It was only three weeks since Jochen Rindt's death at Monza and Team Lotus had decided not to send cars to Canada. Rob Walker was there with a new Lotus 72 which had yet to be raced in a World Championship event as it had not been ready for Austria and had been withdrawn at Monza after Rindt's death. The field was little changed otherwise with Ronnie Peterson back in action in his Antique Automobiles March.

The Ferraris had been the dominant force in the recent races but it was Jackie Stewart in the new Tyrrell who set the pace, beating Jacky Ickx's Ferrari to pole position by a tenth of a second. Regazzoni was third fastest while Stewart's Tyrrell team mate François Cévert was fourth fastest in his March. Also showing well was John Surtees, fifth on the grid in his Surtees, ahead of Chris Amon's factory March.

Stewart took the lead at the start with Ickx chasing while Pedro Rodríguez burst through from seventh on the grid to take third place ahead of Surtees, Cévert and Regazzoni. Stewart began to build a lead, demonstrating that the new Tyrrell was going to be a very competitive car but on lap 32 he suffered a stub axle failure. This left Ickx with a lead of nearly half a minute over Regazzoni who had passed Cévert and Rodríguez after Surtees was slowed with a misfire which forced him to pit. Amon had moved up to third ahead of Cévert and the order remained the same until the closing laps when Cévert suffered a rear damper failure and had to pit.

Ferrari had scored another dominant 1-2 and while Ickx had moved to second in the World Championship. He had only only 28 points. Rindt had scored 45 before his death and with two races to go Ickx needed to win both to snatch the title.