''The Greatest Canadian'' is a 2004

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

series consisting of 13 episodes produced by the

Canadian Broadcasting Corporation The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (), branded as CBC/Radio-Canada, is the Canadian Public broadcasting, public broadcaster for both radio and television. It is a Crown corporation that serves as the national public broadcaster, with its E ...

(CBC) to identify one greatest

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

of all time, according to those who watched and participated in the program. The series two-hour debut on 17 October 2004 garnered more than one million viewers, with approximately 500,000 to 700,000 viewers per episode thereafter. The initial nomination phase received more than 10,000 names submitted for consideration. The second phase of the process concluded on 28 November at midnight and the following evening the winner from more than 1.2 million votes was revealed to be

Tommy Douglas Thomas Clement Douglas (20 October 1904 – 24 February 1986) was a Scottish-born Canadian politician who served as the seventh premier of Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961 and leader of the New Democratic Party from 1961 to 1971. A Bap ...

. The series was inspired by the

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production the '' Great Britons'' and has a spiritual sequel, '' The Greatest Canadian Invention''. ''The Greatest Canadian'' experienced strong initial ratings, some fall-off during its run, and a partial rebound for the finale. The series was credited with bringing the CBC public "buzz" and a younger demographic. Conversely the series was critiqued, by

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communication professors Bart Beaty and Rebecca Sullivan in their book ''Canadian Television Today'', as middlebrow "

nationalist Nationalism is an idea or movement that holds that the nation should be congruent with the State (polity), state. As a movement, it presupposes the existence and tends to promote the interests of a particular nation,Anthony D. Smith, Smith, A ...

pandering."

Selection process

The "Greatest Canadian" was chosen through a two-step voting process. The first phase beginning on 5 April 2004, involved the collection of data (nominees for consideration) through polls conducted by mail, phone and the internet. Of these nominees the bottom 40 of 50 individuals, in order of popularity, were revealed during the first episode in October. The eligibility criteria as outlined by the CBC was broad:The Greatest Canadian criteria
CBC 2010 To prevent bias during the second round of voting; the top ten nominees, also revealed during the first episode, were presented alphabetically rather than by order of first round popularity. This phase was accompanied by a series of hour-long feature documentaries, where 10 Canadian celebrities acting as advocates each presented their case for ''The Greatest Canadian''. Viewers then submitted votes over the next six weeks supporting their favourite finalists. Importantly, there was no overall limit on the number of times any listener could call in and cast a vote, nor was voting restricted to Canadians.

Top 10

On 17 October 2004 the top 10 nominees were revealed at the end of the first episode in alphabetical order. The winner and all finalists were announced by popularity on 28 November and 29 in a three-hour two part series conclusion.

Top 50

More than 10,000 names were submitted for consideration with the top 100 individuals being revealed online accompanied with a short biography.The Greatest Canadian top 100
CBC 2010
PDF list
/ref> Of the 100 only the top 50 nominees were featured during the televised broadcast. At least three* members of the nominees as the direct result of an active mass-mailing campaign among that individual's loyal and well-organized followers. Kin Canada founder Harold A. Rogers, DJ Hal Anderson, and Baháʼí activist Mary Maxwell all benefitted from a

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or continent movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from volunteers at the local level to imp ...

campaign to get their names included in the nominees list. CBC openly admitted this during the broadcast, recognizing that these three esoteric individuals are probably quite unknown to the general public. Critics have complained there were only four women and three nonwhites in the top 50, that French Canadian participation was very low and that a large number of modern pop culture celebrities made the list like;

Bret Hart Bret Sergeant Hart (born July 2, 1957) is a Canadian retired professional wrestler. A member of the Hart wrestling family and a second-generation wrestler, he has an amateur wrestling background at Ernest Manning High School and Mount Royal U ...

Mike Myers Michael John Myers, (born May 25, 1963) is a Canadian actor, comedian, and filmmaker. His accolades include seven MTV Movie & TV Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award. In 2002, he was awarded a star on the Hollywood W ...

, John Candy, Jim Carrey and

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. A recency bias in favour of contemporary icons may be reflective of a youthful voting demographic, as the production was family oriented, or there was unwillingness or confusion distinguishing modern popularity with national historic significance among the participants of all ages. In particular, Don Cherry's inclusion in the top 10 upset many Canadians, especially considering it forced out figures they believe more worthy like Louis Riel and Jean Vanier.

Other editions

Other countries have produced similar shows based on the format originated by the

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were also featured on the 100 Greatest Britons list. A two-hour spin-off series called '' The Greatest Canadian Invention'' aired in 2007 with

Insulin Insulin (, from Latin ''insula'', 'island') is a peptide hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreatic islets encoded in humans by the insulin (''INS)'' gene. It is the main Anabolism, anabolic hormone of the body. It regulates the metabol ...

as the winner.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Greatest Canadian, The 2004 Canadian television series debuts 2004 Canadian television series endings 2000s Canadian documentary television series

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

Lists of Canadian people Canadian television series based on British television series

Selection process

Top 10

Top 50

Other editions

See also

References