The Greatest Canadian Invention is a television mini-series originally aired on CBC Television

CBC Television

CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...

. It is a spiritual sequel

Spiritual sequel

A spiritual successor, sometimes called a spiritual sequel or a companion piece, is a successor to a work of fiction which does not directly build upon the storyline established by a previous work as do most traditional prequels or sequels, but nevertheless features many of the same elements,...

 to The Greatest Canadian

The Greatest Canadian

Officially launched on April 5, 2004, The Greatest Canadian was a television program series by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to determine who is considered to be the greatest Canadian of all time, at least among those who watched and participated in the program...

.
It began with people voting online which invention (out of 50) they considered the greatest Canadian invention. The show is a two-hour special, hosted by Bob McDonald (Quirks and Quarks

Quirks and Quarks

Quirks & Quarks is a Canadian weekly science news program heard over CBC Radio One of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation ....

), that premiered on January 3, 2007 at 8:00 EST

UTC-5

UTC−05:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of −05.This offset is used in the Eastern Time Zone during standard time and in the Central Time Zone during Daylight Saving Time ....

.

Commentators

The 22 commentators for the show are:

• Margaret Atwood
  Margaret Atwood
  Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
  
   - Writer and inventor of the LongPen
  LongPen
  The LongPen is a remote signing device conceived by writer Margaret Atwood. It allows someone to write in ink anywhere in the world via tablet PC and the internet....
  
  
• Buck 65
  Buck 65
  Richard Terfry , who uses the stage name Buck 65, is a Canadian experimental artist, MC and turntablist. Underpinned by an extensive background in abstract hip hop, his more recent music has extensively incorporated blues, country, rock, folk and avant garde influences.Terfry is also a radio host,...
  
   - Hip hop
  Hip hop
  Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...
  
   musician
• Jackie Duffin
  Jackie Duffin
  Jacalyn Mary "Jackie" Duffin is a Canadian medical historian and hematologist. She holds the Hannah Chair, History of Medicine at Queen's University. Formerly, she was President of the American Association for the History of Medicine and Canadian Society for the History of Medicine. From 1993-1995...
  
   - Medical History professor at Queen's University
  Queen's University
  Queen's University, , is a public research university located in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Founded on 16 October 1841, the university pre-dates the founding of Canada by 26 years. Queen's holds more more than of land throughout Ontario as well as Herstmonceux Castle in East Sussex, England...
  
  
• Will Ferguson
  Will Ferguson
  William Stener "Will" Ferguson is a Canadian writer and novelist best known for his humorous observations on Canadian history and culture....
  
   - Author and Humourist
• Danielle Goyette
  Danielle Goyette
  Danielle Goyette is a retired women's ice hockey player, and has been on the Canadian national team.-Hockey Canada:...
  
   - Hockey player and Olympic
  Olympic Games
  The Olympic Games is a major international event featuring summer and winter sports, in which thousands of athletes participate in a variety of competitions. The Olympic Games have come to be regarded as the world’s foremost sports competition where more than 200 nations participate...
  
   gold medallist
• Chris Hadfield
  Chris Hadfield
  Chris Austin "Chris" Hadfield, O.Ont, MSC, CD is a Canadian astronaut from the Canadian Space Agency who was the first Canadian to walk in space. Hadfield has flown two space shuttle missions, STS-74 in 1995 and STS-100 in 2001. He has served as CAPCOM for both Space Shuttle and International...
  
   - Astronaut
• Mike Holmes
  Mike Holmes
  Michael James Holmes is a Canadian professional contractor. He is the host of television show Holmes on Homes, where he rescues homeowners from renovations gone wrong; and its successor TV series, Holmes Inspection...
  
   - Home renovation specialist, TV host of Holmes on Homes
  Holmes on Homes
  Holmes on Homes is a Canadian television series featuring general contractor Mike Holmes visiting homeowners who are in need of help, mainly due to unsatisfactory home renovations performed by hired contractors....
  
