When I heard the first radio spot promoting the series "The Greatest Canadian" on CBC it got me to thinking about the question. Who is the Greatest Canadian.? At the time the CBC was screwing around Don Cherry and it sounded like he would not be back on Hockey Night in Canada in the fall. This turned out to be true but not for the reasons one would have expected. I remember thinking at the time how much of a Canadian Icon Don has come to be over the years, and how I would have chosen him when I got a chance to vote.

When the show finally aired, the top 200 Canadian’s voted in by the average Jonny Canuck, was counted down on the tube. I happened to stop on the CBC during a channel surf. I started watching at number 33 ‘Gordon Lightfoot’ mostly out of curiosity and because I like some of his tunes like ‘Black Day In July’ and ‘If I could read your mind love’ or was it called ‘get it back’? Next came Michael J. Fox, Pierre Berton, Rick Handsen, Jim Carrey, General Sir Isaac Brock and commercial. A strange thing started to happen at this point, I started to feel a pin prick of National Pride, not a in your face were the best type of pride but a quiet subtle kinda pride. Like a sense of belonging to a really cool club or looking at a job well done. Commercial over and the list continued, Celine Dion @ #27, Dr. Norman Bethune, Nellie McClung, General Sir Arthur Currie and the ‘Rocket’ Maurice Richard. I remember thinking after each name was announced ‘that one should have been higher on the list’. Harold Rogers, the founder of the Kinsmen Club came in at # 22. I remembered riding in a bike-a-thon when I was 9 to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis sponsored by the Kinsmen Club. I had never heard of Harold until now and he was a Canadian! Unknown Soldier, Mike Myers, Bobby Orr, Shania Twain, and Stephen Lewis at #17 now theirs a selfless guy I thought again he should be higher on the list. At this point that pin prick of national pride was morphing into something more. A sense of identity and belonging was beginning to take shape. I wanted to go out on my front porch and yell ‘I am Canadian’ like on the Molson’s beer commercial. But like a true Canadian, I resisted the urge to wave my flag. The list continued, General Romeo Dallaire, shouldn’t he be higher than #16? Peter Gzowski, Neil Young, Stompin’ Tom Connors, Jean Vanier, and Louis Riel at #11. Commercial, WOW I was dumb founded, so many great people cut from the fabric of this country and the top 10 were still to come. For the next 10 weeks each of the top 10 are presented in a 1 hour segment. I have watched 5 of them and tonight I had to cast my vote. I just watched the episode on Terry Fox, a 1 legged 23 year old selfless man who ran 5,376km for others. To date his efforts have raised over 350 million dollars for cancer research! The Terry Fox Run is held in 60 countries around the world every year.

There are a lot of other great names on this list but I don’t think any of them better represents the selfless, quiet, modest, gritty, determination that Terry Fox possessed. My Vote for the greatest Canadian hands down. Cast your vote here. 

"I just wish people would realize that anything’s possible if you try. Dreams are made if people try"

~Terry Fox