2002 in Canada

See also: 2001 in Canada, other events of 2002, 2003 in Canada and the list of 'years in Canada'.

Incumbents

• Head of State – Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
  • Governor General – Adrienne Clarkson
• Prime Minister – Jean Chrétien

• Premier of Alberta – Ralph Klein
• Premier of British Columbia – Gordon Campbell
• Premier of Manitoba – Gary Doer
• Premier of New Brunswick – Bernard Lord
• Premier of Newfoundland – Roger Grimes
• Premier of Nova Scotia – John Hamm
• Premier of Ontario – Mike Harris then Ernie Eves
• Premier of Prince Edward Island – Pat Binns
• Premier of Quebec – Bernard Landry
• Premier of Saskatchewan – Lorne Calvert

Estimated Canadian population: 31,413,990

Events

• January 11 – Ford Motor Co. announces the closing of the truck assembly plant in Oakville, Ontario
• January 14 – Industry Minister and Liberal leadership hopeful Brian Tobin announces that he is leaving politics.
• January 15 – Jean Chrétien shuffles the cabinet mostly to remove the scandal-tainted Alfonso Gagliano
• January 18 – Walkerton Report released: it puts partial blame for the water tragedy on the provincial government
• February 8 through February 24 – 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, Utah. Canada wins gold for men's and women's hockey. Controversy erupts when Jamie Salé and David Pelletier are given only silver for the pairs' figure skating
• March 4 – Federal government allows stem cell research using human embryos
• March 11 – Six children die when their home burns down in Quatsino, British Columbia
• March 20 – Stephen Harper defeats Stockwell Day to become leader of the Canadian Alliance.
• March 23 – Ernie Eves is elected to replace Premier Mike Harris at the Ontario Tory leadership convention
• March 26 – B.C. Supreme Court rules that works of the imagination are not child pornography.
• April 15 – Ernie Eves becomes premier of Ontario, replacing Mike Harris
• April 16 – The New York Sun, partially owned by former Canadian Conrad Black, is launched
• April 17 – Four Canadian infantrymen are killed, and eight injured, in Afghanistan by friendly fire from two U.S. F-16s, dropping a 230-kilogram bomb.
• May 5 – Hell's Angels leader Maurice Boucher is convicted in Montreal of two counts of first-degree murder
• May 7 – A court injunction is granted to Marc Hall, permitting him to bring a same-sex date to his high school prom
• May 26 – Jean Chrétien shuffles the Cabinet again removing Art Eggleton and Don Boudria who were both embroiled in scandals
• June 2 – Prime Minister Jean Chrétien fires Finance Minister Paul Martin and replaces him with John Manley
• June 5 – Alexa McDonough announces her resignation as leader of the federal NDP
• June 7 – Quebec becomes the first province to grant homosexual couples full parental rights
• June 26 – G-8 leaders meet at Kananaskis, Alberta
• July 10 – At a Sotheby's auction, Peter Paul Rubens' painting "The Massacre of the Innocents" is sold for £49.5 million (US$76.2 million) to Canadian Lord Thomson
• July 14 – During Bastille Day celebrations, Jacques Chirac is saved from an assassination attempt by a Canadian tourist
• July 23 – Pope John Paul II arrives in Toronto for World Youth Day
• August 6 – Joe Clark announces decision to resign as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party
• August 21 – Facing pressure from Martin loyalists Jean Chrétien announces he will step down as prime minister in February 2004
• September – A Senate committee rules that marijuana should be legalized in Canada
• September 30 – CBC starts an uproar when it announces Ron MacLean will not be returning as host of Hockey Night in Canada. The CBC later agrees to MacLean's salary demands.
• October 4 – The Queen arrives in Canada to start of 12-day Canadian tour to mark her Golden Jubilee.
• October 7 – American officials deport Canadian citizen Maher Arar to Syria
• October 14 – Chris Jericho and Christian win WWE Tag Team Championship
• October 22 – Yann Martel wins the Booker Prize for his novel Life of Pi
• October 29 – Canada issues a travel advisory for all those of Middle Eastern decent travelling to the United States
• October 31 – Pat Buchanan calls Canada Soviet Canuckistan
• November 5 – Austin Clarke wins the Giller Prize for his novel The Polished Hoe
• November 24 – The Montreal Alouettes defeat the Edmonton Eskimos 25–16 to win the Grey Cup
• November 26 — Françoise Ducros, the Prime Minister's communication director resigns over her comment that U.S. President George W. Bush is a "moron"
• November 28 – Romanow commission on health care recommends a $15-billion infusion into the health care system
• November 30 – Dennis Fentie becomes premier of Yukon Territory, replacing Pat Duncan
• December 16 – Canada signs the Kyoto Accord, limiting greenhouse gas emissions
• December 17 – The Quebec City police arrest many people in a child prostitution bust that includes many well-known people of the city.
• Towns of Chicoutimi, Jonquière and La Baie consolidated into a new city officially called Saguenay.

