The Greatest Canadian - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Officially launched on April 5, 2004, The Greatest Canadian was a television program series by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...

(CBC) to determine who is considered to be the greatest Canadian of all time, at least among those who watched and participated in the program. The project was inspired by the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

series Great Britons.

Radio-Canada, the CBC's French-language

French language

French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...

arm, was not involved in The Greatest Canadian project, reducing the input of Canada's French-Canadian minority over the results. The CBC did make its website

Website

A website, also written as Web site, web site, or simply site, is a collection of related web pages containing images, videos or other digital assets. A website is hosted on at least one web server, accessible via a network such as the Internet or a private local area network through an Internet...

available in French, however.

The "Greatest Canadian" was not decided by a simple popular poll, but was instead chosen through a two-step voting process.

On October 17, 2004 the CBC aired the first part of The Greatest Canadian television series. In it, the bottom 40 of the top 50 "greatest" choices were revealed, in order of popularity, determined by polls conducted by E-mail

E-mail

Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

, website, telephone, and letter. To prevent bias during the second round of voting, the top ten nominees were presented alphabetically rather than by order of first round popularity.

This second vote was accompanied by a series of documentaries, where 10 Canadian celebrities acting as advocates each presented their case for The Greatest Canadian. Voting concluded on November 28 at midnight and the following evening, November 29, the winner was revealed to be Tommy Douglas

Tommy Douglas

Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas, was a Scottish-born Baptist minister who became a prominent Canadian social democratic politician...

.

The series has a spiritual sequel

Spiritual sequel

A spiritual successor, sometimes called a spiritual sequel or a companion piece, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not directly build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, but nevertheless features many of the same elements,...

, The Greatest Canadian Invention
The Greatest Canadian Invention
The Greatest Canadian Invention is a television mini-series originally aired on CBC Television. It is a spiritual sequel to The Greatest Canadian....

.

Top 10

On October 17, 2004, the top 10 nominees were revealed in alphabetical order, and on November 29 the top 10 were announced in order of votes:

