1954 in Canada

Crown

Head of state (monarch) – Queen Elizabeth II (consort – The Duke of Edinburgh)

Federal government

Governor general – Vincent Massey (viceregal consort – Alice Massey)

Prime minister – Louis Saint Laurent

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

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 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 Canadiancouple

Jean Drapeau first elected mayor of Montreal

Streetcars leave Winnipeg

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

July 30 – The "Miracle Mile" is run at the Commonwealth Games in Vancouver

January to June

January 11 – Jim Wych, snooker player and sports announcer

January 29

Greg Brooks, chef and author

Doug Risebrough, ice hockey player and coach

February 3 – Tiger Williams, ice hockey player

March 4 – Catherine O'Hara, actress

April 5 - Claude-André Lachance, politician and son of Georges-C. Lachance

April 17 – Roddy Piper, wrestler and actor

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, politician

July to December

July 6 – Brian Pallister, politician

July 18 – Audrey Vandervelden, volleyball player

August 11 – Gulzar Singh Cheema, politician

August 16 – James Cameron, film director, producer and screenwriter

September 3 – Avis Gray, politician

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

Full date unknown

Alan Kane, author

Jim St. James, actor and HIV/AIDS activist

Deaths

January 24 – H. H. Wrong, diplomat (b.1894)

February 13 – Agnes Macphail, politician, first woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons (b.1890)

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

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)