Arts and literature

New books

• Family Matters – Rohinton Mistry
• In Search of America – Peter Jennings
• The Last Crossing – Guy Vanderhaeghe
• Lucky Man – Michael J. Fox
• Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World – Margaret Olwen Macmillan
• Unless – Carol Shields
• Negotiating with the Dead, A Writer on Writing – Margaret Atwood
• Fences and Windows – Naomi Klein
• School Spirit – Douglas Coupland
• High Latitudes: An Arctic Journey – Farley Mowat

Awards

• Yann Martel's Life of Pi wins the Booker Prize
• Margaret Macmillan wins the Samuel Johnson Prize for Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World
• Books in Canada First Novel Award: Mary Lawson, Crow Lake
• Giller Prize for Canadian Fiction: Austin Clarke – The Polished Hoe
• See 2002 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Geoffrey Bilson Award: Virginia Frances Schwartz, If I Just Had Two Wings
• Gerald Lampert Award:
• Griffin Poetry Prize: Christian Bök, Eunoia
• Marian Engel Award: Terry Griggs
• Matt Cohen Prize: Norman Levine
• Norma Fleck Award: Gena K. Gorrell, Heart and Soul: The Story of Florence Nightingale
• Pat Lowther Award:
• Stephen Leacock Award: Will Ferguson, Generica
• Timothy Findley Award: Bill Gaston
• Trillium Book Award English: Austin Clarke, The Polished Hoe and Nino Ricci, Testament
• Trillium Book Award French: Michel Ouellette, Le testament du couturier and Éric Charlebois, Faux-fuyants

Music

• Joni Mitchell wins a Grammy for life time achievement

New music

• A New Day Has Come – Céline Dion
• Let Go – Avril Lavigne
• Under Rug Swept – Alanis Morissette
• Vapor Trails – Rush
• Does This Look Infected? – Sum 41
• Up! – Shania Twain

Film

• Atom Egoyan's, Ararat is released

Television

• Sesame Park, a Canadian spin-off of the American show Sesame Street, is cancelled due to low ratings, after more than three decades of airing on the CBC.
• CBC Celebrates 50 Years of Television.

Births

• April 6 – India Ann Sushil Sood, daughter of Sarah McLachlan and Ashwin Sood

Deaths

• January 13 – Frank Shuster
• January 24 – CBC journalist Peter Gzowski
• February 1 – Douglas Jung, politician
• February 14 – Bud Olson, politician
• February 26 – Harry Rankin, Vancouver politician
• March 12 – Jean-Paul Riopelle – painter
• March 18 – Dalton Camp, Tory political strategist
• March 30 – The Queen Mother
• April 17 – Richard Green, soldier serving in Afghanistan
• April 19 – Ross Whicher, businessman and politician
• May 9 – Robert Layton, politician
• May 16 – Edwin Alonzo Boyd, bank robber
• June 20 – Timothy Findley (71), author
• July 8 – Sidney Spivak, Manitoba politician
• July 13 – Yousuf Karsh – photographer
• September 13 – George Stanley, academic, designer of Canadian flag
• December 13 – Zal Yanovsky, politician
• December 16 – Bill Hunter, hockey player
• December 18 – Ray Hnatyshyn, former Governor-General of Canada