What year were Canada's Juno Awards first awarded?

The Juno Awards are presented annually to Canadian musical artists and bands to acknowledge their artistic and technical achievements in all aspects of music. New members of the Canadian Music Hall of Fame are also inducted as part of the awards ceremonies. Winners are chosen by either members of the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences or a panel of experts depending on the award. 9 out of 42 categories are based solely on sales figures, such as Album of the Year or Artist of the Year. Nominees are determined by CARAS members for Single of the Year, Artist and Group of the Year. No person can judge the same category two years in a row.

Record label owner Stan Klees met with RPM founder Walt Grealis to plan a formal awards ceremony for the music industry. Instead of merely publishing the award results in RPM, presentations would be made at a physical venue. The first such ceremony was the Gold Leaf Awards which took place 23 February 1970 in Toronto.

RPM invited its readers later that year to suggest a new name for these awards. The name "Juneau" was submitted, which represented Pierre Juneau, the first head of the Canadian Radio-Television Commission. Juneau was instrumental in establishing Canadian content regulations for broadcasters, to promote Canadian artists. That name became shortened to Juno and by 1971, the awards ceremonies would be referred to as the "Juno Awards".