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Editor: Jock
Edited: Feb. 19, 2009

Distinguished Canadians
From Doctors to Scientists

Here are a few of the many eminent Canadians, who either were born in Canada or became Canadian citizens, and who have made their mark on the world. The links here are to their biographies.

Great Canadian Astronauts

• Roberta Bondar
  Born in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. Canada’s first woman astronaut on the United States space shuttle Discovery for a seven day mission into space in January of 1992.
• Marc Garneau
  Born February 23, 1949, in Québec City, Québec. A veteran of three space flights (STS-41G in 1984, STS-77 in 1996 and STS-97 in 2000), Dr. Garneau has logged over 677 hours in space.
• Chris Hadfield
  Born August 29, 1959, in Sarnia, and raised in Milton, Ontario. Flew as the first Canadian mission specialist, the first Canadian to operate the Canadarm in orbit, and the only Canadian to ever be aboard the Russian Space Station Mir.
• Steven (Steve) Glenwood MacLean
  Born December 14, 1954, in Ottawa, Ontario. Designated as the Canadian Payload Specialist to fly with the CANEX-2 set of Canadian experiments in space. His mission, STS-52, took place October 22 to November 1, 1992.
• Julie Payette
  Born October 20, 1963, in Montreal, Quebec. Flew on Space Shuttle Discovery from May 27 to June 6, 1999 as part of the crew of STS-96. Ms. Payette became the first Canadian to participate in an ISS assembly mission and to board the Space Station.    
• Bob Thirsk
  Born August 17, 1953, in New Westminister, British Columbia. On June 20, 1996, Bob flew aboard space shuttle mission STS-78 (the Life and Microgravity Spacelab mission) as a payload specialist.
• Bjarni Tryggvason
  Born September 21, 1945, in Reykjavik, Iceland, but considers Vancouver, B.C., to be his hometown. Served as a Payload Specialist on STS-85 (August 7-19, 1997), a 12 day mission to study changes in the Earth’s atmosphere.
• Dafydd (Dave) Rhys Williams
  Born May 16, 1954, in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Served as Mission Specialist 3 on STS-90 Neurolab (April 17 to May 3, 1998).

Prominent Canadian Medical Doctors

Nobel Prize Winners

• Dr. Frederick Banting
  Born on November 14, 1891, at Alliston, Ont., Canada. Honoured for isolating insulin. Won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1923.
• David H. Hubel
  Born in 1926 in Windsor, Ontario. Had dual citizenship: Canadian by birth and acquired American citizenship through parents. Co-winner of 1981 Nobel Prize for mapping the visual cortex. It’s become the best known part of the brain.
• Dr. Michael Smith
  Born April 26, 1932. Died October 4, 2000. Received Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1993 for discovering site-directed mutagenesis — how to make a genetic mutation precisely at any spot in a DNA molecule.

