2009: A Year in Review

Here is a list of sig­nif­i­cant events that hap­pened in 2009 that I have put together. If I am miss­ing any impor­tant events, please feel free to com­ment here.

Jan­u­ary

Barack Obama was inau­gu­rated as the 44th Pres­i­dent of the United States.

Oppo­si­tion Leader Michael Ignati­eff sup­ports the Minor­ity Con­ser­v­a­tive Party Fed­eral Budget.

The Cana­dian Econ­omy lost 129,000 jobs in Jan­u­ary 2009 with unem­ploy­ment ris­ing to 7.2%. It was an all-time record in Canada. Despite it being a record, it is lower than the unem­ploy­ment rate in the United States (7.6%).

Feb­ru­ary

The US Pres­i­dent made his first for­eign visit — to Canada.

Slum­dog Mil­lion­aire won 8 Acad­emy Awards — the most awards.

Barack Obama announced he will with­draw most sol­diers from Iraq by August 2010.

March

The 2009 Juno Awards cer­e­mony was held in Van­cou­ver hosted by Rus­sell Peters. My MP James Moore made an appear­ance at the ceremony.

Barack Obama lifted restric­tions on embry­onic stem cell research.

Peo­ple around the world par­tic­i­pated in Earth Hour by turn­ing off the lights.

April

Stephen Harper attends the G20 Lon­don Summit.

Swine Flu arrived in Canada.

Michael Ignati­eff was acclaimed as the Leader of the Lib­eral Party of Canada at the Lead­er­ship Con­ven­tion in Vancouver.

May

39th BC Gen­eral Elec­tion was held. The BCLib­er­als remained in power, under the tough eco­nomic times. The party won 49 of 85 seats. Gor­don Camp­bell was elected for a 3rd term. The next BC Gen­eral Elec­tion will be May 14, 2013.

There was a ref­er­en­dum on elec­toral reform in British Colum­bia to change FPTP (First-Past-the-Post) to BCSTV (BC Sin­gle Trans­ferrable Vote). It failed to succeed.

Arthur Erick­son (archi­tect of the Van­cou­ver Cityscape and Simon Fraser Uni­ver­sity) passed away.

June

Roméo-Adrien LeBlanc, Gov­er­nor Gen­eral from 1995 to 1999, passed away after an Alzheimer’s dis­ease bat­tle. LeBlanc served as Min­is­ter under sev­eral posts dur­ing the Trudeau Government.

Out­break of the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic.

Michael Jack­son passed away.

Iran Elec­tion Protest began around the world.

July

Sarah Palin resigns as Gov­er­nor of Alaska.

The Bank of Canada declares the reces­sion has ended in Canada.

China will decrease num­ber of executions

August

Thou­sands flee from B.C.‘s worst wildfires

Stephen Harper pro­tects the North. The True North Strong and Free.

Sep­tem­ber

The Chris­t­ian Demo­c­ra­tic Union and Chris­t­ian Social Union won the Ger­man Fed­eral Elec­tion. It shows that dur­ing tough eco­nomic times, con­ser­v­a­tivism is the best choice.

Polan­ski was arrested in Switzer­land on 1978 US War­rant at the Zurich Film Festival

Octo­ber

Jack Poole, head of the VANOC bid com­mit­tee, passed away. Five days later, Ted Nebbel­ing, for­mer BCLib­eral MLA for West Van­cou­ver and for­mer Min­is­ter of State for the 2010 Win­ter Olympics, passed away.

Barack Obama pro­tected the rights of the LGBT community.

Novem­ber

Four by-elections were held to fill vacan­cies in the House of Com­mons. The Con­ser­v­a­tive Party won 2 rid­ings (CPC 1 gain), the New Demo­c­rat Party won 1 rid­ing (NDP hold) and the Bloc Que­be­cois won 1 rid­ing (BQ 1 loss).

Obama job approval rat­ing drops under 50 percent

US Sen­ate allows debate on Health Care Reform

Decem­ber

Obama received the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize for “for his extra­or­di­nary efforts to strengthen inter­na­tional diplo­macy and coop­er­a­tion between peoples.”

Five Cana­di­ans killed in Afghanistan, a few of the many that died since the war started.

The United Nations Cli­mate Change Con­fer­ence opens in Copenhagen.

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1 Response to “2009: A Year in Review”


  • Feb -
    Jóhanna Sig­urðardót­tir is appointed as the new Prime Min­is­ter of Ice­land, becom­ing the world’s first openly les­bian head of gov­ern­ment. This as a counter argu­ment to your par­ti­san endorse­ment of con­ser­vatism in Ger­many, as Ice­land shifted much to the left after the pre­ced­ing ram­pant cap­i­tal­ism led to the col­lapse of its economy.

    Nov -
    Nasa’s rocket blast into the moon find evi­dence of water

    Large Hadron Col­lider begins oper­a­tions, world’s high­est energy par­ti­cle accelerator

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