1992

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1992-

The compact, front-wheel-drive Chevrolet Cavalier is the best-selling car this year.

January 22: Roberta Bondar becomes the first Canadian woman to defy gravity as an astronaut in outer space. The medical doctor is the prime payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery and will spend nine days researching space medicine. In 2003 she will be named Chancellor of Trent University.

February 1: Gary Lautens is dead of a heart attack at the age of 63. The humourist was penned the most widely read newspaper columnist in Canada. Gary had worked for the Toronto Star since 1962.

In Lloydtown, Ontario is a 1932 oil painting by Alfred Joseph Casson.

February 19: Artist Alfred Joseph Casson is dead in Toronto at the age of 91. The artist was a member of the Group of Seven painters who defined Canada through their unique landscapes.

February 23: The XVI Winter Olympic Games, held in Albertville, France, are over. Canada comes home with nine medals, including two in shining Gold. The Olympic torch will pass to Lillihammer, Norway for the 1994 games.

March 11: Environment Canada begins tracking the ozone layer and issuing weekly ozone warnings.

John Ireland was nominated for an Oscar for his portayal of hard-boiled journalist Jack Burden in All the King's Men.

March 21: Actor John Benjamin Ireland is dead of leukemia at the age of 78. Born in Vancouver, the Hollywood heartthrob starred in more than 200 movies including All the King’s Men, Little Big Horn and Spartacus.

Barbara Frum and Alan Maitland co-hosted the in-depth news show, As it Happens on CBC Radio.

 March 26: The airwaves will never be the same. Barbara Frum, the highly respected journalist and host of the CBC’s As it Happens on radio and The Journal on TV, is dead of leukemia at the age of 54.

The nation's highest music award is the Juno. The statue is 46 centimetres tall and made of acrylic material.

 March 29: Rick Moranis is host for the Juno Awards, held at the O’Keefe Centre in Toronto. Celine Dion wins a Best Female Vocalist Juno. Tom Cochrane wins a Best Male Vocalist Juno and another for his album, Mad Mad World and, if that's not enough he wins Single of the Year Juno for Life is a Highway.

April 1: Members of the National Hockey League Players Association have hung up their skates for a strike. Never before has this happened in the league's 75-year history. The walkout will end in ten days.

The 1961 Rambler Classic was the first product to be assembled at the American Motors plant in Brampton, Ontario.

April --: Chrysler Canada closes its plant in Brampton, sending Jeep production back to Toledo. The factory was built for assembly of the popular Rambler, opening officially on January 26th, 1961.

April 2: Fire rips through a stable at the Mohawk Raceway in Guelph, Ontario. It is the worst racetrack fire in history—69 horses are lost in the disaster.

April 5: The Christian Brothers issue a formal apology to the children they abused during more than 50 of the 115 years they operated the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland. The award-winning 1992 movie, The Boys of St. Vincent, will chronicle the events in the house of horrors but it cannot be broadcast in Ontario and Quebec because of ongoing trials. Viewers in those provinces will see the movie in 1993. In 1996 the provincial government will pay $11.5 million to settle the claims of the 40 victims who come forward to testify to their years of abuse at the hands of the brothers.

May 4: Residents of the Northwest Territories vote to divide the sprawling jurisdiction into two parts. The eastern portion is to be called Nunavut—meaning "our land". Its population is 29,000 people living in an area the size of Western Europe. The capital will be Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay). The change will take place on April 1, 1999.

May 7: Citizens of the sleepy Cape Breton community of Sydney River are stunned as a brutal robbery at McDonald’s results in three dead employees and a fourth who is permanently handicapped.

The Westray Mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia.

May 9: At 5.18 in the morning a methane gas explosion rips through the Curragh Westray Mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, killing 26 coal miners. Criminal charges will be laid against the owners but the company will go bankrupt before trial. A Royal Commission report on the disaster will be released in 1998 and almost all of the recommendations made into law.

May 12: Ten-year old Holly Jones is kidnapped and killed. Her dismembered body is found in Toronto Harbour. Michael Briere will plead guilty to her murder and be sentenced to life in prison.

Built in Oakville, Ontario, the compact Ford Tempo is the Blue Oval's best selling car this year.

May 19: Ford Canada declares a loss of $209 million on $4 million worth of sales. Industry experts blame unfair import rules for the poor showing.

May 24: Prime Minister Brian Mulroney withdraws Canada’s ambassador from Belgrade and expels Yugoslav diplomats from Ottawa in a bid to achieve a ceasefire in Bosnia.

Her Excellency, Governor of Queensland, Leneen Forde.

May 27: Mary Margeurite Leneen Forde is appointed Governor of the Australian State of Queensland. The Ottawa-born native will hold the position until 1997 and be appointed Chancellor of Griffith University.

Fishing boats are tied up in harbour.

 June 2: More than 1,000 years of fishing comes to a halt as Ottawa declares a moratorium on Newfoundland and Labrador’s oldest industry. More than 39,000 fishermen, plant workers and others in the industry are suddenly unemployed. The government plans to reopen the fisheries in two years but the stocks won’t rebound and the fisheries won’t open again until 2006. 

