Last night CBC had a countdown of Canada’s Greatest Inventions. There was nation-wide voting for this last fall (which I missed) and they counted down the Top 50 on the show. For each invention there was a little graphic-heavy history of the item in question. I think their definition of “invention” was fairly relaxed. Does poutine count as an invention? And a Bloody Caesar? They’re recipes, sure, but inventions? They were also admittedly relaxed with their definition of “Canadian.” Apparently the person who invented it could have been born here, moved here, or just visiting at the time of the discovery. Of course Alexander Graham Bell was on the list, even though he’s arguably Scottish and American as well as Canadian. Some things on the list that I didn’t know were Canadian: light bulb, pacemaker, electronic music synthesizer (where would the 80s have been without that?), 5-pin bowling, and you can just check out the list for yourself.
The show also had a seemingly random panel of commentators ranging from Margaret Atwood to Buck 65 to some kid from Degrassi. The best commentator was Ronald Wright (wee!), one of my favourite authors. I’m not clear if all the commentators were Canadians (Debbie Travis? Steve Nash?), but going by the show’s lax definition of Canadian, they probably fit in somewhere. Insulin won out as the Greatest Canadian Invention. It’s worth noting that 5-pin bowling ranked higher than basketball which is just so….Canadian.
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