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2001 in Canada
Incumbents
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Estimated Canadian population: 31,110,565
Events
- January 1: The Ontario cities of Ottawa, Hamilton and Sudbury officially merge with their suburban municipalities to create new "megacities". (Sudbury, now Greater Sudbury, was the only one of the three to change its name. Toronto had been similarly merged in 1998.)
- January 17: The Bank of Canada unveils a new $10 bill with enhanced security features.
- January 18: MafiaBoy pleads guilty to 56 of 66 mischief charges in a Montreal courtroom. The other 10 charges were withdrawn.
- January 21: Chris Jericho wins Intercontinental Championship from Chris Benoit
- January 27: Lorne Calvert becomes the leader of the Saskatchewan New Democratic Party after winning the fourth ballot at the party's 2001 leadership convention.
- January 29: Peter Milliken is elected as the new Speaker of the House of Commons after five rounds of voting.
- January 29: The Toronto Stock Exchange allows stocks greater than $5 in value to trade at 1¢ increments instead of at 5¢ increments.
- January 30: Governor General Adrienne Clarkson reads the Speech from the Throne at the beginning of the 37th Canadian parliament. [1]
- January 30: An envelope mailed to Citizenship and Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan containing a mysterious blue powder caused the Immigration Canada building to be sealed off. A Winnipeg laboratory on February 1 said the powder posed no health risk.
- January 31: George N. Gillett Jr. buys 80% of the Montreal Canadiens and 100% of the Molson Centre in Montreal for US$275 million.
- February 2: Canada begins banning imports of beef and beef products from Brazil due to concerns of mad cow disease.
- February 2: Ontario Minister of Finance Ernie Eves quits to become vice-chair and senior adviser at Credit Suisse First Boston Canada.
- February 3: Roger Grimes becomes leader of the Liberal Party of Newfoundland and Labrador after winning the second ballot at the party's leadership convention.
- February 3: Catriona LeMay Doan wins gold in the 500 m and 1000 m speed skating races in Heerenveen, Netherlands.
- February 5: Prime Minister Jean Chrétien becomes the first foreign leader to visit the newly elected President of the United States, George W. Bush, in Washington, D.C.
- February 8: Lorne Calvert becomes premier of Saskatchewan, replacing Roy Romanow
- February 13: Roger Grimes becomes premier of Newfoundland, replacing Beaton Tulk
- March 8: Bernard Landry becomes premier of Quebec, replacing Lucien Bouchard
- March 12: Alberta election: Ralph Klein's PCs win a ninth consecutive majority
- April 20: Summit of the Americas is held in Quebec City to discuss the FTAA; the city, which has been divided by a high fence around much of the downtown core, also hosts the People's Summit and is wracked by the Quebec City protests.
- May 4: Chrétien's longtime Chief of Staff, Jean Pelletier, is made the head of VIA Rail
- May 16: British Columbia election: Gordon Campbell's BC Liberals win a landslide victory over Premier Ujjal Dosanjh's NDP.
- May 18: Conrad Black renounces his Canadian citizenship
- May 21: Chris Jericho and Chris Benoit win World Wrestling Federation (WWF) Tag Team Championship
- May 23: Federal Ethics Commissioner releases a report which clears Alfonso Gagliano of any wrongdoing in the sponsorship scandal
- June 5: Gordon Campbell becomes premier of British Columbia, replacing Ujjal Dosanjh
- July: Canada becomes the first country in the world to legalize medical marijuana
- July 17: Infighting in the Canadian Alliance forces out leader Stockwell Day
- August 24: Conrad Black sells The National Post to Izzy Asper's CanWest
- September 4: Documentary Channel signs on.
Arts and literature
Events
New literature
Literary awards
New music
Film
Television
Births
Deaths
- January 17: Al Waxman, actor
- January 31: Gordon R. Dickson, author
- February 5: David Iftody, former Liberal MP
- February 28: Gildas Molgat, politician
- March 23: David McTaggart, environmentalist
- April 2: Charles Daudelin, painter, sculptor
- April 16: Horace Gwynne, boxer
- May 5: Aba Bayefsky, artist
- June 7: Charles Templeton
- June 23: Yvonne Dionne, one of the Dionne Quintuplets
- July 3: Mordecai Richler, author
- August 9: Kimberly Rogers, Sudbury woman whose suicide while under house arrest for a disputed welfare fraud conviction led to a major scandal and inquest
- September 18: Ernie Coombs, children's entertainer
- November 19: Marcelle Ferron, sculptor