Categories: Canada

Who's the greatest Canadian innovator?

Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best have been crowned Canada’s greatest innovators

by macleans.ca on Thursday, September 16, 2010 4:51pm - 0 Comments

The line that separates invention from innovation is a fine one. Ideas like the importance of urban density or how to turn the circus into high art require unique minds to articulate them. At the same time, inventions like the telephone and basketball are inherently innovative—no one else had come up with them before.

With that in mind, we’re asking readers to elect the most innovative Canadian in history, whether that person changed the way we think (like Lester B. Pearson did by adding peacekeeping to the Canadian vernacular) or the way we live (like Alexander Graham Bell did with the telephone). We’ve picked our 16 favourites; now we’re asking you to vote for who you think is the greatest Canadian innovator.

With an overwhelming 85 per cent of the vote, Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best have been crowned Maclean’s greatest Canadian innovators, beating out Peter Robertson for the honour. Thanks to everyone who participated!

Final results:
Peter Robertson vs. Banting and Best

Round 3 results:

Mike Lazaridis vs. Peter Robertson

Norman Bethune vs. Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best

Round 2 results:

James Naismith vs. Mike Lazaridis

Marshall McLuhan vs. Peter Robertson

Guy Laliberté vs. Norman Bethune

Alexander Graham Bell vs. Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best

Round 1 results:

George Retzlaff vs. James Naismith

Mike Lazaridis vs. Robert Mundell

Marshall McLuhan vs. Jane Jacobs

Peter Robertson vs. James Cameron

Guy Laliberté vs. Michel Tremblay

Norman Bethune vs. Lester B. Pearson

Sir William Osler vs. Alexander Graham Bell

Sir Sandford Fleming vs. Sir Frederick Banting and Charles Best

Tags: greatest canadian Innovator, innovation

Dingle

The first innovator in Canada was Native!!
In connection with the timing of Europeans landing on our shores, the most innovative Nishnabee (friend of natives) would be he or she who welcomed Europeans onto THEIR land.
http://bombardier.com leo940

Joseph-Armand Bombardier
rmy

Due to the fact he was born and educated in Scotland, to Scottish parents, I think that makes him 100% Scottish.
Sir Sandford Fleming too.
John Le Carré

I think innovators are the best people to rank themselves . Also, when 90% of anglo canadians cannot or don't read French Press and put aside 25% of the canadian population who live in the Language of Moliere-V. Hugo-J.J.Rousseau-Jules Vernes-Honoré Balzac-Alexandre Dumas-A. Camus (Greatest writers of this World)…

So I guess a huge portion know very little about Quebec innovators except for some unforgettable recent ones like Guy Laliberté and Michel Tremblay.. Quebecois are absent from this discussion so they are not here to pledge for their greatests except for some of us who feel the need to know more about what you think… There a say that if you want to beat your enemy, learn its language…
John Le Carré

I do not blame you (anglos) because English World is big & the language is easier than other languages. I see your sens of unsecurity about your iddentity when you play such game as who is the greatest canadian or the best canadian in wathever field… You will always BE not very much different than an American; You watch same TV programs, you consume like them, you admire their humorists-singers-artists-politicians-etc. In the other hand, you are trying to convince yourself & americans that you are different by raising the Maple Leaf Flag and talk about our crooked Health Care System to make us unique…

Some great Quebecois have been forgotten here like: Bombardier, Garneau, Sicard, Daniel Langlois, Dr Andermann, Brother Ande Bessette (Saint), Alphonse Desjardins, Samuel De Champlain, Margerite Bourgeois (Saint), Dr Armand Frappier, LG1-LG2-LG3 and Manic-5, Robert Lepage, Archibishop Francois de Montmorency de Laval, Jean Talon, Maisonneuve, Radisson and Groseilliers, etc.
him

Joseph-Armand Bombardier because he is a Québecois! les tbk d'anglais sont de même, reveillé il faut se séparé! :) (on est different)
him

J.Armant-Bombardier at all…