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Dallas Leon Harms, singer, songwriter, guitarist, record producer (born 18 July 1935 in Jansen, SK; died 12 October 2019 in Hamilton, ON). He was raised in Hamilton, Ontario. Inspired by Hank Williams, he began his career in the mid-1950s and made his first record, for Reo, in 1959. Harms had country hits for Columbia in 1972–73 with “In the Loving Arms of My Marie” and “Old Ira Gray,” and for Broadland 1975–79 with “Paper Rosie,” “Georgia I’m Cheating On You Tonight,” “It’s Crying Time for Me,” “The Fastest Gun,” “I Picked a Daisy,” and “The Ballad of the Duke.” Concurrently, his LPs for Broadland included Paper Rosie (BR-1917), The Fastest Gun (BR-1982), and Painter of Words (BR-2052).

Eugenie Bouchard, tennis player (born 25 February 1994 in Montréal, QC). At Wimbledon 2014, Bouchard became the first Canadian singles player to reach the final of a senior Grand Slam singles tennis tournament. Although she lost to Petra Kvitova, the match was watched by over a million Canadians and helped make Bouchard a media sensation. Two years earlier, Bouchard had won the Wimbledon 2012 girls’ tournament, becoming the first Canadian to win a Grand Slam singles title at any level. A two-time winner of the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award (2013 and 2014), she was the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) Newcomer of the Year in 2013 and won a WTA title in Nuremberg, Germany, in 2014.

Alexander Grant Dexter, journalist (born 3 February 1896 in St Andrews, MB; died 12 December 1961 in Ottawa, ON). Grant Dexter was the archetypal Canadian political reporter of the 1940s, a splendid journalist with access to the best governmental sources.

Larry Kenneth Robert Walker, baseball player, coach (born 1 December 1966 in Maple Ridge, BC). Larry Walker is arguably the greatest Canadian position player in Major League Baseball (MLB) history. He and pitcher Ferguson Jenkins are the only Canadian players to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. A five-time all-star, Walker won seven Gold Gloves, three Silver Sluggers and the 1997 National League MVP award. He hit more than .300 in nine seasons, led the Major Leagues in batting average three times and was the first Canadian-born player to win a batting title since Tip O’Neill in 1887. Walker leads all Canadian MLB players in hits, home runs, RBI, doubles and runs scored. He won the Lou Marsh Trophy as Canada’s athlete of the year in 1998 and received the Tip O’Neill Award as Canada’s best baseball player nine times — more than any other player. He has also been inducted into the BC Sports Hall of Fame, the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame, Canada’s Sports Hall of Fame and the Canadian Baseball Hall of Fame.

Author Lee Maracle reflects on the presentation of the summary of the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission by Justice Murray Sinclair on 2 June 2015.

Simon Nicholas Streatfeild, conductor, violist (born 5 October 1929 in Windsor, England; died 7 December 2019). Simon Streatfeild was an accomplished violist and conductor. He began his career in his native England with London Philharmonic Orchestra, Sadler’s Wells Orchestra and the London Symphony Orchestra. He also helped found the Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields chamber orchestra. He moved to Canada in 1965 and held many positions with the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra while also conducting across Canada and internationally. He was a founding member of the Baroque Strings of Vancouver, the founding director of the Courtenay Youth Music Camp, and a founding member of the Purcell String Quartet. In his later years, Streatfeild served as principal guest conductor and artistic advisor of Orchestra London Canada, Symphony Nova Scotia, and the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony Orchestra. He received the Canadian Music Council Medal in 1987 and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012.

Robert Edward Creech, French hornist, teacher, administrator (born 26 September 1928 in Victoria, BC; died 20 December 2019 in Quilty, Ireland). Robert Creech was a successful musician, educator and arts administrator. He performed with symphony orchestras across Canada, taught at the University of Western Ontario and served as an administrator in Canada, England and Ireland.

Inuvialuit originally occupied the western Canadian arctic coast from Barter Island in the west to Cape Bathurst in the east, as well as the northern portion of the Mackenzie River Delta. Numbering about 2000 during the 19th century, they formed the densest Inuit population in arctic Canada.

He began as an abstract painter, though a visit to an exhibition of Andrew Wyeth's work at Buffalo, New York, in 1962 confirmed his disenchantment with abstraction. He turned to painting carefully posed, snapshot-like views, often of rural Ontario seen in a strong light.

Jean Vanier, CC, GOQ, philosopher, humanist, founder of L’Arche and co-founder of Faith and Light (born 10 September 1928 in Geneva, Switzerland; died 7 May 2019 in Paris, France). The son of Georges Vanier, governor general of Canada (1959–1967), and Pauline Vanier (née Archer), Vanier worked as a navy officer and professor before devoting his life to advocating for persons with intellectual disabilities. In February of 2020, an investigative report found that Vanier had sexually abused at least six women between 1970 and 1995, thereby raising questions about his legacy of service and reputation as a spiritual leader.

