1956 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 – Frank Mackenzie Ross

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 – Henry Hicks (until November 20) then Robert Stanfield

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 – Frederick Howard Collins

Commissioner of Northwest Territories – Robert Gordon Robertson

Events

February 10 – Wilbert Coffin is hanged

May 1 – The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada merges with the Canadian Congress of Labour to form the Canadian Labour Congress.

May 8 – The controversial bill to create the TransCanada pipeline is introduced in the House of Commons.

May 15 – A CF-100 crashes into a Grey Nuns convent outside of Ottawa killing fifteen.

June 20 – Saskatchewan election: Tommy Douglas's Co-operative Commonwealth Federation wins a fourth consecutive majority

September 30 – Winnipeg connects to TransCanada Telephone System's microwave radio relay via MTS, bringing same day programming from CBC Television.

November 1 – The second Springhill Mining Disaster occurs killing 39.

November 4 – Lester B. Pearson proposes a successful resolution to the Suez Crisis, this will win him a Nobel Peace Prize.

November 20 – Robert Stanfield becomes premier of Nova Scotia, replacing Henry Hicks

December 9 – Trans-Canada Air Lines Flight 810 (9), a Canadair Northstar, crashes on Slesse Mountain near Chilliwack during heavy weather. The plane carried the Saskatchewan Roughriders and Winnipeg Blue Bombers and fans on their way home from a game in Vancouver. Bodies were not found until the following late summer due to severe terrain and high altitude and unknown location of the crash. This was one of the worst civilian air disasters in the world at the time.

December 14 – John Diefenbaker is elected leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada.

René Lévesque begins hosting Point de Mire

New books

Milton Acorn – In Love and Anger

Pierre Berton – The Mysterious North

Max Aitken – Men and Power

Leonard Cohen – Let Us Compare Mythologies

Harold Innis – Essays in Canadian Economic History

Farley Mowat – Lost in the Barrens

Awards

See 1956 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.

Stephen Leacock Award: Eric Nicol, Shall We Join The Ladies'

Music

Walter Susskind replaces Sir Ernest MacMillan as the director of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra.

Pianist Glenn Gould tours the Soviet Union

January to March

January 6 – Peter Stoffer, politician

January 9 – Gregory Dewar, politician

January 28 – David Faurschou, politician

February 28 – Guy Maddin, screenwriter and film director

February 29 – Steve Ashton, politician

February 29 – Bob Speller, politician

April to June

April 4 – Evelyn Hart, ballet dancer

April 6 - Normand Corbeil, composer (Double Jeopardy, Extreme Ops, The Statement, V) (d.2013)

April 10 – Thomas Graham, volleyball player

May 7 – Jean Lapierre, television broadcaster, politician and Minister (d. 2016)

May 9 – Wendy Crewson, actress

May 15 – Ian Clyde, boxer

May 19 – James Gosling, software developer, father of the Java programming language

May 29 – Claude Drouin, politician

June 10 – Hugh McMillan, musician

June 15 – David Iftody, politician (d.2001)

June 15 – Dan Thompson, swimmer

June 18 – Oliver Schroer, fiddler, composer and music producer (d.2008)

June 22 – Blake Debassige, artist

July to September

July 8 – Terry Puhl, baseball player

July 10 - Robert Ing, forensic scientist and author

July 15 – Barry Melrose, ice hockey player, coach and commentator

July 17 – Bryan Trottier, ice hockey player

July 20 - Jim Prentice, politician, Premier of Alberta 2014–2015 (d. 2016)

August 5 - Jerry Ciccoritti, director

August 7 – Paul Williams, long-distance runner

August 12 – Bruce Greenwood, actor

October to December

October 5 – Brad Farrow, judoka

October 7 – Brian Sutter, ice hockey player and coach

October 17 – Sheela Basrur, medical doctor and Chief Medical Officer of Health in Ontario (d.2008)

October 23 – Geoffrey Kelly, musician

October 24 – Chris Clarke, boxer

December 10 – Marie Bountrogianni, politician and Minister

December 31 – Paul Zed, lawyer, professor and politician

January to June

January 6 – Albert James Bradshaw, politician (b.1882)

January 12 – Sam Langford, boxer (b.1886)

February 14 – Aylesworth Perry, 6th Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (b.1860)

March 10 – Vere Ponsonby, 9th Earl of Bessborough, businessman, politician and Governor General of Canada (b.1880)

March 30 – Joseph W. Noseworthy, politician (b.1888)

March 30 – Thomas Dufferin Pattullo, politician and 22nd Premier of British Columbia (b.1873)

July to December

August 4 – Joseph Georges Bouchard, politician (b.1888)

September 11 – Billy Bishop, First World War flying ace (b.1894)

September 15 – Charles Dow Richards, judge, politician and 18th Premier of New Brunswick (b.1879)

September 18 – Adélard Godbout, politician and 15th Premier of Quebec (b.1892)

October 7 – Maud Allan, actor, dancer and choreographer (b.1873)

November 18 – Clarence Chant, astronomer and physicist (b.1865)

December 3 – Matthew Halton, radio and television journalist (b.1904)

December 7 – Huntley Gordon, actor (b.1887)