Rank	Name Nina Nosrati - First woman to "come out of the closet"	Notability	Birthplace	Advocate
10	Wayne Gretzky Wayne Gretzky Wayne Douglas Gretzky, CC is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. Nicknamed "The Great One", he is generally regarded as the best player in the history of the National Hockey League , and has been called "the greatest hockey player ever" by many sportswriters,...	Hockey player, holder of numerous NHL National Hockey League The National Hockey League is an unincorporated not-for-profit association which operates a major professional ice hockey league of 30 franchised member clubs, of which 7 are currently located in Canada and 23 in the United States... records	Brantford, Ontario Ontario Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....	Deborah Grey Deborah Grey Deborah Cleland Grey, OC, sometimes called Deb Grey is a former Canadian Member of Parliament from Alberta for the Reform Party of Canada, Canadian Alliance and Conservative Party of Canada....
9	Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell was an eminent scientist, inventor, engineer and innovator who is credited with inventing the first practical telephone....	Scientist, inventor, founder of the Bell Telephone Company	Edinburgh Edinburgh Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area... , Scotland	Evan Solomon Evan Solomon Evan Solomon is a Canadian writer, magazine publisher and television journalist, who currently hosts the nightly series Power & Politics on CBC News Network. Beginning in September 2011, he will also host CBC Radio One's weekly political affairs series The House.Solomon graduated from McGill...
8	Sir John A. Macdonald John A. Macdonald Sir John Alexander Macdonald, GCB, KCMG, PC, PC , QC was the first Prime Minister of Canada. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, his political career spanned almost half a century...	First Prime Minister of Canada	Glasgow Glasgow Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands... , Scotland	Charlotte Gray Charlotte Gray (author) Charlotte Gray, CM is a Canadian historian and author.Born in Sheffield, England and educated at Oxford University and the London School of Economics, Gray came to Canada in 1979. She worked for a number of years as a journalist, writing a regular column on national politics for Saturday Night and...
7	Don Cherry	Hockey Hockey Hockey is a family of sports in which two teams play against each other by trying to maneuver a ball or a puck into the opponent's goal using a hockey stick.-Etymology:... coach and commentator	Kingston, Ontario Kingston, Ontario Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...	Bret Hart Bret Hart Bret Hart is a Canadian on-screen personality, writer, actor and Semi-retired professional wrestler. Like others in the Hart wrestling family, Hart has an amateur wrestling background, including wrestling at Ernest Manning High School and Mount Royal College...
6	Lester B. Pearson Lester B. Pearson Lester Bowles "Mike" Pearson, PC, OM, CC, OBE was a Canadian professor, historian, civil servant, statesman, diplomat, and politician, who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957 for organizing the United Nations Emergency Force to resolve the Suez Canal Crisis...	Fourteenth Prime Minister of Canada, United Nations General Assembly United Nations General Assembly For two articles dealing with membership in the General Assembly, see:* General Assembly members* General Assembly observersThe United Nations General Assembly is one of the five principal organs of the United Nations and the only one in which all member nations have equal representation... President President of the United Nations General Assembly The President of the United Nations General Assembly is a position voted for by representatives in the United Nations General Assembly on a yearly basis.- Election :... , Nobel Peace Prize Nobel Peace Prize The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel Prizes bequeathed by the Swedish industrialist and inventor Alfred Nobel.-Background:According to Nobel's will, the Peace Prize shall be awarded to the person who... Laureate	Toronto, Ontario Ontario Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....	Paul Gross Paul Gross Paul Michael Gross is a Canadian actor, producer, director, singer and writer born in Calgary, Alberta. He is known for his lead role as Constable Benton Fraser in the television series Due South as well as his 2008 war film Passchendaele, which he wrote, produced, directed, and starred in...
5	David Suzuki David Suzuki David Suzuki, CC, OBC is a Canadian academic, science broadcaster and environmental activist. Suzuki earned a Ph.D in zoology from the University of Chicago in 1961, and was a professor in the genetics department of the University of British Columbia from 1963 until his retirement in 2001...	Geneticist, environmentalist, broadcaster, activist	Vancouver, British Columbia British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...	Melissa Auf der Maur Melissa Auf der Maur Melissa Auf der Maur is a Canadian rock musician from Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her career has included 5 years as bassist with the band Hole and she later toured with The Smashing Pumpkins for their 2000 tour. Her second solo album, Out of Our Minds, was released on March 30, 2010. She is also a...
4	Sir Frederick Banting Frederick Banting Sir Frederick Grant Banting, KBE, MC, FRS, FRSC was a Canadian medical scientist, doctor and Nobel laureate noted as one of the main discoverers of insulin....	Medical scientist, co-discoverer of insulin Insulin Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle.... , winner of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine administered by the Nobel Foundation, is awarded once a year for outstanding discoveries in the field of life science and medicine. It is one of five Nobel Prizes established in 1895 by Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, in his will...	Alliston, Ontario Alliston, Ontario Alliston is a settlement in Simcoe County in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is part of the Town of New Tecumseth since the 1991 amalgamation of Alliston and nearby villages of Beeton, Tottenham, and the Township of Tecumseth...	Mary Walsh
3	Pierre Trudeau Pierre Trudeau Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau, , usually known as Pierre Trudeau or Pierre Elliott Trudeau, was the 15th Prime Minister of Canada from April 20, 1968 to June 4, 1979, and again from March 3, 1980 to June 30, 1984.Trudeau began his political career campaigning for socialist ideals,...	Fifteenth Prime Minister of Canada	Montreal Montreal Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America... , Quebec Quebec Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....	Rex Murphy Rex Murphy Rex Murphy is a Canadian commentator and author, primarily on Canadian political and social matters.Murphy was born in Carbonear, Newfoundland, 105 kilometres west of St. John's and is the second of five children of Harry and Marie Murphy...
2	Terry Fox Terry Fox Terrance Stanley "Terry" Fox , was a Canadian humanitarian, athlete, and cancer research activist. In 1980, with one leg having been amputated, he embarked on a cross-Canada run to raise money and awareness for cancer research...	Athlete, activist, humanitarian	Winnipeg Winnipeg Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name... , Manitoba Manitoba Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...	Sook-Yin Lee Sook-Yin Lee Sook-Yin Lee is a Canadian musician, filmmaker, actress and media personality.-Background:Lee grew up in a Vancouver suburb, the second-oldest daughter of immigrants. She was raised as a devout Roman Catholic. Her father was a post-World War II orphan from Hong Kong, her mother an escapee from...
1	Tommy Douglas Tommy Douglas Thomas Clement "Tommy" Douglas, was a Scottish-born Baptist minister who became a prominent Canadian social democratic politician...	Father of Medicare Medicare (Canada) Medicare is the unofficial name for Canada's publicly funded universal health insurance system. The formal terminology for the insurance system is provided by the Canada Health Act and the health insurance legislation of the individual provinces and territories.Under the terms of the Canada Health... , Premier of Saskatchewan	Falkirk, Scotland	George Stroumboulopoulos George Stroumboulopoulos George Mark Paul Stroumboulopoulos is a Canadian television and radio personality, best known as the host of CBC Television's George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight and being a VJ for Canadian music television channel MuchMusic...

