2006 in Canada

Crown

• Head of state (monarch) – Queen Elizabeth II (consort – Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh)

Federal government

• Governor general – Michaëlle Jean (viceregal consort – Jean-Daniel Lafond)
• Prime minister – Paul Martin (until February 6) then Stephen Harper
• Chief Justice – Beverley McLachlin (British Columbia)
• Parliament – 39th (from April 3)

Provincial governments

Territorial governments

January to March

• January 1 – Thirty cities across the province of Quebec are reconstituted as the result of a referendum held on June 20, 2004.
• January 10–29 seniors injured in a Toronto bus crash.
• January 23 – The 39th Canadian general election results in the Conservative Party of Canada holding the largest number of seats in Parliament, meaning Stephen Harper will become the first Conservative Prime Minister.
• February 1 – Justice John Gomery releases the final report of a Royal Commission investigating the federal sponsorship scandal.
• February 6 – Stephen Harper is sworn in as the 22nd Prime Minister of Canada.
• February 11 – Rodney MacDonald wins the leadership of the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative Party.
• February 24 – Rodney MacDonald is sworn in as the 32nd Premier of Nova Scotia.
• February 24 – Marshall Rothstein is nominated to the Supreme Court of Canada by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Rothstein will be the first Supreme Court nominee to face an all-party committee hearing in Parliament before his appointment is confirmed.
• March 2 – The Supreme Court of Canada rules in favour of Gurbaj Singh Multani, saying that kirpan can be worn in Canadian schools.
• March 23 – A British-led multinational military operation involving American, British, Canadian and Iraqi forces results in the release of three Christian Peacemaker hostages held in Iraq for nearly four months; Briton Norman Kember and Canadians Harmeet Singh Sooden and James Loney.

April to June

• April 16 – Hunter Jim Martell kills a Grizzly-polar bear hybrid on Banks Island in the Northwest Territories.
• May 15 – The village of Embrun, Ontario has its 150th anniversary.
• May 16 – Canada 2006 Census day.
• May 29 – A labour dispute leads to a one-day shutdown of the Toronto Transit Commission, stranding commuters in Toronto, Ontario.
• May 31 – 100 millimeters of rain in a few hours caused landslides in and around the small town of La Tuque, in central Quebec, damaging roads and flooding houses. State emergency was decreted right away and people were evacuated.
• June 2 – Terrorism plot—more than 400 police officers raid homes in Toronto and Mississauga, Ontario, and arrest 15 people (10 men and five youths), part of a terrorist cell. All men were born in Canada and were reportedly planning to attack the Parliament in Ottawa, the Bank of Toronto, some military installations, kidnap deputees and behead prime minister Stephen Harper.
• June 13 – The Nova Scotia general election, 2006 is won by Rodney MacDonald's Conservatives.
• June 26 – Prime minister Stephen Harper apologizes on behalf of the Canadian government for the Chinese head tax.

July to September

• July 7 – Two police officers are shot and killed in Spiritwood, Saskatchewan.
• July 17 – A series of severe thunderstorms hits Ontario, causing the worst damage to the province's power grid since the Ice Storm of 1998 and killing two people. Some communities in the Sudbury, Manitoulin and Nipissing regions go without power for a week before it can be restored. See the Great Lakes-Atlantic Coast derecho.
• August 2 – The day after record-breaking heat in Ontario and Quebec and just two weeks following another series of powerful storms, severe thunderstorms hit a vast swath of Cottage country in central and eastern Ontario. Eight confirmed tornadoes touch down, the single largest one-day outbreak in the province since 1985. The two strongest tornadoes are rated F2, one near Bancroft and other a direct hit on the town of Combermere in Renfrew County. Close to 200,000 residents lose power in the storms and more than 20,000 remain without power for over one week after the event. Extensive property and forest damage results. Amazingly no fatalities result.
• August 9 – Journalist Barbara Kay publishes a controversial piece in the National Post, "The Rise of Quebecistan", which accuses several Quebec politicians of endorsing terrorism and anti-semitism.
• August 13 – The XVI International AIDS Conference opens in Toronto. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is widely criticized in the media for declining to attend.
• August 26 – Elizabeth May is elected leader of the Green Party of Canada.
• September 13 – Two people are killed and nineteen injured in the Dawson College shooting in Montreal.
• September 16 – Jan Wong publishes a controversial piece in The Globe and Mail, "Get under the desk", alleging that Dawson College shooter Kimveer Gill was motivated by linguistic and cultural alienation from Quebec society.
• September 18 – The New Brunswick general election, 2006 is won by Shawn Graham's Liberal Party.
• September 30 – A highway overpass on Autoroute 19 in Laval collapses, killing five people and injuring six others.

October to December

• October 3 – Shawn Graham becomes premier of New Brunswick, replacing Bernard Lord.
• October 4 – The Turner Review and Investigation is released. Prompted by the murder of Zachary Turner, the report concluded that the infant's death was preventable and that Newfoundland and Labrador's social services system did not adequately act to protect him from his mother.^[1]
• October 18 – MP Garth Turner is suspended from the Conservative caucus for criticizing Prime Minister Stephen Harper in his online blog.
• October 19 – Environment Minister Rona Ambrose introduces the controversial Clean Air Act, which is criticized by environmentalists and Opposition politicians for offering virtually no substantive action on climate change until at least 2011. During debate on the act, several Opposition politicians allege that they hear External Affairs Minister Peter MacKay refer to Liberal MP Belinda Stronach as a dog.
• October 20 – The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission approves the sale of controversial Quebec City radio station CHOI-FM to RNC Media.
• October 23 – Inco Limited shareholders accept a takeover offer by Brazilian mining corporation Companhia Vale do Rio Doce.
• October 25 – Krista and Tatiana Hogan, conjoined twins, are born in Vancouver.
• November 25 – First round of balloting in the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta leadership election, 2006. As no candidate achieved 50% of the votes, a runoff was held on December 2 between top three finishers Jim Dinning, Ted Morton and Ed Stelmach.
• November 27 – The House of Commons votes to recognise the Québécois ethnic group as a nation within Canada in an informal motion.
• November 27 – Byelections are held in the ridings of London North Centre and Repentigny; Glen Pearson retains London North Centre for the Liberals, and Raymond Gravel retains Repentigny for the Bloc Québécois.
• December 2 – Liberal Party of Canada leadership election, 2006 was held. Liberal delegates select Stéphane Dion as their new leader. Also the second round of balloting in the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta leadership election, 2006 selects Ed Stelmach as their new leader.
• December 14 – Ed Stelmach is sworn in as Premier of Alberta.
• December 8 - Stephen Harper announces the Canada's Chemical Management Plan; a program made up of various initiatives that focus on monitoring, research, assessment, regulation, and enforcement of chemicals.

