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Explore knowledge selected to support preparation for the Canadian citizenship test. Every record on this page belongs to the Citizenship Test collection within our knowledge base.
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Michael Ondaatje was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada in 2016. The appointment recognizes a poet, novelist and editor whose books include The English Patient.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Tulane Public Relations · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
Joy Kogawa was appointed Member of the Order of Canada in 1986. The appointment recognizes an author whose novel Obasan portrays the wartime treatment of Japanese Canadians.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Vancouver Heritage Foundation · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Robertson Davies was appointed Companion of the Order of Canada in 1972. The appointment recognizes a writer whose work spans literature, theatre and journalism.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Gotfryd, Bernard, photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Michael Smith of the University of British Columbia shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing site-directed mutagenesis.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: File:Michael Smith party at Mary Vickers's house.1994, F-109-7-0-0-10 001.jpg: SCWIST Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology derivative work: Michał Sobkowski · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Richard Taylor, born in Medicine Hat, Alberta, in 1929, shared the 1990 Nobel Prize in Physics for experiments around 1970 that scattered high-energy electrons off protons and neutrons.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: ENERGY.GOV · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sidney Altman, born in Montréal in 1939, shared the 1989 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Thomas Cech for discovering that RNA, not only proteins, can act as an enzyme.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: NIH · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John Polanyi of the University of Toronto shared the 1986 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for contributions to the dynamics of chemical elementary processes.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Bengt Oberger · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Gerhard Herzberg of the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa received the 1971 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his contributions to knowledge of the electronic structure and geometry of molecules, particularly free radicals.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Willy Pragher · Photo licence: CC BY 4.0 · Credit & context
Joseph Howe, born in Halifax and largely self-taught, became publisher of the Novascotian and by 1836 was his province’s leading journalist and orator. Elected that year, he led the struggle that won responsible government in 1848. An eloquent opponent of Confederation in the 1860s, he joined the federal cabinet in 1869 after negotiating “better terms” for Nova Scotia, and shortly before his death in 1873 became its lieutenant governor.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William Notman · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Lester B. “Mike” Pearson, Canada’s fourteenth prime minister, was an influential diplomat who became Secretary of State for External Affairs in 1948, helped form NATO and won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership at the United Nations during the Suez crisis. Liberal leader from 1958 and prime minister from 1963 to 1968, he promoted bilingualism, championed the new flag, and brought in universal medicare and the Canada Pension Plan.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Capital Press · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Ernest MacMillan, composer and organist, was knighted in 1935 for services to music in Canada. For many years he conducted the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, led the Toronto Conservatory of Music and was dean of music at the University of Toronto. He promoted music at every level, supporting national music organizations, publishing, and conducting and judging festivals across the country.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Noel Rubie · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Louis-Hippolyte LaFontaine, a jurist and reformer born at Boucherville in 1807, was one of the architects of responsible government in Canada. With Robert Baldwin he led the reform governments of the Province of Canada in 1842 and 1848. He left politics in 1851, became Chief Justice of Lower Canada in 1853 and was made a baronet in 1854.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Indéterminé · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Sir Robert Borden, born at Grand-Pré, Nova Scotia, led the Conservative Party from 1901 and was Prime Minister from 1911 to 1920. He guided Canada through the First World War, imposed conscription for overseas service in 1917 and formed a Union government of Liberals and Conservatives. He is remembered above all for insisting that Canada act as an autonomous nation in international diplomacy.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Notman, Boston · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Louis de Buade de Frontenac, governor of New France from 1672 to 1682 and 1689 to 1698, shaped the colony’s military destiny: he resisted the British attack of 1690 and invaded Haudenosaunee territory in 1696. To profit from the fur trade he defied policy against westward expansion, founding Fort Frontenac (Cataraqui) in 1673 and starting a network of posts; he remains a controversial, legendary figure.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Photo: Jean Gagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Harold Adams Innis, one of Canada’s great scholars, joined the University of Toronto in 1920 and headed its Department of Political Economy from 1937. Through works such as The Fur Trade in Canada, The Cod Fisheries and Empire and Communications, he deeply influenced the study of economics, history, geography, politics and communications.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown photographer (1910s) · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Samuel Cunard, born in Halifax of Loyalist parents, built a Maritime empire in banking, lumber, land, coal and above all shipping. A pioneer of transatlantic steam navigation, he won an Admiralty contract in 1839 for scheduled Liverpool–Halifax–Boston mail service, and in July 1840 the Britannia, the first regular Cunarder, crossed in 13 days.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles Tupper of Amherst, a physician, became premier of Nova Scotia in 1864 and, allied with John A. Macdonald, advocated Confederation despite substantial opposition in Nova Scotia. After federal cabinet posts and 11 years as High Commissioner in London, he succeeded Bowell as prime minister in 1896, then led the opposition after his party’s defeat that year.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Charles G. D. Roberts, born in Douglas, New Brunswick, grew up near the Tantramar Marshes that shaped much of his writing. His early poetry inspired the generation of writers known as the Confederation Poets and laid the foundations of a Canadian poetic tradition, earning him the title of father of English-Canadian poetry.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Wilfrid Laurier of Saint-Lin, Quebec, was Canada’s first francophone prime minister, an MP for 45 years and Liberal leader for 32. As prime minister from 1896 to 1911 he presided over the settlement of the West, created Alberta and Saskatchewan and founded the Canadian Navy, and he worked to win greater autonomy for Canada and common ground between English and French Canadians.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Topley Studio · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
John Diefenbaker, a charismatic orator raised in Saskatchewan, was a defence lawyer and MP for some 40 years and Canada’s 13th prime minister from 1957 to 1963. He revived the Progressive Conservative Party, winning a landslide in 1958, and his government extended social programs, promoted Northern development and championed human rights at home and abroad.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Gar Lunney · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
William Neilson Hall of Hantsport, Nova Scotia, serving with the Royal Navy in India in 1857, became the first person of African descent and the first Nova Scotian awarded the Victoria Cross. He became a source of pride for Black Canadians.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown photographer · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
J. E. H. MacDonald, painter, designer and poet, was a founding member of the Group of Seven and a key figure in creating a national style of landscape painting. A talented graphic designer of Canadian motifs, he painted southern Ontario farmland, Algoma’s autumn colours, Nova Scotia shores and the Rockies, and inspired students at the Ontario College of Art.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown photographer; Archives of Ontario · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
A. Y. Jackson, born in Montréal, studied painting there and in Paris, served overseas in the First World War and was a member of the Group of Seven from 1920 to 1933. His simple, rounded forms in wilderness landscapes gave a powerful image of Canada, and he greatly influenced a generation of Canadian artists.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown photographer (1930); Archives of Ontario, I0007815 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Samuel Leonard Tilley of Gagetown led New Brunswick’s government and was a delegate to the Charlottetown, Québec and London conferences, an architect of the British North America Act and leader of the province’s pro-Confederation forces. As federal Minister of Finance he drafted the National Policy, and he twice served as lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William James Topley · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context