Derek Holman, CM, composer, organist, choir conductor, professor (born 16 May 1931 in Illogan, England; died 20 May 2019 in Ottawa, ON). Derek Holman worked at St. Paul’s Cathedral, Croydon Parish Church and the Royal School of Church Music in the United Kingdom before moving to Canada in 1965. He was organist-choirmaster at Toronto’s Grace Church on-the-Hill, choirmaster at Bishop Strachan School and a professor at the University of Toronto. He was perhaps best known for his collaborations with Robertson Davies, including on the children’s opera Doctor Canon’s Cure (1982). Holman was an associate of the Canadian Music Centre and a member of the Canadian League of Composers. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Church Music in 1972 and a Member of the Order of Canada in 2002.

Michael Colgrass, composer, percussionist (born 22 April 1932 in Brookfield, Illinois; died 2 July 2019 in Toronto, ON). Michael Colgrass played with the New York Philharmonic and Stravinsky’s Columbia Recording Orchestra in New York before moving to Toronto in 1974. He is perhaps best known for winning the Pulitzer Prize in music in 1978 for Déjà Vu (1977), a concerto for percussion quartet and orchestra. Colgrass also won first prizes from the Louis B. Sudler International Wind Band Competition and the US National Band Association for his wind ensemble composition Winds of Nagual (1985). His Strangers: Irreconcilable Variations for Clarinet, Viola and Piano won the Jules Léger Prize for New Chamber Music in 1988.

Marie-Marguerite d'Youville, née Dufrost de Lajemmerais (born 15 October 1701 in Varennes, Quebec; died 23 December 1771 in Montreal). D'Youville was the founder of the Sisters of Charity of the Hôpital Général de Montréal, also known as the Grey Nuns. She was the first Canadian-born saint, canonized by Pope John Paul II in 1990.

R v. Bedard (1971) challenged section 12(1)(b) of the Indian Act, which concerns the rights of Status Indian women in Canada. The appellant in the case, Yvonne Bedard, took the federal government to court after losing her rights as a Status Indian because of her marriage to a Non-Status man. In 1973, before the Supreme Court of Canada, the Bedard case merged with AG v. Lavell, another case concerning gender discrimination (see Status of Women) in the Indian Act. Although Bedard ultimately lost her reinstatement claims, her case inspired future legal battles regarding women’s rights and the Indian Act, including Lovelace v. Canada (1981) (see Sandra Lovelace Nicholas) and the Descheneaux case (2015).

Claudette Bradshaw, community activist, politician (born 8 April 1949 in Moncton, NB). Claudette Bradshaw’s early career was spent in nonprofit social work. She founded Moncton Headstart, an early family intervention centre, and advocated for at-risk youth. She was Member of Parliament for Moncton–Riverview–Dieppe from 1997 to 2006 and served in several ministerial roles in the Liberal governments of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin, including Minister of Labour and Minister of State (Human Resources Development). Since then, she has become a major advocate for mental health, literacy and affordable housing.

Shirley Douglas, OC, actor, activist (born 2 April 1934 in Weyburn, SK; died 5 April 2020).

Joseph Alfred Pierre Rouleau, CC, GOQ, bass, teacher (born 28 February 1929 in Matane, QC; died 12 July 2019 in Montreal, QC). Opera singer Joseph Rouleau was renowned worldwide for his unerring theatrical sense and impressive vocal flexibility. He performed for 20 years with Covent Garden in London, where he played leading roles in more than 40 productions. In Canada, Rouleau appeared often with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and the Quebec Symphony Orchestra. He premiered the role of Monseigneur Taché in Harry Somers’s Louis Riel with the Canadian Opera Company (COC) in 1967. He also commissioned and premiered Jacques Hétu’s Les Abîmes du rêve with the Quebec Symphony Orchestra in 1984, and issued a recording of songs by Félix Leclerc in 1990. Rouleau received the Prix de musique Calixa-Lavallée, the Prix Denise-Pelletier and the Governor General’s Performing Arts Award for Lifetime Artistic Achievement. He was made an Officer and then Companion of the Order of Canada, and an Officer and then Grand Officer of the Ordre national du Québec. He was inducted into the Canadian Opera Hall of Fame in 1992.

Norway is a Scandinavian country in northwestern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden, Finland and Russia. Permanent Norwegian migration to North America began in 1825 when the first shipload of Norwegians arrived in New York. In 2016, the Canadian census reported 463,275 people of Norwegian origin (35,905 single and 427,370 multiple responses).