Nursing in Canada

Nurses in Canada practice nursing in a wide variety of specialties, with a wide variety of training and experience.

Nurses educate, perform research-based scientific care and are the patient and client's advocate to their own health, illness and disease but also through the health care system in Canada.

In 1617, Marie Rollet (1580-1649), arrived in New France with her husband, Louis Hébert, Québec's first apothecary. She became New France's first laywoman, by working with her husband to tend to those who were suffering from starvation and illness, including natives.

In 1641, Jeanne Mance, a nurse from Langres, France, arrived at Fort Ville-Marie, New France. She was recruited by Father Charles Lallemant, a Jesuit priest, for the Société Notre-Dame de Montréal. In 1642, she established the Hôtel-Dieu de Montréal, one of the oldest hospitals in North America.

In 1737, Marie-Marguerite d'Youville founded the Sisters of Charity of Montreal, a religious order known as the Grey Nuns. In 1747, they were granted a charter to operate the General Hospital of Montreal. The order went on to expand to other cities across North America and is still in existence today. In 1990, she was canonized by Pope John Paul II, and is the first native-born Canadian to be elevated to sainthood by the Roman Catholic Church.

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