Full date unknown

• The Caledonia land dispute escalates when the Ontario Provincial Police move in to remove the protesters but are stopped.
• Falconbridge Ltd. is acquired by Swiss mining company Xstrata.
• Rogers Wireless to begin deployment of Canada's first 3G Wireless Network.

New music

• Susan Aglukark, I Will Return
• April Wine, Roughly Speaking
• Eva Avila, Somewhere Else
• Delerium, Nuages du Monde
• Nelly Furtado, Loose
• Pierre Lapointe, La Forêt des Mal-Aimés
• Antoine Gratton, Il était une fois dans l'est
• Malajube, Trompe-l'oeil
• Loreena McKennitt, An Ancient Muse
• Richard Séguin, Lettres ouvertes
• Billy Talent, Billy Talent II
• Tragically Hip, World Container
• Chantal Kreviazuk, Ghost Stories

New books

• Gordon Stewart Anderson, The Toronto You Are Leaving
• Margaret Atwood, Moral Disorder
• Peter Behrens, The Law of Dreams
• Douglas Coupland, jPod
• Barbara Fradkin, Honour Among Men
• Rawi Hage, De Niro's Game
• Anosh Irani, The Song of Kahunsha
• Alice Munro, The View from Castle Rock
• Heather O'Neill, Lullabies for Little Criminals

Awards

• April 2 – Juno Awards of 2006
• June 11 – Canadian musical, The Drowsy Chaperone, wins five Tony Awards
• September 2–3 – Inaugural Osheaga Festival held in Montreal.
• November 21 – 2006 Governor General's Awards.
• David Foster, musical producer, is appointed to the Order of Canada
• Steve Smith, comedian, is appointed to the Order of Canada
• Judith Thompson, playwright, is appointed to the Order of Canada
• Ranee Lee, musician, is appointed to the Order of Canada
• Chantal duPont, video artist, wins the 2005 Bell Canada Award in Video Art
• Sylvia Legris's Nerve Squall is named winner of the Canadian Griffin Poetry Prize
• Scotiabank Giller Prize – Vincent Lam, Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures

Film

• January 20 – Karla, the controversial movie about the murders of two Canadian teens, Leslie Mahaffy and Kristen French, is released in Canada.
• August 11 – Bon Cop, Bad Cop, movie dark comedy-thriller buddy cop film about an Ontarian and a Québécois police officer who reluctantly join forces. The dialogue is a mixture of English and French and is claimed to be Canada's first bilingual feature film.
• September 7 – The Journals of Knud Rasmussen
• October 11 – Media reports announce that Bon Cop, Bad Cop has beaten Porky's to become the top-grossing Canadian film of all time in domestic box office; these are later disputed as not having taken inflation into account.
• C.R.A.Z.Y. is named best picture at the 26th Genie Awards.

Television

January to June

• January 4 – Irving Layton, poet (born 1912)
• February 24 – John Martin, broadcaster (born 1947)
• February 25 – Margaret Gibson, novelist and short story writer (born 1948)
• March 11 – Bernie Geoffrion, ice hockey player (born 1931)
• April 16 – Harold Horwood, novelist and non-fiction writer (born 1923)
• April 23 – Steve Stavro, Macedonian-Canadian businessman and philanthropist (born 1927)
• April 25 – Jane Jacobs, urbanist, writer and activist (born 1916)
• May 6 – Lorne Saxberg, television journalist and news anchor (born 1958)
• May 10 – A. M. Rosenthal, columnist and newspaper editor (born 1922)
• June 12 – Kenneth Thomson, 2nd Baron Thomson of Fleet, businessman and art collector (born 1923)

July to September

• August 9 – Melissa Hayden, ballerina (born 1923)
• August 23 – Maynard Ferguson, jazz trumpet player and bandleader (born 1928)
• August 24
  • Léopold Simoneau, lyric tenor (born 1916)
  • John Weinzweig, composer (born 1913)
• August 28 – Benoît Sauvageau, politician (born 1963)
• September 13
  • Anastasia De Sousa (born 1988)
  • Kimveer Gill, murderer responsible for the Dawson College shooting (born 1981)
• September 16 – Floyd Curry, ice hockey player (born 1925)
• September 29 – Louis-Albert Vachon, educator and Cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church (born 1912)

October to December

• October 16 – Lister Sinclair, broadcaster, playwright and polymath (born 1921)
• November 4 – Frank Arthur Calder, politician, first Status Indian to be elected to any legislature in Canada (born 1915)
• November 7 –
  • Jackie Parker, American-born football player
  • George Tutunjian, Syria–born singer (born 1930)
• November 14 – Sydney Banks, broadcaster and producer (born 1917)
• November 22 – John Allan Cameron, folk singer (born 1938)