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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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The guide names Terry Fox, Rick Hansen, Wayne Gretzky, Donovan Bailey and Chantal Petitclerc as examples of Canadian sporting achievement and public contribution. It also connects James Naismith with basketball.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William B. Grice · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Discover Canada names the Group of Seven, Emily Carr, Les Automatistes and Kenojuak Ashevak among important Canadian visual-arts examples. It presents cultural achievement in both English and French and across regions and communities.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: John Vanderpant · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & contextCanada Day is July 1 and Remembrance Day is November 11. Labour Day is observed on the first Monday in September and Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October; Victoria Day falls on the Monday preceding May 25.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William B. Grice · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
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
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
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
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
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
Louis-Philippe Hébert was a Canadian sculptor known for public monuments. After carving wood figures for churches in Ottawa and Montréal, he made bronze statues such as Cartier on Parliament Hill and won renown for the sculptures on the façade of the Quebec legislature, his Maisonneuve monument in Montréal and the Macdonald monument in Ottawa.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: William Notman & Son · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Marshall McLuhan, a University of Toronto professor and pioneer of media studies, became famous in the 1960s for his theories about how print and electronic media shape human perception and behaviour. His ideas of the “global village” and “the medium is the message” made him one of the most celebrated scholars in the Western world.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Josephine Smith · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & contextFrederick Varley, a founding member of the Group of Seven, helped establish a national style of painting the Canadian landscape. A masterful portraitist and an official First World War artist, he moved to teach on the West Coast in 1926, and his unconventional use of colour to convey emotion is a singular contribution to Canadian art.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: John Vanderpant · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
Healey Willan came to Canada in 1913 to teach at the Toronto Conservatory of Music, now the Royal Conservatory. As organist and choirmaster of St. Mary Magdalene in Toronto from 1921 to 1968, he composed the sacred music for which he is particularly remembered.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown photographer (1930); Archives of Ontario, I0001735 · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
George Brown (1818–1880) founded the influential newspaper The Globe in 1844 and became a leading reformer and head of the “Clear Grit” party. In 1864 he was a key figure in the Great Coalition that made Confederation possible, and he co-founded the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Hunter & Co. · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The RCMP Musical Ride, a precision performance by scarlet-uniformed police on horseback set to music, was first performed in Regina in 1887 by the North-West Mounted Police. The RCMP has bred and trained black horses for the Ride since the 1940s, and it is one of the distinctive symbols of Canadian identity at home and abroad.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Andrea_44 from Leamington, Ontario , Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
Harriet Tubman (c. 1822–1913), who escaped slavery in Maryland, was the most famous “conductor” on the Underground Railroad, leading many people on dangerous journeys to freedom in Canada and helping them settle. She became the public face of the Underground Railroad in British North America, drawing attention and funding to the abolition movement.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Gr82c · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
Mary Ann Shadd (1823–1893) became a prominent activist in the Underground Railroad refugee communities of Upper Canada in the 1850s. In 1853 she established the Provincial Freeman, an influential newspaper that argued for the rights of Black people and women and became the leading voice of refugees in Canada.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Chris Woodrich · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
Tom Longboat (1886–1949), an Onondaga athlete from the Six Nations of the Grand River, became the foremost long-distance runner of his time and won the 1907 Boston Marathon. He competed at the 1908 Olympics and was one of the first Canadian athletes to make a living solely from sport.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Unknown authorUnknown author · Photo licence: Public domain · Credit & context
The 1972 Summit Series, eight games played in September 1972, was the first encounter between top Canadian professional hockey players and the Soviet Union’s national team. Team Canada won the series in Moscow with a come-from-behind victory, scoring the winning goal with 34 seconds left in the final game.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Jeangagnon · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context
E. Pauline Johnson (1861–1913), born at Chiefswood on the Six Nations of the Grand River, was the daughter of a Mohawk chief. Beginning in the 1890s she published poems, essays and stories and performed them on stages across Canada and abroad, gaining international fame.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Steve Colwill from Ottawa, Canada · Photo licence: CC BY 2.0 · Credit & context
In 1892, Governor General Lord Stanley’s donation of a challenge cup for Canada’s best hockey club was announced. First awarded to amateur teams, the Stanley Cup has been the exclusive prize of the National Hockey League’s playoff champion since 1927.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: Alex Goykhman · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 · Credit & context
James Naismith, born in Ramsay Township, Ontario, invented basketball. In 1891, as a teacher in Massachusetts, he devised it as a non-contact indoor team game; Parks Canada designated him a National Historic Person.
Contributor: Citizen.ca
Photo: D. Gordon E. Robertson · Photo licence: CC BY-SA 3.0 · Credit & context