1967 is remembered as one of the most notable years in Canada. It was the centenary of Canadian Confederation and celebrations were held throughout the nation. The most prominent event was Expo 67 in Montreal, the most successful World's Fair ever held up to that time, and one of the first events to win international acclaim for the country. The year saw the nation's Governor General, Georges Vanier, die in office; and two prominent federal leaders, Official Opposition Leader John Diefenbaker, and Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson announced their resignations. The year's top news-story was French President Charles de Gaulle's "Vive le Québec libre" speech in Montreal. The year also saw major changes in youth culture with the "hippies" in Toronto's Yorkville area becoming front-page news over their lifestyle choices and battles with Toronto City Council. A new honours system was announced, the Order of Canada. In sports, the Toronto Maple Leafs won their 13th and last Stanley Cup.
In mountaineering, the year saw the first ascents of the highest peak in the remote Arctic Cordillera
The nation began to feel far more nationalistic than before, with a generation raised in a country fully detached from Britain. The new Canadian flag served as a symbol and a catalyst for this. In Quebec, the Quiet Revolution was overthrowing the oligarchy of francophone clergy and anglophone businessmen, and French Canadian pride and nationalism were becoming a national political force.
The Canadian economy was at its post-war peak, and levels of prosperity and quality of life were at all-time highs. Many of the most important elements of Canada's welfare state were coming on line, such as Medicare and the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).
These events were coupled with the coming of age of the baby boom and the regeneration of music, literature, and art that the 1960s brought around the world. The baby boomers, who have since dominated Canada's culture, tend to view the period as Canada's halcyon days.
While to Montreal it was the year of Expo, to Toronto it was the culmination of the Toronto Maple Leafs dynasty of the 1960s, with the team winning its fourth Stanley Cup in six years by defeating its arch-rival, the Montreal Canadiens, in the last all-Canadian Stanley Cup Final until 1986.
Author and historian Pierre Berton famously referred to 1967 as Canada's last good year. In his analysis, the years following saw much of 1967's hopefulness disappear. In the early 1970s, the oil shock and other factors hammered the Canadian economy. Quebec separatism led to divisive debates and an economic decline of Montreal and Front de libération du Québec (FLQ) terrorism. The Vietnam War and Watergate Scandal in the United States also had profound effects on Canadians. Berton reported that Toronto hockey fans also note that the Maple Leafs have not won a Stanley Cup since.
Head of state (monarch) – Queen Elizabeth II (consort – Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh)
Governor general – Georges Vanier (until March 5) then Roland Michener (from April 17) (viceregal consort – Pauline Vanier then Norah Michener)
Prime minister – Lester B. Pearson
Lieutenant Governor of Alberta – Grant MacEwan
Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia – George Pearkes
Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba – Richard Spink Bowles
Lieutenant Governor of New Brunswick – John B. McNair
Lieutenant Governor of Newfoundland – Fabian O'Dea
Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia – Henry Poole MacKeen
Lieutenant Governor of Ontario – William Earl Rowe
Lieutenant Governor of Prince Edward Island – Willibald Joseph MacDonald
Lieutenant Governor of Quebec – Hugues Lapointe
Lieutenant Governor of Saskatchewan – Robert Hanbidge
Premier of Alberta – Ernest Manning
Premier of British Columbia – W.A.C. Bennett
Premier of Manitoba – Dufferin Roblin (until November 27) then Walter Weir
Premier of New Brunswick – Louis Robichaud
Premier of Newfoundland – Joey Smallwood
Premier of Nova Scotia – Robert Stanfield (until September 13) then G.I. Smith
Premier of Ontario – John Robarts
Premier of Prince Edward Island – Alexander B. Campbell
Premier of Quebec – Daniel Johnson, Sr.
