Historica Canada Marks 35 Years of Heritage Minutes with New Video Series
TORONTO - June 16, 2026 - Historica Canada is marking the 35th anniversary of its iconic Heritage Minutes with the launch of a new video series featuring celebrated Canadians reflecting on their favourite Minutes and the lasting impact of the beloved series.
First introduced in 1991, the Heritage Minutes are a collection of 60-second short films depicting significant people, events, and stories from Canadian history. Since their debut, more than 100 Heritage Minutes have been produced, reaching audiences across generations and becoming a defining part of Canada’s cultural landscape. Last year alone, the Minutes were viewed more than 38 million times across television, classrooms, cinemas, and digital platforms
Over the years, the series has inspired countless memorable moments and quotes. Perhaps the most iconic comes from the Dr. Wilder Penfield Heritage Minute, in which a patient famously declares, “Dr. Penfield, I smell burnt toast!” — a line that has firmly cemented itself in the Canadian cultural lexicon.
“A whole generation of Canadians quite literally grew up with the first generation of Minutes in the 1990s, just as millions more have done the same since we brought them back in 2012,” said Anthony Wilson-Smith, President and CEO of Historica Canada, the charity that produces the Minutes. “Among their many strengths, they bring our past to life in a very human way, by telling stories at ground level of individual Canadians who found the strength to do remarkable things. That’s one of the reasons why we turned to some pretty remarkable Canadians to give their individual takes on their personal favourites, why that is so - and why the Minutes continue to have such great impact three and a half decades after the first ones.”
The new anniversary series features prominent Canadians including Rick Mercer, Andrew Phung, Amber Marshall, Rob Baker, Rick Hansen, cast members from This Hour Has 22 Minutes, Peter Mansbridge, Colin Mochrie, Thomas Soto, and Francois Gingras. In each video, participants share their favourite Heritage Minutes, discuss the series’ influence on Canadian identity and storytelling, and reflect on their own connections to the stories portrayed.
Five videos have been released to date, with new installments premiering weekly on Wednesdays across Historica Canada’s social media platforms through the end of 2026. The full playlist is available here.
About Historica Canada
Historica Canada is a charitable organization that offers programs in both official languages that you can use to explore, learn, reflect on our history, and consider what it means to be Canadian. The Heritage Minutes collection is a bilingual Canadian series comprised of 60-second short films, each depicting a significant person, event or story in Canadian history.