Significant Contributors in Canada and Around the World

One leg, one road, one country

In April 1980, a 21-year-old from British Columbia dipped his artificial leg into the Atlantic Ocean at St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador. Terry Fox had lost his right leg to bone cancer. He planned to run across Canada, about a marathon a day, to raise money for cancer research. He called it the Marathon of Hope.

Today, more than forty years later, people across Canada and in other countries still run in his name every September. Why does one person's run still matter so much? That is a question about significance, and in this lesson you will answer questions like it with evidence.

Canadian individuals

• Terry Fox ran 5 373 km in 143 days. On September 1, 1980, near Thunder Bay, Ontario, he had to stop because the cancer had spread to his lungs. He died in June 1981. The Terry Fox Run, held every year since 1981, has raised hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer research.
• Rick Hansen was injured at 15 and became a wheelchair athlete. From 1985 to 1987, his Man in Motion World Tour travelled more than 40 000 km through 34 countries in his wheelchair to raise awareness and money for spinal cord injury research. His foundation now works to make places accessible to people with disabilities.
• Ryan Hreljac, a Grade 1 student in Kemptville, Ontario, learned in 1998 that many children did not have clean water. He started raising money to build a well in Uganda. That effort grew into Ryan's Well Foundation, which supports water and sanitation projects.
• Autumn Peltier is an Anishinaabe water protector from Wiikwemkoong Unceded Territory on Manitoulin Island. In 2018, at age 13, she spoke to world leaders at the United Nations about protecting water. In 2019 she was named Chief Water Commissioner for the Anishinabek Nation. She has spoken about learning from her great-aunt, Josephine Mandamin, who walked thousands of kilometres around the Great Lakes to honour and protect the water.

International individuals and organizations

• Malala Yousafzai spoke out for girls' right to go to school in Pakistan. In 2012 she was attacked for her advocacy and survived. In 2014, at 17, she became the youngest person ever to receive the Nobel Peace Prize. Canada granted her honorary citizenship in 2017. Her Malala Fund supports girls' education.
• Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders) was founded in France in 1971. It sends doctors, nurses and other workers to give emergency medical care in wars, epidemics and natural disasters. It received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1999. Many Canadians work and volunteer with it.
• The Canadian Red Cross is part of a worldwide Red Cross and Red Crescent movement. In Canada it helps people after floods, fires and other emergencies.
• Local organizations matter too: food banks, Friendship Centres serving Indigenous people in cities, newcomer settlement agencies, minor sports leagues and service clubs all make contributions you can assess.

Checking your sources

When you research a contributor, use more than one source and ask how credible each one is.

• A primary source comes from the time or from someone directly involved: Terry Fox's own interviews, photos from 1980, Autumn Peltier's speech at the UN.
• A secondary source was made later by someone who studied the event: an encyclopedia article, a documentary, a textbook.

To judge credibility, ask: Who made it? Why? Do they have expertise? Is it supported by other sources? Could it be biased? A foundation's own website is useful for facts about its programs, but it is written to make the foundation look good, so check its claims against an independent source such as a news report or encyclopedia.