1989 in Canada Information & 1989 in Canada Links at HealthHaven.com

Events from the year 1989 in Canada.

[edit] Incumbents

January 1: The Canadian-American Free Trade Agreement comes into effect.
January 21: Brian Peckford announces his resignation from politics, giving the party 2 months to find a replacement as party leader and premier.
March 1: The Canadian Space Agency is created.
March 10: An Air Ontario flight crashes near Dryden, Ontario killing 24
March 20: Alberta election: Don Getty's PCs win a sixth consecutive majority.
March 22: Thomas Rideout becomes premier of Newfoundland, replacing Brian Peckford.
May 5: Clyde Wells becomes premier of Newfoundland, defeating Thomas Rideout in a general election
June 5: The federal government announces sweeping cuts to VIA Rail
July 31: Cable television network CBC Newsworld is launched.
September 1: French cable sports network, RDS, signs on.
October 8: The Cormier Village hayride accident kills 13 people and injures 45.
December 2: Audrey McLaughlin is elected head of the NDP replacing Ed Broadbent becoming the first female major party leader in Canadian history
December 6: École Polytechnique Massacre: Marc Lépine murders fourteen women at the École Polytechnique of the Université de Montréal in Montreal, Quebec. The event proves a spur to both the Canadian feminist and gun control movements.
December 21: Quebec uses the notwithstanding clause for the first time.
December 31: All rail service is terminated in Prince Edward Island after CN Rail abandons its historic rail lines in the province.

Deborah Grey wins a by-election to become the first Reform Party Member of Parliament.
Corel releases CorelDraw
Heather Erxleben becomes Canada's first official female combat soldier
Sidney Altman shares in the Nobel Prize for Chemistry

January 20 - Beatrice Lillie, comic actress (b.1894)
January 22 - Farquhar Oliver, politician (b.1904)
January 31 - William Stephenson, soldier, airman, businessperson, inventor and spymaster (b.1897)
February 9 - Ken Adachi, writer and literary critic (b.1929)
May 14 - Joe Primeau, ice hockey player (b.1906)
May 14 - E. P. Taylor, business tycoon and race horse breeder (b.1901)
June 14 - Louis-Philippe-Antoine Bélanger, politician (b.1907)
June 26 - Howard Charles Green, politician and Minister (b.1895)