OTTAWA — Canadian Heritage officials came up with a list of potential milestones to commemorate in the lead up to, and in the years following, Canada's 150th birthday in 2017. Here is a sample of some of the suggestions submitted in mid-March:
— Centennial of the birth of Tommy Prince: Born Oct. 25, 1915 on the Brokenhead Reserve in Manitoba, Prince enlisted in the army and became part of the famous "Devils' Brigade" during the Second World War. He is one of Canada's most decorated aboriginal veterans.
— The Underground Railroad: The secret network of routes and safe houses helped enslaved Africans escape the United States in the 1800s. It is estimated that 30,000 slaves used the Underground Railroad. The department wanted to mark the 175th anniversary of the Underground Railroad in 2016.
— Centennial of the Parliament fire: Fire consumed the Parliament buildings in February 1916, killed seven people and left only the northwest wing of the building and the library intact. Rebuilding efforts started that July and the new building was completed in 1922 with the Peace Tower finished in 1927.
— The 50th anniversary of the Royal Commission on the Status of Women: The commission's final report in 1970, three years after it was struck, outlined the breadth and depth of inequalities women faced in Canada and is seen to have started a real push to remove economic, social, cultural, legal and political participation barriers for women.
— The 75th anniversary of Japanese internment camps: A 1942 order-in-council gave the federal government the power to intern all "persons of Japanese racial origin" while Canada was at war and displaced almost 21,000 people. The Mulroney government apologized for this in 1988.
— The 100th anniversary of the 1918 change that gave Canadian women the right to vote in federal elections.
— The 50th anniversary of Harold Cardinal's book "The Unjust Society," which was a response to Pierre Trudeau's call for a Just Society and the then-Liberal government's white paper on aboriginal policy.
— The centennial in 2020 of the first exhibition of the Group of Seven at the Art Gallery of Toronto (now the Art Gallery of Ontario).
— The 150th anniversary of the 1869 Red River Rebellion that helped form the province of Manitoba and the centennial of the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike, the largest strike in Canadian history.
