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Events from the year 1954 in Canada.

Incumbents

Crown

  • Monarch – Elizabeth II

Federal government

  • Governor General – Vincent Massey
  • Prime Minister – Louis St. Laurent
  • Chief Justice – Thibaudeau Rinfret (Quebec) (until 22 June) then Patrick Kerwin (Ontario)
  • Parliament – 22nd

Provincial governments

Lieutenant governors

  • Lieutenant Governor of Alberta – John J. Bowlen
  • Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – Clarence Wallace
  • Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – John Stewart McDiarmid
  • Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – David Laurence MacLaren
  • Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland – Leonard Outerbridge
  • Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Alistair Fraser
  • Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – Louis Orville Breithaupt
  • Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Thomas William Lemuel Prowse
  • Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Gaspard Fauteux
  • Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan – William John Patterson

Premiers

  • Premier of Alberta – Ernest Manning
  • Premier of British Columbia – W.A.C. Bennett
  • Premier of Manitoba – Douglas Campbell
  • Premier of New Brunswick – Hugh John Flemming
  • Premier of Newfoundland – Joey Smallwood
  • Premier of Nova Scotia – Angus Macdonald (until April 13) then Harold Connolly (April 13 to September 30) then Henry Hicks
  • Premier of Ontario – Leslie Frost
  • Premier of Prince Edward Island – Alex Matheson
  • Premier of Quebec – Maurice Duplessis
  • Premier of Saskatchewan – Tommy Douglas

Territorial governments

Commissioners

  • Commissioner of Yukon – Wilfred George Brown
  • Commissioner of Northwest Territories – Robert Gordon Robertson

Events

  • January 1 – Metropolitan Toronto comes into being to coordinate services among the various municipalities around Toronto.
  • January 8 – The first oil from Alberta arrives in Sarnia through the new pipeline
  • March 30 – The Yonge St. subway, the first subway system in Canada, opens in Toronto
  • April 13 – Angus Lewis Macdonald, Premier of Nova Scotia, dies in office
  • April 14 – Harold Connolly becomes premier of Nova Scotia
  • May 31 – Winnipeg's first television station, CBWT a CBC Television owned and operated station, begins broadcasting
  • August 10 – The groundbreaking ceremony for the St. Lawrence Seaway begins
  • September 9 - The 1954 Series of banknotes is introduced.
  • September 9 – Marilyn Bell becomes the first person to swim Lake Ontario
  • September 18 – Marie-Victorin Statue unveiled
  • September 30 – Henry Hicks becomes premier of Nova Scotia, replacing Harold Connolly
  • October 15 – Hurricane Hazel hits Toronto killing 81.

Full date unknown

  • Canada contributes to a peacekeeping force in Indochina
  • Sir Adam Beck Generating Station built on the Canadian side of the Niagara River
  • Pinetree Line radar system completed
  • Yahtzee is invented by a Canadian couple
  • Jean Drapeau first elected mayor of Montreal
  • Streetcars leave Winnipeg

Arts and literature

New books

  • Mordecai Richler – The Acrobats
  • Gabrielle Roy – Alexandre Chenevert
  • Igor Gouzenko – The Fall of a Titan

Awards

  • See 1954 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
  • Stephen Leacock Award: Joan Walker, Pardon My Parka

Sport

  • April 16 – The Detroit Red Wings win their sixth Stanley Cup by defeating the Montreal Canadiens 4 games to 3.
  • May 16 – The Ontario Hockey Association's St. Catharines Teepees win their first Memorial Cup by defeating the Central Alberta Hockey League's Edmonton Oil Kings 4 games to 0 (with 1 tie). All games were played at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto
  • July 30 – The Miracle Mile is run at the British Empire and Commonwealth Games in Vancouver. Empire Stadium is opened on the same day.
  • August 28 – The BC Lions are established, the fifth team in the Western Interprovincial Football Union.
  • November 27 – The Edmonton Eskimos win their first Grey Cup by defeating the Montreal Alouettes 26 to 25 in the 42nd Grey Cup played at Varsity Stadium in Toronto

Births

thumb|right|150px|Catherine O'Hara photographed by [[Jerry Avenaim, 2005]]

January to June

  • January 11 – Jim Wych, snooker player and sports announcer
  • January 29 – Doug Risebrough, ice hockey player and coach

thumb|right|150px|Jean-Serge Brisson in 2025, with his English-language book Tea Party of One: All Governments Invited which was published in [[2014 in Canada|2014.]]

  • February 3 – Tiger Williams, ice hockey player
  • February 24 – Sid Meier, Canadian-American programmer
  • March 2 – Ed Johnstone, ice hockey player
  • March 4 – Catherine O'Hara, actress (d. 2026)
  • April 5 - Claude-André Lachance, politician and son of Georges-C. Lachance
  • April 7 – Clark Gillies, ice hockey player (d. 2022)
  • April 17 – Roddy Piper, wrestler and actor (d. 2015)
  • April 20 – Gilles Lupien, ice hockey player and agent (d. 2021)
  • May 4 – Sylvia Burka, ice speed skater and World Champion, cyclist
  • May 10 – Eleni Bakopanos, politician
  • May 13 – David Bissett, field hockey player
  • May 14 – Danny Gare, ice hockey player
  • May 16 – Dafydd Williams, physician and astronaut
  • May 26 – Aritha Van Herk, writer, critic, editor and university professor
  • May 28 – John Tory, businessman, politician and broadcaster
  • June 3 – Wally Weir, Canadian ice hockey player
  • June 28 – Jean-Serge Brisson, author and politician

July to December

  • July 6 – Brian Pallister, politician
  • July 9 – Kevin O'Leary, businessman, television personality, and political candidate
  • July 18 – Audrey Vandervelden, volleyball player
  • August 11 – Gulzar Singh Cheema, politician

thumb|right|150px|Steven MacLean

  • August 16 – James Cameron, film director, producer and screenwriter
  • September 3 – Avis Gray, politician
  • September 18 – Steven Pinker, cognitive psychologist
  • September 26 – Don Irvine, sprint canoer
  • October 21 – Brian Tobin, politician
  • November 7 – Guy Gavriel Kay, fantasy fiction author
  • November 12 – Dave Edge, long-distance runner
  • November 24 – Stuart Murray, politician
  • December 14 – Steven MacLean, astronaut
  • December 20 – John Kinch, football player (d. 2022)
  • December 28 – Lanny Poffo, wrestler (d. 2023)

Full date unknown

  • Alan Kane, author
  • Jim St. James, actor and HIV/AIDS activist

thumb|right|150px|Agnes Macphail

Deaths

  • January 24 – H. H. Wrong, diplomat (b. 1894)
  • February 13 – Agnes Macphail, politician, first woman to be elected to the House of Commons of Canada (b. 1890)
  • March 15 – Charles MacOdrum, politician
  • March 31 – John Walter Jones, politician and Premier of Prince Edward Island (b. 1878)
  • April 4 – Abraham Albert Heaps, politician and labor leader (b. 1885)
  • April 8 – Winnifred Eaton, author (b. 1875)
  • April 13 – Angus Lewis Macdonald, lawyer, law professor, politician and 19th Premier of Nova Scotia (b. 1890)
  • June 18 – Welland Gemmell, politician and minister
  • June 21 – Rod Keller, general (b. 1900)
  • August 6 – Emilie Dionne, one of the Dionne Quintuplets (b. 1934)
  • November 26 – Wallace Rupert Turnbull, engineer and inventor (b. 1870)

Full date unknown

  • James Endicott, church leader and missionary (b. 1865)

See also

  • 1954 in Canadian television
  • List of Canadian films

References