Medical Discoveries and Humanitarian Achievements

• Dr. Charles Herbert Best
  Born 1899, West Pembroke, Maine, USA. Died 1978, Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Was Director of the Banting and Best Institute, where he succeeded in isolating heparin, an effective anti-coagulant.
• Dr. Norman Bethune
  Born in Gravenhurst, ON in 1890. Considered in China as the greatest Canadian.
• Dr. Henri J. Breault
  Developed and introduced child-proof pill container: “The Child-Resistant Container is to childhood poisonings what the Salk vaccine is to polio”. Born in Tecumseh, Ontario in 1909.
• Dr. Bruce Chown
  Born 1893, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Died, 1986. Devoted his career to understanding and treating erythroblastosis fetalis (Rh factor).
• Dr. James Bertram Collip
  Born November 20, 1892 in Belleville, Ontario and died June 19, 1965.
  While on sabbatical leave from the University of Alberta in 1921-22, Dr. Collip collaborated with the team of Banting and Best, providing the biochemical expertise necessary to produce a pure extract of insulin that could be used clinically.
• Dr. Wilfred Gordon Bigelow
  Born in 1913 in Brandon, Manitoba. His key discovery, made in 1950, was recognizing how to lower the body’s oxygen requirements while lowering the body’s core temperature to a point at which safe open heart surgery was possible. While researching hypothermia, he developed a device, the first implantable cardiac pacemaker, to maintain the heart’s rate.
• Dr. Phil Gold
  Born in Montreal, Quebec on September 17, 1936. Discovered a carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) produced during growth of cancer cells of the digestive system. The discovery of CEA opened the new field of onco-fetal antigens.
• Dr. Wilder Graves Wilder Penfield
  Made major breakthroughs in the understanding and treatment of various forms of epilepsy and of brain scars resulting from trauma.
• Dr. James Fraser Mustard
  Born in Toronto, ON. First to draw a connection between A.S.A. and the effect it has on heart attack and stroke patients.
• Dr. William Thornton Mustard
  Born in Clinton, ON. Was the first to use prosthetic glass tubes in wounded arteries and in the repair of congenital defects early in infancy.
• Sir William Osler
  Best-known physician, at the turn of the century, in the English-speaking world.
• Dr. Judes Poirier
  Is internationally known for his works on the role of apolipoprotein E in the normal and injured brain and, in the genetics of Alzheimer’s disease.
• Dr. Robert Bruce Salter
  A pioneer in orthopedic surgery.
• Dr. Salim Yusuf
  Recipient of several international awards for his research contributions, with his interests being in the areas of thrombolysis, antithrombotics, prevention of vascular diseases, congestive heart failure and meta-analytic approaches to the evaluation of clinical trials.
• Dr. Sandra Witelson
  Captured headlines around the world by discovering that Einstein’s inferior parietal region, the region known for mathematical thought.

Canadian Personages

• Max Aitken (Lord Beaverbrook)
  Born May 25, 1879 in New Brunswick. A wealthy newspaper baron with considerable influence in the highest levels of English politics and society. One of his greatest successes was the formation of the Steel Company of Canada (Stelco Inc).
• Lloyd Axworthy
  Born 1939 Dec. 21 in North Battleford, Saskatchewan. Has receive world recognition of his leadership in the global effort to outlaw land mines and the use of children as soldiers and to bring war criminals to justice.
• Lincoln Alexander
  Born in Toronto, Ontario, on January 21,1922. “Eliminating discrimination is among the most important tasks facing society.”
• Louise Arbour
  Born 10 February 1947, Montréal, Québec. Security Council of the United Nations appointed her Prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. She became The Honourable Madam Justice Louise Arbour of the Supreme Court of Canada. In 2004 became United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
• June Callwood
  Born June 2, 1924 in Chatham, Ontario died April 14, 2007 in Toronto. Magazine, TV and newspaper journalist, author and social activist. One of Canada's most famous social justice activists, founding or co-founding over 50 Canadian social action organizations including youth and women's hostels.
• Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire
  Commander- United Nations Observer Mission: Uganda and Rwanda.
• Thomas C. Douglas
  Born in Falkirk, Scotland in 1904 and emigrated to Winnipeg, Manitoba with his family in 1910. The Father of Canadian Health Care.
• Louise Fréchette
  Born in Montreal on 16 July 1946, she is the first Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations.
• John Peters Humphrey
  Born in Hampton, New Brunswick in 1905. In 1946, Professor Humphrey was appointed as the Director of the Human Rights Division in the United Nations Secretariat. He prepared the first preliminary draft of what was to become the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Eleanor Roosevelt dubbed it as “the international Magna Carta of all mankind.”
• Paul-Émile Cardinal Léger
  Born in Valleyfield, Québec, on the south shore of the St. Lawrence River on April 25, 1904. Was a missionary among handicapped children and lepers in the United Republic of Cameroon in West Central Africa.
• Guy Laliberté
  Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Cirque du Soleil was born in Quebec City in 1959.
• Stephen Lewis
  Born in Ottawa, Ontario, on November 11, 1937. He currently is the Special Envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa. AS Deputy Executive Director of UNICEF, he was a passionate advocate of the rights and needs of children.
• Lester Bowles Pearson
  Born in Toronto April 23, 1897. Winner 1957 Nobel Prize in Peace. Proposed the establishment of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), signed the enabling treaty in 1949, headed the Canadian delegation to NATO until 1957, and functioned as chairman of the NATO Council in 1951-1952. In the Suez crisis of 1956, when the United Kingdom, France, and Israel invaded Egyptian territory, he proposed and sponsored the resolution that created a United Nations Emergency Force to police that area.
• Jeff Skoll
  Born in Montreal 1965. Jeff Skoll was eBay's first employee and first president, hired by its founder Pierre Omidyar. In 2003 Business Week recognized Jeff Skoll as one of the most innovative philanthropists of the past decade.
• Maurice Strong
  Hailed as the “Custodian of the Planet.” He is perpetually on the short list of candidates for Secretary General of the United Nations. He is Senior Advisor to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan; Senior Advisor to World Bank President James Wolfensohn; Chairman of the Earth Council; Chairman of the World Resources Institute; and Co-Chairman of the Council of the World Economic Forum.
• David Suzuki
  Born in Vancouver, BC in 1936. Has received consistently high acclaim for his thirty years of award-winning work in broadcasting, explaining the complexities of science. He is recognized as a world leader in sustainable ecology.   
• Roy Herbert Thomson (1st Baron Thomson of Fleet)
  Born 1894 in Toronto, Ontario. Acquired newspapers around the world in a dozen countries and along the way, many magazines and printing companies. Also owned a half a dozen radio stations outside Canada and a dozen Television stations, most notably Scottish Television based in Glasgow.

