1989 in Canada

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Events from the year 1989 in Canada.

Incumbents

• Monarch: Elizabeth II
• Governor General: Jeanne Sauvé
• Prime Minister: Brian Mulroney
• Premier of Alberta: Don Getty
• Premier of British Columbia: Bill Vander Zalm
• Premier of Manitoba: Gary Filmon
• Premier of New Brunswick: Frank McKenna
• Premier of Newfoundland: Brian Peckford then Thomas Rideout then Clyde Wells
• Premier of Nova Scotia: John Buchanan
• Premier of Ontario: David Peterson
• Premier of Prince Edward Island: Joe Ghiz
• Premier of Quebec: Robert Bourassa
• Premier of Saskatchewan: Grant Devine

See also: 1989 Canadian incumbents for more

Events

• January 1: The Canadian-American Free Trade Agreement comes into effect.
• January 21: Brian Peckford announces his resignation from politics, giving the party 2 months to find a replacement as party leader and premier.
• March 1: The Canadian Space Agency is created.
• March 10: An Air Ontario flight crashes near Dryden, Ontario killing 24
• March 13: 2:44 AM ET: A solar coronal mass ejection causes a blackout across all of Quebec, as it hits the Hydro-Québec power grid, affecting 6 million people for more than 9 hours.^[1]
• March 13: Deborah Grey wins a by-election to become the first Reform Party Member of Parliament.^[2]
• March 20: Alberta election: Don Getty's PCs win a sixth consecutive majority.
• March 22: Thomas Rideout becomes premier of Newfoundland, replacing Brian Peckford.
• May 5: Clyde Wells becomes premier of Newfoundland, defeating Thomas Rideout in a general election
• June 5: The federal government announces sweeping cuts to Via Rail
• July 31: Cable television network CBC Newsworld is launched.
• September 1: French cable sports network, RDS, signs on.
• October 8: The Cormier Village hayride accident kills 13 people and injures 45.
• December 2: Audrey McLaughlin is elected head of the NDP replacing Ed Broadbent becoming the first female major party leader in Canadian history
• December 6: École Polytechnique Massacre: Marc Lépine murders fourteen women at the École Polytechnique of the Université de Montréal in Montreal, Quebec. The event proves a spur to both the Canadian feminist and gun control movements.
• December 21: Quebec uses the notwithstanding clause for the first time.
• December 31: All rail service is terminated in Prince Edward Island after CN Rail abandons its historic rail lines in the province.

Full date unknown

• Corel releases CorelDraw
• Heather Erxleben becomes Canada's first official female combat soldier
• Sidney Altman shares in the Nobel Prize for Chemistry

Arts and literature

New works

• Mordecai Richler: Solomon Gursky Was Here
• Steve McCaffery: The Black Debt
• Erin Mouré: WSW
• Joy Fielding: Good Intentions
• Dave Duncan: West of January
• Tomson Highway: Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing
• William Bell: Death Wind
• Farley Mowat: The New Found Land

Awards

• Books in Canada First Novel Award: Rick Salutin, A Man of Little Faith
• See 1989 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Geoffrey Bilson Award: Martyn Godfrey, Mystery in the Frozen Lands, and Dorothy Perkyns, Rachel’s Revolution
• Gerald Lampert Award: Sarah Klassen, Journey to Yalta
• Marian Engel Award: Merna Summers
• Pat Lowther Award: Heather Spears, The Word for Sand
• Stephen Leacock Award: John Kertes, Winter Tulips
• Trillium Book Award: Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring
• Vicky Metcalf Award: Stéphane Poulin

Music

• Simply Saucer, Cyborgs Revisited

Sport

• May 25 - In Montreal, the Calgary Flames win the Stanley Cup against the Montreal Canadiens.
• June 5 - First baseball game in SkyDome is played.

Births

• March 7 - Scott Charlebois, student
• March 19 - Stephanie Horner, swimmer
• December 2 - Cassie Steele, actress and singer-songwriter

Deaths

January to June

• January 20 - Beatrice Lillie, comic actress (b.1894)
• January 22 - Farquhar Oliver, politician (b.1904)
• January 31 - William Stephenson, soldier, airman, businessperson, inventor and spymaster (b.1897)
• February 9 - Ken Adachi, writer and literary critic (b.1929)
• May 14 - Joe Primeau, ice hockey player (b.1906)
• May 14 - E. P. Taylor, business tycoon and race horse breeder (b.1901)
• June 14 - Louis-Philippe-Antoine Bélanger, politician (b.1907)
• June 26 - Howard Charles Green, politician and Minister (b.1895)

July to December

• July 3 - Peter Fox, politician (b.1921)
• July 13 - Samuel Boulanger, politician (b.1909)
• August 10 - George Ignatieff, diplomat (b.1913)
• November 11 - Kenneth MacLean Glazier, Sr., minister and librarian (b.1912)
• November 13 - Victor Davis, swimmer, Olympic gold medalist and World Champion (b.1964)
• November 15 - George Manuel, Aboriginal leader (b.1921)
• December 6 - Marc Lépine, murderer responsible for the École Polytechnique massacre (b.1964)
• December 26 - Doug Harvey, ice hockey player (b.1924)
• December 26 - Maryon Pearson, wife of Lester B. Pearson, 14th Prime Minister of Canada (b.1901)

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References

1. ^ "Space Weather Blackout - Massive Power Grid Failure". NBC Washington Weathernet. 2010-08-04. Archived from the original on 14 August 2010. http://www.windows2universe.org/spaceweather/blackout.html. Retrieved 4 August 2010. 
2. ^ "Elected in By-Elections". parl.gc.ca. http://www.parl.gc.ca/Parlinfo/Compilations/HouseOfCommons/ElectedByElection.aspx. Retrieved 2012-03-04.