  
• Mike Lazaridis
  Mike Lazaridis
  Mihalis "Mike" Lazaridis , OC, O.Ont is a Greek Canadian businessman. He is the founder and co-CEO of Research In Motion , which created and manufactures the BlackBerry wireless handheld device. He is also a former chancellor of the University of Waterloo, and an Officer of the Order of Canada...
  
   - President of Research In Motion
  Research In Motion
  Research In Motion Limited or RIM is a Canadian multinational telecommunications company headquartered in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada that designs, manufactures and markets wireless solutions for the worldwide mobile communications market...
  
  ; inventor of the BlackBerry
  BlackBerry
  BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more...
  
  
• Preston Manning
  Preston Manning
  Ernest Preston Manning, CC is a Canadian politician. He was the only leader of the Reform Party of Canada, a Canadian federal political party that evolved into the Canadian Alliance...
  
   - Trustee of the Manning Innovation Awards
  Manning Innovation Awards
  The Ernest C. Manning Awards Foundation has been recognizing and encouraging innovation in Canada since 1982. By means of a nomination, Canadian resident citizens, who have demonstrated recent innovative talent in developing and successfully marketing a new concept, process or procedure, may be...
  
  
• Patrick McKenna
  Patrick McKenna
  Patrick McKenna born May 8, 1960 in Sylvania, Saskatchewan is a Canadian comedic and actor. He is best known for playing Harold Green on the television series The Red Green Show, Marty Stephens on Traders, and the Trudeau miniseries. McKenna is a member of Toronto's The Second City comedy troupe...
  
   - Comedian and actor
• Miriam McDonald
  Miriam McDonald
  Miriam Katherine McDonald is a Canadian actress and occasional dancer. She is best known for playing Emma Nelson on the television series Degrassi: The Next Generation.-Career:...
  
   - Actress and star of Degrassi: The Next Generation
  Degrassi: The Next Generation
  Degrassi: The Next Generation is a Canadian teen drama television series set in the Degrassi universe, which was created by Linda Schuyler and Kit Hood in 1979. Degrassi is the fourth fictional series in the Degrassi franchise, and follows The Kids of Degrassi Street, Degrassi Junior High, and...
  
  '
• Mitsou
  Mitsou
  Mitsou Annie Marie Gélinas is a Canadian pop singer, businesswoman, television and radio host, and actress...
  
   - Singer and CBC TV host
• Steve Nash
  Steve Nash
  Stephen John "Steve" Nash, OC, OBC is a South African-born Canadian professional basketball player who plays point guard for the Phoenix Suns of the National Basketball Association . Nash enjoyed a successful high-school basketball career, and he was eventually given a scholarship by Santa Clara...
  
   - Basketball player, 2 time NBA MVP
• Kathryn O'Hara - Professor of Science Journalism at Carleton University
  Carleton University
  Carleton University is a comprehensive university located in the capital of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. The enabling legislation is The Carleton University Act, 1952, S.O. 1952. Founded as a small college in 1942, Carleton now offers over 65 programs in a diverse range of disciplines. Carleton has...
  
  
• Abena Otchere - Science education advocate and medical student
• Drew Hayden Taylor
  Drew Hayden Taylor
  Drew Hayden Taylor is a Canadian playwright, author and journalist.Born in Curve Lake, Ontario, Taylor is part Ojibwa and part Caucasian. About his background Taylor says: "I plan to start my own nation. Because I am half Ojibway half Caucasian, we will be called the occasions...
  
   - Playwright and columnist
• Debbie Travis
  Debbie Travis
  Debbie Travis is a British television personality, self-taught interior designer, and former fashion model. She is best known as the host of Debbie Travis' Facelift and Debbie Travis' Painted House...
  
   - Home decoration specialist and TV host of Painted House
• Vikram Vij - Chef/restaurateur and cookbook author
• Michael Winter - Writer
• Ronald Wright
  Ronald Wright
  Ronald Wright is a Canadian author who has written books of travel, history and fiction. His nonfiction includes the bestseller Stolen Continents, winner of the Gordon Montador Award and chosen as a book of the year by the Independent and the Sunday Times...
  