 Great Canadian Scientists, Engineers, Economists, & Mathematicians

Nobel Prize Winners

• Sid Altman
  Discovered catalytic RNA, for which he won the Nobel Prize in 1989. Born in Montreal, Québec.
• Dr. Bertram N. Brockhouse
  Born in Lethbridge, Alberta, on July 15, 1918. Received 1994 Nobel Prize in Physics for pioneering contributions to the development of neutron scattering techniques for studies of condensed matter, especially for the development of neutron spectroscopy.
• Gerhard Herzberg
  Winner of the 1971 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Born in Hamburg, Germany, on 25 December, 1904. He fled to Canada in 1935. Work on atomic and molecular spectroscopy. Used techniques that determine the structures of diatomic and polyatomic molecules, including free radicals difficult to investigate in any other way, and for the chemical analysis of astronomical objects.
• Rudolph A. Marcus
  Winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his theory of electron transfer provides a thermodynamic and kinetic framework for describing one electron outer-sphere electron transfer. Born in Montreal, Quebec.
• Robert Mundall
  Winner of the 1999 Nobel Prize in Economics for his work on monetary dynamics and optimum currency areas. Born 1932 in Kingston, Ontario.
• John Charles Polanyi
  Winner of the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the method of infrared chemiluminescence, in which the extremely weak infrared emission from a newly formed molecule is measured and analyzed. Born in 1929 in Berlin, Germany, of Hungarian parents. In 1956, he was appointed as a Lecturer at the University of Toronto where he was successively Assistant Professor (1957-1960), Associate Professor (1960-1962) and Professor (1962- present).
• Myron S. Scholes
  Winner of the 1997 Nobel Prize in Economics for "a new method to determine the value of derivatives". Born in Timmins, Ontario, Canada on July 1, 1941.
• Michael Smith
  Awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering a process called site-directed mutagenesis. Born into a in Blackpool, England in 1932. For years he worked at the Fisheries Research Board of Canada Laboratory in Vancouver, and in 1966 he was appointed a UBC professor of Biochemistry in the Faculty of Medicine. He had a long and productive research career at the University of British Columbia as a Professor of Biochemistry. In 1996 he was named Peter Wall Distinguished Professor of Biotechnology and he subsequently became the founding Director of the Genome Sequencing Center at the BC Cancer Research Agency.
• Henry Taube
  Won the Nobel prize in chemistry for studying electron transfer reactions. Neudorf, Saskatchewan, 1915.
• Richard E. Taylor
  Co-winner of the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics "for their pioneering investigations concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on protons and bound neutrons, which have been of essential importance for the development of the quark model in particle physics". Born November 2, 1929 in Medicine Hat, Alberta.

