It’s Old News: Happy centennial, Canada!
By Medicine Hat News on June 26, 2025.
NEWS ARCHIVES
Dominion Day, Confederation Day and Canada Day.
In 1967 Canada and Hatters celebrated the nation’s centennial in style, and the party lasted in the Hat for months and concluded with a joint centennial and Stampede parade that drew 28,000 people to downtown.
The News is looking back at major events and local interest as it approaches its 140th anniversary in the fall.
On July 1, 1967 the Queen began a centennial tour, attendance at Expo ’67 soared, and the News reprinted a painting of negotiations in London toward the signing of the British North America Act of 1867.
“As the old one-liners goes, the first hundred years are the hardest,” wrote “Finn Bridge” in the Mad Hatter column (written by staffers under the pen name) on June 30 before long weekend celebrations.
“Well, Canada, you’ve made it, not without a few bumps and bruises, but still intact and ready to try for another hundred. So with a loud and uninhibited Whoopee! We wish you a happy birthday.”
A program of events for the day in southeast Alberta included parades in hamlets as small as Iddesleigh, towns like Bow island, and in the Hat, where there was an Elks Club Dance, Boy Scout Barbecue and Medicine Hat Sportsman Club-presented minor baseball tournament with teams from Lethbridge to Etzikom and Gull Lake to Calgary.
The News presented a “Centennial Museum” in conjunction with stampede Bob Costar at the Old Public Library.
A month later a centennial parade combined with the Stampede Parade featured 110 floats, including one carrying Conservative opposition Leader John Diefenbaker, who declared to the News “One nation, One Canada!”
That came in response to a speech by French President Charles de Gaulle who days earlier created an international stir in a speech at Montreal where he declared “Vive le Québec libre!”
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