   - Writer
• Judy Cornish & Joyce Gunhouse (Comrags) - Women's clothes fashion designers

Inventions

The inventions, in voted order, are:

Insulin Insulin Insulin is a hormone central to regulating carbohydrate and fat metabolism in the body. Insulin causes cells in the liver, muscle, and fat tissue to take up glucose from the blood, storing it as glycogen in the liver and muscle.... Telephone Telephone The telephone , colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sounds, usually the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other... Light bulb Incandescent light bulb The incandescent light bulb, incandescent lamp or incandescent light globe makes light by heating a metal filament wire to a high temperature until it glows. The hot filament is protected from air by a glass bulb that is filled with inert gas or evacuated. In a halogen lamp, a chemical process... Five-pin bowling Five-pin bowling Five-pin bowling is a bowling variant which is played only in Canada, where most bowling alleys offer it, either alone or in combination with ten-pin bowling. It was devised around 1909 by Thomas F. Ryan in Toronto, Ontario, at his Toronto Bowling Club, in response to customers who complained that... Wonderbra Wonderbra The Wonderbra is a type of push-up underwire brassiere that gained worldwide prominence in the 1990s. Although the Wonderbra name was first trademarked in the U.S. in 1935, the brand was developed in Canada. Moses Nadler, founder and majority owner of the Canadian Lady Corset Company, licensed the... Artificial pacemaker Artificial pacemaker A pacemaker is a medical device that uses electrical impulses, delivered by electrodes contacting the heart muscles, to regulate the beating of the heart... Robertson screw Zipper Zipper A zipper is a commonly used device for temporarily joining two edges of fabric... Electric Wheelchair Motorized wheelchair A motorized wheelchair, powerchair, electric wheelchair or electric-powered wheelchair is a wheelchair that is propelled by means of an electric motor rather than manual power... Poutine Poutine Poutine is a Canadian dish of French fries and fresh cheese curds, covered with brown gravy or sauce. Sometimes additional ingredients are added.Poutine is a fast food dish that originated in Quebec and can now be found across Canada... Cobalt-60 “Bomb” Cancer Treatment Radiation therapy Radiation therapy , radiation oncology, or radiotherapy , sometimes abbreviated to XRT or DXT, is the medical use of ionizing radiation, generally as part of cancer treatment to control malignant cells.Radiation therapy is commonly applied to the cancerous tumor because of its ability to control... Java programming language Java (programming language) Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities... Bloody Caesar Caesar (cocktail) A Caesar or Bloody Caesar is a cocktail created and primarily consumed in Canada. It typically contains vodka, Clamato , hot sauce and Worcestershire sauce, and is served with ice in a large, celery salt-rimmed glass, typically garnished with a stalk of celery and wedge of lime.It was invented in... Canadarm Standard time Standard time Standard time is the result of synchronizing clocks in different geographical locations within a time zone to the same time rather than using the local meridian as in local mean time or solar time. Historically, this helped in the process of weather forecasting and train travel. The concept... Electron microscope Electron microscope An electron microscope is a type of microscope that uses a beam of electrons to illuminate the specimen and produce a magnified image. Electron microscopes have a greater resolving power than a light-powered optical microscope, because electrons have wavelengths about 100,000 times shorter than...