Discoveries and Inventions and Science Promotion

• Joseph-Armand Bombardier
  Born in Valcourt, Québec, on April 16, 1907. His invention of the snowmobile became the foundation for a business empire that today includes the building of aircraft, subway cars, railway cars, and all-purpose vehicles.
• Alexander Graham Bell
  Born 1847, Scotland. Died, Nova Scotia 1922.
• John Charles Field
  Born May 14, in Hamilton, Ontario. Best known for conceiving the idea of, and for providing funds for, an international medal for mathematical distinction.
• Randolph W. Diamond
  Developed a new process for ore separation known as differential froth flotation. This transformed British Columbia’s Sullivan mine from a unique but uneconomic mineral deposit into Canada’s most productive zinc-lead producer and catapulted Cominco Ltd. into the forefront of Canadian mining and smelting companies.
• Sir Sanford Fleming
  Born at Kirkcaldy, Scotland Jan. 7, 1827; died at Halifax July 22, 1915. Designed, in 1878, the worldwide time zones
  that are still in use today.
• John Kenneth Galbraith
  Born in October 15, 1908, Iona Station, Ontario and became an American citizen in 1937. He remains one of the better-known economists in post-worldwar America.
• James Gosling
  Led the team that developed the Internet programming language Java.
• David Levy
  Co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9. This comet became famous in July 1994 when it crashed into the planet Jupiter.
• Sir William Logan
  Born in Montreal, April 20,1798. He was knighted by Queen Victoria in 1856 and awarded the Order of the Legion of Honor by the French emperor. During his career he received 22 medals in all. Logan and his staff — Geological Survey of Canada — provided a sound preliminary knowledge of the geology and mineral resources of Upper and Lower Canada.
• Arthur McDonald
  Born in Sydney, Nova Scotia, on August 29, 1943. Led and managed the massive sensitive neutrino detector (SNO). SNO detects all three neutrinos (electron, muon, and tau) and distinguishes electron neutrinos from the others. The SNO team concluded: electron neutrinos from the sun morph into their sister forms during the journey to earth, proving the solar model theory.
• Henry Mintzberg
  Distinguished academic in the field of Business management.
• Louis Nirenberg
  Born in Hamilton, Ontario. He developed intricate interactions between mathematical analysis, differential geometry, and “complex analysis” and applied them to the theory of fluid flow and other physical phenomena.
• Lloyd M. Pidgeon
  Developed the process for the production of high­purity magnesium. Received Order of the British Empire in 1946 and made an “Officer” of the Order of Canada in July 1996.
• Charles Edward Saunders
  Developed Marquis wheat. In 1904 the introduction of the hardy early-ripening Marquis wheat allowed farmers to grow the crop further north, where the summer season was shorter. His accomplishment doubled the amount of arable land on the Prairies.
• William Chester Shaw and Graeme Ferguson
  Born on October 31, 1928 in Hespeler, Ontario. In 1968, Mr. Shaw joined with GCI classmates Robert Kerr and as well as Roman Kroiter to invent the IMAX motion picture system. As a Mechanical Engineer, he designed the revolutionary IMAX Projector. Died 2002.
• J. Tuzo Wilson
  Born in Ottawa, Ontario on October 24, 1908. Was a geophysicist. Played a pivotal role in advancing the plate-tectonics theory: Introduced the movement of a plate over a stationary “hotspot” in the mantle. Proposed the third type of plate boundary to connect the oceanic ridges and trenches, which he noted can end abruptly and “transform” into major faults that slip horizontally, such as the San Andreas Fault zone.

