Celebrating Canada’s Birthday – What to do?
OTTAWA – Canada’s 150th birthday will be July 1, 2017. A celebration that big takes a lot of planning.
Shelly Glover, Minister of Canadian Heritage and Official Languages, launched pan-Canadian consultations from Ottawa on December 16th, to seek Canadians’ views on how they would like to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation.
“Canada’s 150th celebrations will give us the opportunity to reflect on all the things that make Canada the united, prosperous and free country it is today,” said Minister Glover. “I invite all Canadians across our great country to tell us how they would like to celebrate in 2017.”
From the One Hundredth Anniversary of Confederation, there was, what was at the time a snappy song, “Ca-na-da!”. That song echoed across the country. Today, it is likely there will be lots of change to how that image of our country will be presented.
The Government of Canada will undertake extensive consultations, with meetings being planned throughout Canada. The consultations kicked off today with a roundtable in Toronto, where Minister Glover met with community leaders to discuss their perspective on Canada’s approaching milestone anniversary. Additional roundtables in other communities will be announced at a later date.
At the same time, Canadians are invited to participate in the consultations through an online questionnaire at Canada.ca/150 or Canada150.gc.ca.
Over the next four years, on the Road to 2017, celebrations will mark key historic milestones that have defined our country. In 2014, commemorations will include the centennial of the start of the First World War, the 75th anniversary of the start of the Second World War, the bicentennial of Sir George-Étienne Cartier’s birth and the 150thanniversary of the Charlottetown and Québec Conferences.
