 At that time it was known as the "Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd." In the course of its existence the name changed to "Macmillan of Canada" and "Macmillan Canada".Macmillan of Canada was sold to Maclean-Hunter in 1973, who, some seven years later, sold it to Gage Publishing.The company was most influential in the 1970s and 1980s under editor and publisher Douglas Gibson, who brought many of Canada's most prominent and influential writers of the era to the company; however, his departure for McClelland & Stewart in 1986 greatly weakened the company's fiction division as the majority of its writers followed Gibson to the competing company.