So…About Those Famous Canadians…

I have a deep heritage and fondness for Canada. I spent most of my childhood growing up in rural Ontario and to this day beam with pride at that history.

I had a conversation with a friend this week and the subject of Howie Mandel as a judge on “America’s Got Talent” came up. My friend…knowing my Canadian background, said” He’s a famous Canadian!” Hmmmm.

I like Howie, but my response to my friend was “Well, he’s Canadian, and he is a celebrity, but I think he is more a famous person who happens to be Canadian than he is an actual Famous Canadian.” By that I mean I have never seen Howie waving the Maple Leaf and showing national pride. I’m not picking on Howie or any of the other celebrities that are native sons and daughters of Canada. A partial list includes:

Lorne Green, Leslie Neilson, Howie Mandel, Jim Carrey, John Candy, Dan Aykroyd, William Shatner, Keanu Reeves, Pamela Anderson, Mike Meyers, Martin Short, Michael J. Fox, Shania Twain, Neil Young, Justin Bieber, just to name a few.

I tend to think of “famous” as a person who has made a contribution by inventing something useful, a medical breakthrough, or an otherwise positive historic figure.

Being a trivia nut, I know of a few, but I did a little research and here is a partial list of people I would consider famous Canadians.

1. Sir John A. Macdonald – The first Prime Minister of Canada (1867). Sir John was essentially the “George Washington” of Canada and served a total of 6 terms in that position.

2. Frederick Banting and Charles Best. These two scientists first isolated insulin (1921). This discovery led to treating diabetes on a large scale in 1923.

3. Herbert Henry Dow – The founder of Dow Chemicals.

4. Grahame Ferguson, Roman Kroitor, Robert Kerr – inventors of IMAX (1968)

5. Wilfred Bigelow – inventor of the pacemaker…be still my heart…or not.

6. James Naismith – inventor of basketball. Yep! Basketball was invented by a Canadian! There were a couple of problems with the popularity of basketball in Canada though. It is difficult to play on ice, and all of the 7 foot tall Canadians were already being recruited as goalies in the National Hockey League.

7. Gideon Sundback – invented the zipper.

8. Joseph-Armand Bombardier – inventor of the snowmobile. Now this one I admit is obvious. Where else but Canada would winter transportation be invented? A place where Joseph could test-drive his proto-types 9 months a year (it’s too cold the other 3).

And last but not least is not a famous Canadian person but rather a famous Canadian object. The robotic arm used in NASA’s shuttle program. Canada developed and contributed the device as part of the international space program. For nearly 30 years the arm has tirelessly worked in space launching satellites, catching and repairing the Hubble telescope and building the international space station. In the end, many Canadians were disappointed that NASA has squandered the original purpose of the arm which was as a deep space beer opener.

I’m just saying.