Other editions

Other countries have produced similar shows, see also: Greatest Britons spin-offs
Greatest Britons spin-offs
The following is a list of spin-offs of the 2002 100 Greatest Britons program produced by the BBC.- External links :* *...

Germany ran their version on ZDF

ZDF

Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen , ZDF, is a public-service German television broadcaster based in Mainz . It is run as an independent non-profit institution, which was founded by the German federal states . The ZDF is financed by television licence fees called GEZ and advertising revenues...

and called it Unsere Besten
Unsere Besten
Unsere Besten was a television series shown in German public television in November 2003, similar to the BBC series 100 Greatest Britons....

(Our Best). KRO

KRO

KRO, or Katholieke Radio Omroep , is a Dutch public broadcasting organization founded on 23 April 1925. Broadly Catholic in its spiritual outlook, KRO broadcasts the bulk of its television output on the Nederland 1 channel. KRO is also responsible for managing broadcasts made by the Catholic Church...

(part of the Netherlands Public Broadcasting) ran the De Grootste Nederlander
De Grootste Nederlander
De Grootste Nederlander was a public poll held in 2004 by the broadcasting company KRO of the Publieke Omroep. The series is based on the BBC's 100 Greatest Britons...

(The Greatest Dutchman). The Discovery Channel (in conjunction with AOL

AOL

AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...

) ran The Greatest American
The Greatest American
The Greatest American was a four-part American television series hosted by Matt Lauer in 2005. The show featured biographies and lists of influential persons in U.S. history, and culminated in a contest in which millions in the audience nominated and voted for the person they felt was the "greatest...

in May 2005. The South African Broadcasting Corporation

South African Broadcasting Corporation

The South African Broadcasting Corporation is the state-owned broadcaster in South Africa and provides 18 radio stations as well as 3 television broadcasts to the general public.-Early years:Radio broadcasting began in South Africa in 1923...

ran the Great South Africans
SABC3's Great South Africans
Great South Africans was a South African television series that aired on SABC3 and hosted by Noeleen Maholwana Sangqu and Denis Beckett. In September 2004, thousands of South Africans took part in an informal nationwide poll to determine the "100 Greatest South Africans" of all time...

. In Finland, YLE ran Suuret Suomalaiset
Suuret suomalaiset
Suuret suomalaiset was a 2004 television show broadcast in Finland by YLE , which determined the 100 greatest Finns of all time according to the opinions of its viewers. The viewers were able to vote during a programme which lasted from October to December 2004...

(Great Finns). In France Le Plus Grand Français
Le Plus Grand Français
Le Plus Grand Français de tous les temps was a France 2 show of early 2005, based on an original series of Great Britons on the BBC. The show asked the French viewers who they thought was the Greatest Frenchman or Frenchwoman...

(The Greatest Frenchman) ran on France 2

France 2

France 2 is a French public national television channel. It is part of the state-owned France Télévisions group, along with France 3, France 4, France 5 and France Ô...

. In Belgium.: De Grootste Belg
De Grootste Belg
De Grootste Belg was a 2005 vote conducted by Belgian public TV broadcaster Canvas, public radio broadcaster Radio 1, and newspaper De Standaard, to determine who is the Greatest Belgian of all time...

and Le plus grand belge
Le plus grand Belge
Le plus grand Belge , was a television show on the Belgian French-speaking public channel RTBF. In the program the audience could vote for the greatest Belgian by using the website, sending an SMS or using the telephone...

. A Czech version called The Greatest Czech (Největší Čech
Nejvetší Cech
Největší Čech is the Czech spin-off of the BBC Greatest Britons show; a television poll of the populace to name the greatest Czech in history. The series was broadcast by the national public-service broadcaster, Česká televize...

) aired in June 2005. 100 Welsh Heroes

100 Welsh Heroes

100 Welsh Heroes was an opinion poll run in Wales as a response to the BBC's 100 Greatest Britons poll of 2002. The Welsh poll was carried out mainly on the internet, starting on 8 September 2003 and finishing on 23 February 2004...

was the result of an on-line poll carried out in 2003-4. A Bulgarian version, The Great Bulgarians (Великите българи
Velikite Balgari
Velikite Balgari was the Bulgarian spin-off of the 2002 Greatest Britons program produced by the BBC. Aired on the Bulgarian National Television's Kanal 1, its first stage began on 9 June 2006 and finished on 10 December, with a show on 23 December announcing the names of the Top 100 as chosen by...