Premier of Saskatchewan – Ross Thatcher
Commissioner of Yukon – James Smith
Commissioner of Northwest Territories – Bent Gestur Sivertz (until March 2) then Stuart Milton Hodgson
January 1: Several municipalities such as Forest Hill and Swansea are merged into Toronto
January 7: Robert Nixon is elected leader of the Ontario Liberal Party
March 25: After the death of Georges Vanier, Roland Michener becomes Governor General
April 17: The Order of Canada is created
April 27: Expo 67 Official Opening Ceremony broadcast in colour live via satellite to an estimated worldwide audience of 700 million viewers and listeners.
April 28: Expo 67 opens to the public at 9:30 a.m. in Montreal
April: Bill C-243, The Canadian Forces Reorganization Act, is given third and final reading in the House of Commons
May: The GO Transit service begins in Toronto
May 23: Alberta election: Ernest Manning's Social Credit Party wins a ninth consecutive majority
June 5: Geoffrey Hattersley-Smith becomes the first person to climb Barbeau Peak, the highest point in the Arctic Cordillera
June 20: The National Library of Canada opens
July 1: Canada celebrates its centennial
July 24: During an official state visit to Canada, French President Charles de Gaulle declares to a crowd of over 100,000 in Montreal: Vive le Québec libre! (Long live free Quebec!). The statement, interpreted as support for Quebec independence, delighted many francophone Quebecers but angered the Canadian government and many English Canadians and was voted as the top news story from Canada by newspaper and radio journalists.
July 30: The Caribbean community in Toronto stages the first Caribana, with only eight bands and 1,000 spectators. It later grows into the third largest carnival in the world, drawing over 1 million spectators and 250,000 visitors a year.
August 5: A schizophrenic man, Victor Hoffman, kills nine near Shell Lake, Saskatchewan
September 9: Robert Stanfield wins the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party
September 13: G.I. Smith becomes premier of Nova Scotia, replacing Robert Stanfield
October 5–6: Ucluelet records Canada’s heaviest ever 24-hour rainfall with 489.2 millimetres (19.26 in).
October 11: Saskatchewan election: Ross Thatcher's Liberals win a second consecutive majority
October 14: René Lévesque quits the Quebec Liberal Party and leaves to form the Mouvement Souveraineté-Association
October 17: Ontario election: John Robarts's PCs win a seventh consecutive majority
October 29: Expo 67 closes, setting attendance records.
November 5: Robert Stanfield becomes head of the federal Progressive Conservative Party
November 16: The Museum of Science and Technology opens in Ottawa
November 27: Walter Weir becomes premier of Manitoba, replacing Dufferin Roblin
November 27: A conference organized by John Robarts of Ontario brings together all the provincial premiers to discuss the constitution
December 14: Lester B. Pearson announces he will step down as prime minister early in the next year
December 27: Justice Minister Pierre Trudeau proposes sweeping reforms that, among other things, make homosexual acts legal in Canada
December 29: Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism delivers first volume its report.
Mary Walker-Sawka becomes the first woman to be nominated as a candidate for the leadership of a federal political party.
The University of Lethbridge is founded
Morley Callaghan: Stories
Timothy Findley: The Last of the Crazy People
Hugh Hood: The Camera Always Lies
Farley Mowat: The Polar Passion
Margaret Atwood, The Circle Game, won a Governor General's award and "sold out immediately"
John Robert Colombo, Abracadabra
D. G. Jones, Phrases from Orpheus
Dorothy Livesay, The Unquiet Bed, Canadian and African experiences
Eli Mandel, An Idiot Joy
Michael Ondaatje, The Dainty Monsters, Toronto: Coach House Press
P. K. Page, Cry Ararat!: Poems New and Selected
Al Purdy, North of Summer, a diary in verse recounting his stay on Baffin Island
A. J. M. Smith:
Editor, A Book of Modern Canadian Verse, anthology
Poems: New and Collected
Raymond Souster, editor, New Wave Canada anthology of younger poets
Miriam Waddington, The Glass Trumpet
George Woodcock, Selected Poems of George Woodcock, Toronto: Clarke, Irwin, Canada
See 1967 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
Stephen Leacock Award: Richard J. Needham, Needham's Inferno
Vicky Metcalf Award: John Patrick Gillese
Norman Jewison's In the Heat of the Night premieres
Michael Snow's Wavelength premieres and starts the structural film movement.
