, is the highest mountain in Canada. It is named after Sir William Logan, a world-famous geologist born in Montreal in 1798 who founded and directed the Geological Survey of Canada from 1842 to 1869 — considered one of Canada's greatest scientists.

Mobility rights

Under the Charter's mobility rights, Canadian citizens can live and work anywhere they choose in Canada, enter and leave the country freely without time restrictions, and apply for a Canadian passport. These rights are reserved for citizens — non-citizens do not enjoy the same freedom of movement.

Modern Canada