), finished in February 2007. In Romania, the show called "Mari Români
Mari Români
In 2006, the Romanian Television conducted a vote to determine whom the general public considers the 100 greatest Romanians of all time, in a version of the British TV show 100 greatest Britons...

" (Great Romanians) started in May 2006; on July 8, Televiziunea Română

Televiziunea Româna

Televiziunea Română , more commonly referred to as TVR , is the short name for Societatea Românǎ de Televiziune ; acronym: SRTV. SRTV is the national state-owned public service television broadcaster of Romania...

(TVR) presented the 100 Greatest Romanians, and on October 21 the Greatest Romanian of all the times. In Portugal, RTP

Rádio e Televisão de Portugal

Rádio e Televisão de Portugal, S.A.,commonly known as RTP, is Portugal's public service broadcasting organization. It operates four terrestrial television channels and three national radio channels, as well as several satellite and cable offerings....

chose dictator António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar

António de Oliveira Salazar, GColIH, GCTE, GCSE served as the Prime Minister of Portugal from 1932 to 1968. He also served as acting President of the Republic briefly in 1951. He founded and led the Estado Novo , the authoritarian, right-wing government that presided over and controlled Portugal...

as the Greatest Portuguese. Argentina

Argentina

Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...

ran their version on Telefe

Telefe

Televisión Federal S.A., best known as Telefe and later as TLF, is an Argentine television network. Formerly known as Canal Once , a state-run network, it was privatised and established as Telefe in 1989, when and News Corporation took over the channel...

and called it El Gen Argentino

El Gen Argentino

El Gen Argentino was the Argentine spin-off of the 2002 Greatest Britons programme produced by the BBC. Launched on 27 August 2007, it was a television program series by Telefe, to determine which historical personality best represents Argentina, and who possesses the Argentine Gene...

(The Argentine Gene). Started on August 27, 2007. In Spain, Antena 3

Antena 3 (Spain)

Antena 3 is a Spanish terrestrial television channel owned by Antena 3 de Televisión. Some of the more popular programmes broadcast by Antena 3 include Aquí no hay quien viva, El Barco, Los Protegidos, Los Simpson and El Internado....

chose the current head of state, King Juan Carlos I, as The Most Important Spaniard in History

El Español de la Historia

El Español De La Historia was an Antena 3 show which aired on May 2007, based on the original BBC series 100 Greatest Britons. The show asked 3,000 citizens about the Greatest Spanish man or woman via an opinion poll....

, on May 22, 2007. Ukraine

Ukraine

Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...

ran their version on Inter

Inter (TV channel)

Inter is the major TV channel in Ukraine. Based on it later was formed the whole new media group with variety of different other channels. Inter is among the top-rated networks in Ukraine, competing with such as 1+1 and Pershyi Natsionalnyi channels...

and called it Великі українці (The Great Ukrainians). To broadcast 2007–2008 season, 2007.http://www.greatukrainians.com.ua/ In Greece, Skai TV

Skai TV

Skai TV is a Greek TV station, based in Pireus, Athens. It is part of the Skai Group one of the largest media groups in Greece. It was relaunched in its present form on April 1, 2006 in Athens and gradually managed to spread its coverage nationwide. Besides analog over-the-air transmission, it is...

ran the show Great Greeks
Great Greeks
-Alphabetical:-By Vote:-By Era:Ancient Greece Byzantine Era * Basil II * Constantine I* Constantine XI Palaiologos* Justinian I* Plethon, Georgius Gemistos* Theotokópoulos, Doménicos...

. In Italy, Rai Due

Rai Due

Rai 2 is one of the three main television channels broadcast by Italian public television company RAI alongside with Rai 1 and Rai 3. Rai 2 first started transmissions on November 4, 1961...

chose Leonardo Da Vinci

Leonardo da Vinci

Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci was an Italian Renaissance polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance...

as the greatest Italian ever

Il più grande italiano di tutti i tempi

Il più grande italiano di tutti i tempi was an Italian television show based on the British 100 Greatest Britons transmitted on Rai 2 in January and February 2010....

on February 10, 2010.

External links

The Greatest Canadians from the CBC Archives – Clips about the lives and accomplishments of the Top 10.
CBC.ca - Grands Canadiens (French)

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Top 10

Other editions

See also

External links