Founded in 1991 by James Botte and Farrell McGovern in response to a perception that there were no dedicated public venues that featured primarily Canadian speculative fiction writers, editors, and artists.

Over the years, CAN-CON has had as guests or attendees the cream of Canadian English and French speculative fiction writers and artists (with the notable exceptions of Spider Robinson, Margaret Atwood, and William Gibson).

This caught the notice of TOR Books' senior editor David Hartwell, who came to CAN-CON and signed deals with many Canadian science fiction and fantasy writers.

It has also hosted events such as book launches, Canvention with its Prix Aurora Awards,[3] the Boréal Congress,[4] a private label CAN-CON Wine, Virtual Reality gaming, and Co-Hosting the launch with the National Library of Canada of their exhibition "Visions of Other Worlds", Hosting Canada Post's Canadian Superhero Stamp Series Unveiling, to name a few of the notable events.

The tenth Conference, which took place on September 21–23 of 2012, focused on introducing emerging and aspiring writers and artists to agents, editors, publishers and fans.