May 2 – The Toronto Maple Leafs win the sixth game of the Stanley Cup final over the Montreal Canadiens to win their last Stanley Cup to date.
July 23 – The fifth Pan American Games commence in Winnipeg.
The Ottawa 67's Ontario Hockey League team is formed
Bobby Orr wins the first of his eight consecutive Norris Trophies
The Canadian Rugby Union is renamed the Canadian Amateur Football Association
December 2 – The Hamilton Tiger Cats defeat The Regina Roughriders 24 to 1 in the nation's capital Ottawa
January 8 - Dave Newbury, man about Manitoba.
January 27 – Susan Aglukark, singer-songwriter
January 29 – Sean Burke, ice hockey player
February 26 – Gene Principe, sports reporter
March 16 – Kevin Draxinger, swimmer
April 5 – Gary Gait, lacrosse player
April 5 – Paul Gait, lacrosse player and coach
April 29 – Curtis Joseph, ice hockey player
May 1 – Tom Hanson, photojournalist (d.2009)
May 1 – Marie Moore, swimmer
May 4 – John Child, beach volleyball player and Olympic bronze medalist
May 5 – Stephane Provost, National Hockey League linesman (d.2005)
May 10 – Scott Brison, politician and Minister
May 21 – Chris Benoit, wrestler (d.2007)
May 25 – Andrew Sznajder, tennis player
May 29 – Mike Keane, ice hockey player
June 1 – Murray Baron, ice hockey player
June 27 – Sylvie Fréchette, synchronized swimmer and Olympic gold medalist
June 30 – Gareth Rees, rugby union player
July 1 – Pamela Anderson, actress, glamour model, producer, author and activist
July 12 – Bruny Surin, sprinter, Olympic gold medalist and World Champion
August 12 – Pascale Grand, racewalker
August 21 – Carrie-Anne Moss, actress
August 23 – Jody Vance, sports anchor
September 17 – Kevin Boyles, volleyball player and coach
October 3 – Denis Villeneuve, film director and writer
October 9 – Carling Bassett-Seguso, tennis player
October 9 – Guylaine Dumont, beach volleyball player
November 8 – Christopher Chalmers, swimmer
December 14 – Dominic LeBlanc, politician
December 16 – Donovan Bailey, sprinter, double Olympic gold medalist and World Champion
December 17 – Vincent Damphousse, ice hockey player
December 29 – Ashleigh Banfield, journalist and television host
January 9 – Errick Willis, politician (b.1896)
January 14 – James Lorimer Ilsley, politician, Minister and jurist (b.1894)
January 26 – Crawford Gordon, businessman (b.1914)
January 31 – Geoffrey O'Hara, composer, singer and music professor (b.1882)
February 10 – Thomas Ricketts, soldier and Victoria Cross recipient in 1918 (b.1901)
March 5 – Georges Vanier, soldier, diplomat and Governor General of Canada (b.1888)
April 30 – Gladys Porter, politician and first female Member of the Legislative Assembly of Nova Scotia (b.1894)
May 13 – Dana Porter, politician and jurist (b.1901)
May 23 – Lionel Groulx, priest, historian, Quebec nationalist and traditionalist (b.1878)
August 2 – Adrien Arcand, journalist and fascist (b.1899)
December 30 – Vincent Massey, lawyer, diplomat and Governor General of Canada (b.1887)
Charles Edward Bothwell, politician and barrister (b.1882)
Jack Humphrey, painter (b.1901)
Malcolm Norris, Métis leader (b.1900)
