Table of contents

1 Incumbents 2 Events 3 Arts and Literature 4 Births 5 Deaths

Incumbents

• Prime Minister - Brian Mulroney
• Governor General - Jeanne Sauvé

• Premier of Alberta - Don Getty
• Premier of British Columbia - Bill Vander Zalm
• Premier of Manitoba - Gary Filmon
• Premier of New Brunswick - Frank McKenna
• Premier of Newfoundland - Brian Peckford then Thomas Rideout then Clyde Wells
• Premier of Nova Scotia - John Buchanan
• Premier of Ontario - David Peterson
• Premier of Prince Edward Island - Joe Ghiz
• Premier of Quebec - Robert Bourassa
• Premier of Saskatchewan - Grant Devine

• January 1 - The Canadian-American Free Trade Agreement comes into effect
• March 1 - The Canadian Space Agency is created
• March 10 - An Air Ontario flight crashes near Dryden, Ontario killing 24
• March 20 - Alberta election: Don Getty's PCs win a sixth consecutive majority
• March 22 - Thomas Rideout becomes premier of Newfoundland, replacing Brian Peckford
• May 5 - Clyde Wells becomes premier of Newfoundland, replacing Thomas Rideout
• June 5 - First baseball game in SkyDome is played
• June 5 - The federal governmnet announces sweeping cuts to VIA Rail
• July 31 - Cable television network CBC Newsworld is launched.
• December 2 - Audrey McLaughlin is elected head of the NDP replacing Ed Broadbent becoming the first female major party leader in Canadian history
• December 6 - École Polytechnique Massacre - A gunman murders fourteen women at the École Polytechnique of the University of Montreal in Montreal, Quebec. The event proves a spur to both the Canadian feminist and gun control movements.
• December 21 - Quebec uses the notwithstanding clause for the first time
• Deborah Grey wins a by-election to become the first Reform Party Member of Parliament.
• Corel releases CorelDraw
• Heather Erxleben becomes Canada's first official female combat soldier
• One dollar bills are replaced by the one-dollar coin, popularly called the "loonie."
• Sidney Altman shares in the Nobel Prize for Chemistry

• Mordecai Richler - Solomon Gursky Was Here
• Steve McCaffery - The Black Debt
• Erin Mouré - WSW
• Joy Fielding - Good Intentions
• Dave Duncan - West of January
• Tomson Highway - Dry Lips Oughta Move to Kapuskasing
• William Bell - Death Wind
• Farley Mowat - The New Found Land

• Books in Canada First Novel Award: Rick Salutin, A Man of Little Faith
• See 1989 Governor General's Awards for a complete list of winners and finalists for those awards.
• Geoffrey Bilson Award: Martyn Godfrey, Mystery in the Frozen Lands, and Dorothy Perkyns, Rachel’s Revolution
• Gerald Lampert Award: Sarah Klassen, Journey to Yalta
• Marian Engel Award: Merna Summers
• Pat Lowther Award: Heather Spears, The Word for Sand
• Stephen Leacock Award: John Kertes, Winter Tulips
• Trillium Book Award: Modris Eksteins, Rites of Spring
• Vicky Metcalf Award: Stéphane Poulin

• Kids in the Hall premiers on CBC

Deaths