Ski-Doo Ski-Doo Ski-Doo is a brand name of snowmobile fabricated by Bombardier Recreational Products. The first Ski-Doo was launched in 1959. It was a new invention Joseph-Armand Bombardier... BlackBerry BlackBerry BlackBerry is a line of mobile email and smartphone devices developed and designed by Canadian company Research In Motion since 1999.BlackBerry devices are smartphones, designed to function as personal digital assistants, portable media players, internet browsers, gaming devices, and much more... Radio Voice Transmission Birch-Bark Canoe Basketball Basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules... Retractable Beer Carton Handle Corrugated box design Corrugated box design is the process of matching design factors for corrugated fiberboard boxes with the functional physical, processing and end-use requirements... UV Degradable Plastics Instant Replay Instant Replay Instant replay is the process of replaying previously occurred events through the use of video technology.Instant replay may also refer to:*Instant replay in American football*Instant Replay , 1969... Goalie mask Goalie mask A goaltender mask, commonly referred to as a goalie mask or a hockey mask, is a mask worn by ice hockey, inline hockey, and field hockey goaltenders to protect the head from injury. Jacques Plante was the first goaltender to create and use a practical mask in 1959. Plante's mask was a piece of... Marquis Wheat Pablum Pablum Pablum is a processed cereal for infants originally marketed by the Mead Johnson Company in 1931. The trademarked name is a contracted form of the Latin word pabulum, meaning "foodstuff", which had long been used in botany and medicine to refer to nutrition, or substances of which the nutritive... Lacrosse Lacrosse Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh... Electric Oven Oven An oven is a thermally insulated chamber used for the heating, baking or drying of a substance. It is most commonly used for cooking. Kilns, and furnaces are special-purpose ovens... Steam Fog Horn Walkie-Talkie Walkie-talkie A walkie-talkie is a hand-held, portable, two-way radio transceiver. Its development during the Second World War has been variously credited to Donald L. Hings, radio engineer Alfred J. Gross, and engineering teams at Motorola... Alkaline battery Alkaline battery Alkaline batteries are a type of primary batteries dependent upon the reaction between zinc and manganese dioxide . A rechargeable alkaline battery allows reuse of specially designed cells.... Paint roller Paint roller A paint roller is a paint application tool used for painting large flat surfaces rapidly and efficiently.A paint roller typically consists of two parts: a "roller frame," and a "roller cover." The roller cover absorbs the paint and transfers it to the painted surface. The roller frame attaches to...

Electronic Music Synthesizer Synthesizer A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones... Weevac 6 Weevac 6 The Weevac 6 is a brand of stretcher specifically created for the transport of babies, such as in hospitals or for patient evacuation. The Weevac 6 was invented by Canadian-born Wendy Murphy in 1985... Green Garbage Bag Snowblower Self-Propelled Combine Harvester Combine harvester The combine harvester, or simply combine, is a machine that harvests grain crops. The name derives from the fact that it combines three separate operations, reaping, threshing, and winnowing, into a single process. Among the crops harvested with a combine are wheat, oats, rye, barley, corn ,... Instant mashed potato Instant mashed potato Instant mashed potatoes are potatoes that have been through an industrial process of cooking, mashing and dehydrating to yield a packaged convenience food that can be reconstituted in the home in seconds by adding hot water or milk, producing a close approximation of mashed potatoes with very... es Explosives Vapour Detector Explosives trace detector Explosives trace detectors are security equipment able to detect explosives of small magnitude. The detection can be done by sniffing vapors as in an explosive vapor detector or by sampling traces of particulates or by utilizing both methods depending on the scenario. Most explosive detectors in... Marine Screw Propeller Plexiglas Key Frame Animation Key frame A key frame in animation and filmmaking is a drawing that defines the starting and ending points of any smooth transition. They are called "frames" because their position in time is measured in frames on a strip of film... CPR-Mannequin: “Actar 911” G-Suit G-suit A G-suit, or the more accurately named anti-G suit, is worn by aviators and astronauts who are subject to high levels of acceleration force . It is designed to prevent a black-out and G-LOC caused by the blood pooling in the lower part of the body when under acceleration, thus depriving the... Ardox Spiral Nail Nail (engineering) In woodworking and construction, a nail is a pin-shaped, sharp object of hard metal or alloy used as a fastener. Formerly wrought iron, today's nails are typically made of steel, often dipped or coated to prevent corrosion in harsh conditions or improve adhesion... Automatic Lubricating Cup Crash-Position Indicator Caulking gun Caulking Caulking is one of several different processes to seal joints or seams in various structures and certain types of piping. The oldest form of caulking is used to make the seams in wooden boats or ships watertight, by driving fibrous materials into the wedge-shaped seams between planks... Separable Baggage Check Bag tag Bag tags, also known as baggage tags, baggage checks or luggage tickets, have traditionally been used by bus, train and airline companies to route passenger luggage that is checked on to the final destination...

External links

• The Greatest Canadian Invention Homepage