 Great Canadian Heroes

• Lt.-Col William George Barker
  Born 1994 in Dauphin, Manitoba. He is "the most decorated hero not just of the First World War but of all our wars." – Wayne Ralph, author.
  Honours are: The Victoria Cross; the Distinguished Service Order and Bar; the Military Cross and Two Bars; the French Croix-de-Guerre; two Italian Silver Medals for Valour, plus three Mentions-in-Despatches.
• William Avery Bishop (Billy Bishop)
  WW1 and WW2 Flying Ace. Born in Owen Sound, ON. Flew in 170 air battles and took down 72 enemy planes. He received the Victoria Cross for his bravery.
• George “Buzz” Beurling
  Born in Verdun, Quebec in 1921 and died in a suspecious plane crash Dec 1947. With 32 confirmed planes shot down, George Beurling was one of the top Allied aces of WWII. Unfortunately Beurling seemed to do things calculated to annoy senior officers. Nonetheless, he was the best fighter pilot around, and that is all that counts in war.    
• Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire
  Commander- United Nations Observer Mission: Uganda and Rwanda.
• William Hall
  Born at Horton, Nova Scotia April 28th, 1821. During the Indian Rebellion, he received the Victoria Cross for standing to his gun to blow open a gate to make an entrance to the city. His comrades having been killed he perseverance succeeded in effecting an entrance for the British troops.
• Captain O’Kill Massey Learmonth
  Awarded the Victoria Cross posthumously.
• John McCrae
  Born Nov 30th 1872 in Guelph, Ontario. Wrote the poem that has become symbolic for the suffering and loss of the great war: In Flanders’ Fields
• Charles Cecil Ingersoll Merritt
  Born in Vancouver, British Columbia, on November 10, 1908. Recognized for matchless gallantry and inspiring leadership whilst commanding his battalion during the Dieppe raid on the 19th August, 1942.
• Captain Robert Piché
  Saved the lives of more than 300 passengers of Air Transit Flight 236 on Sept 1, 2001. His hometown is Mont-Joli, Gaspe Peninsula (Gaspésie), Quebec. The plane´s two engines, due to a gas leak, died over the Atlantic Ocean. The Captain did the impossible and redirected the plane to the Azores, glided the powerless Airbus 330 over the ocean for 20 minutes, landed at high-speed, and 90 seconds after stopping on the runway all passengers evacuated safely.
• Ernest Alvia “Smokey” Smith
  Born in New Westminster, B.C. in 1914. Won the Victoria Cross at the Savio River in Italy, October 21-22, 1944.
• Laura Ingersoll Secord
  As a consequence of her bravery and determination, the Niagara Peninsula remains as part of Canada.
• Sgt. Thomas Ricketts
  The youngest “Canadian” Victory Cross winner. born on 15th of April 1901 in Middle Arm, White Bay, Newfoundland. Fought in the “Great War”, World War 1.
• Dr. Louis Alexander Slotin
  1910-1946. He is credited with having saved seven scientists from an agonizing death due to radiation arising from an accident while armouring the first atomic bomb. His body served as the protective shield.
• Major General Sir Sam Steele
  Born at Purbrook, Canada West (now near Orillia, Ontario) on January 5, 1849. As a sergeant major in the newly created North West Mounted Police, he, and the men under his command, brought order to the Canadian West.
• Tecumseh
  Born in March 1768, on the Mad River near the present-day city of Springfield, Ohio. Shawnee chief who is regarded as one of the greatest of North American Indian leaders. Tecumseh allied with the British and the British commissioned Tecumseh as a brigadier general.
• Victoria Cross Recipients
  Names, bios and citations of these 94 heroes.

Great Canadian Politicians and Governors General

• Governors General of Canada
  

• Michaëlle Jean
  Governor General from 2005-
• Former Governor Generals of Canada
  From 1867- present
• Portraits of Canadian Governors General
  

Justice Notables

• Supreme Court Judges
  
• C.J. Beverley McLachlin
  Born in Pincher Creek, Alberta, September 7, 1943. Chief Justice of Canada.