June 8: The Canadian Space Agency announces its newest astronauts. Chris Hadfield is aviation systems specialist and an Air Force Major; Julie Payette is a computer engineer with Bell-Northern Research from Montreal; Robert Stewart is a geophysicist at University of Calgary and Dafydd Williams is medical doctor from Toronto. These four were chosen from 5,300 applicants.

June 11: The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops wants changes designed to prevent sexual abuse by priests. They also want dioceses to look into allegations of sexual assault and to support those who are victims.

Motorola introduces the first mobile phone that makes use of digital technology.

 June 12: Bell Canada is not the only phone company in town anymore as the Canadian Radio & Television Commission (CRTC) allows competitors to offer long distance services.

June 19: After a decade long legal battle, Alberta Francophones win the right to establish school boards and to set the curriculum.

 

June 27: Printers walk off the job, stopping the presses at the Toronto Star for the first time in the newspaper’s 99-year history.

Parliament burns in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina.

July 1: The Van Doos, a.k.a. the Royal 22^nd Regiment, serving in war-torn Yugoslavia, successfully secures the airport in Sarajevo.

July 1: Queen Elizabeth II is in Ottawa to help celebrate the nation’s 125^th birthday. She thrills a crowd of  50,000 who come out to see Her Majesty.

July 2: The Toronto Symphony Orchestra is on the verge of bankruptcy. Musicians agree to a pay cut. Salaries will drop to $48,300 from $57,000.

Superman made his first appearance in June of 1938.

 July 30: Creator of the Superman comic book series, Joe Shuster, is dead at the age of 78. The Canadian-born artist fought with DC Comics over the rights until 1975 when the two parties finally settled.

August 9:  King Juan Carlos of Spain is in Barcelona to declare the Games of the XXVth Olympiad to be open. Canada sends 306 athletes who make us proud by coming home with 18 medals, among them seven Gold.

August 12: The details have been hammered out and the historic North American Trade Agreement is released to the public. The continental trade bloc will come into effect on January 1, 1994.

The Henry F. Hall Building.

 August 24: Disgruntled professor, Valary Fabrikant, walks into Engineering Department on the 9^th floor of the Hall Building at Concordia University in Montreal with a loaded gun. He shoots four colleagues and injures a fifth. He will be convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole at the federal penitentiary in Archambault, Quebec.

August 29: Federal, provincial, territorial officials along with the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapirisat and the Metis National Council have come to an agreement in Prince Edward Island.  Details of the Charlottetown Accord are released. The proposed constitutional reforms will be voted on in a referendum in the fall of the year.

The Geo Metro is built and sold only in Canada.

 September 14 : The 2,100 workers at the CAMI factory in Ingersoll, Ontario walk off the job. They want parity wages with the Big Three. The strike will be settled in five weeks in favour of the workers. They will go back to building the Geo Metro, Suzuki Swift, Geo Tracker and the Suzuki Sidekick. 

September 18: Striking employee Roger Warren detonates a bomb in a shaft of the Giant Mine, in Yellowknife. He will confess and be convicted on nine counts of second-degree murder. Giant Mine, a movie about the horrific event will be made for CBC-TV in 1996. An investigative book, Dying for Gold, will be published in 1997.

October 1: The policy that bans gays and lesbians from serving in the Canadian Forces is abandoned by top brass before Michelle Douglas' case goes to court.

October 8: They’re b-a-c-k! There is hockey once again in the nation's capital. The reorganized Ottawa Senators open the season by trouncing the Montreal Canadiens 5 to 3.

October 24: The Toronto Blue Jays win the World Series. It is the first time a baseball team outside the United States has won the pennant.  The Jays are hot; they will make a stab at the pennant next year, too.

October 26: The Charlottetown Accord is dead. Voters have rejected constitutional reform by 54.5 percent. Anger against Progressive Conservative party will be almost lethal. Only two Tories will be elected in the next federal election.

November 12: A referendum in the Northwest Territories is favourable to the creation of Nunavut in the eastern Arctic. The new political entity will become reality on January 1, 1999.

A ticket for the CFL's 80th Grey Cup is seen here.

November 29: Celine Dion sings for a sellout crowd of 48,863 Grey Cup fans at Toronto's Skydome. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers get trounced by the Calgary Stampeders. The final score of the 80^th Grey Cup match is the Stamps 24 to 10 for the Bombers.

This Irving station  is located in Woodstock, New Brunswick.

December 13: Industrialist Kenneth Colin (K.C) Irving is dead at the age of 93 in Saint John, New Brunswick. His business empire is vast and he could honestly boast that he one out of every ten people in the Picture Province was in his employ. 

December 17: It’s official. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney puts Canada’s signature to the North American Trade Agreement. People worry that factories will close and move to the United States.

Built in Oakville, Ontario,  Mercury Topaz is the ninth best-selling car. This is the last year for the LTS model seen here.

December 31: Sales of automobiles are off by 1.2 million units this year. Analysts blame the five percent decline on the new federal Goods and Services Tax introduced last year. In order, the top ten best-selling vehicles in Canada this year are the Chevrolet Cavalier, the Honda Civic, the Honda Accord, the Ford Tempo, the Pontiac Sunbird, the Ford Taurus, the Toyota Camry, the Toyota Corolla, the Mercury Topaz and the Toyota Tercel.