1985

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1985-

Orders for the 1985 AMC Eagle 4x4 have slowed to 80 units a day at the Brampton, Ontario plant but AMC has announced a new $748 million factory will be built in nearby Bramalea to manufacture a large, luxurious Renault model for the North American market.   

 January 29: New Brunswick’s Premier, Richard Hatfield, is found not guilty of drug possession. The judge suggests a member of the media planted the 35 grams of marijuana in the premier’s suitcase last fall, during Queen Elizabeth’s visit to get “the juiciest story to ever crack the media.” 

The countries in green use the International Metric System.

 January 30: The new Tory government relaxes the law regarding the use of the Metric System in business.

February 10: It’s a virtual Who’s Who of the music industry as Canada’s singing superstars gather together to record the album Tears are Not Enough. Calling themselves “Northern Lights,” the $3.2 million raised through sale of the album will go to help feed the starving in Ethiopia. 

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Brian Peckford and Prime Minister Mulroney--with their teams--have signed the Atlantic Accord.

 February 11: Prime Minister Mulroney and Premier Brian Peckford put their signatures to the Atlantic Accord. The document guarantees Ottawa’s help in developing Newfoundland and Labrador’s offshore resources. 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization began on April 4th, 1949 with 12 member nations, including the Dominion of Canada.

 February 12: Federal Minister of Defense Robert Coates is forced to resign when it is learned he visited a strip club in West Germany while he had top secret NATO documents in his possession. The security breach could have put national security at risk. Bob will still be a backbencher, representing the good folks of Cumberland, Nova Scotia.

Denis Lortie entered the National Assembly in Quebec City armed with a pair of Sterling Mk4 submachine guns and an Inglis pistol.

 February 13: Denis Lortie is convicted of first-degree murder for his rampage at the Quebec National Assembly during which he killed three innocent people. His conviction will be overturned on a technicality, The former Corporal in the 22^nd Regiment will be convicted of second degree murder in 1987 and be paroled in 1995. When Marc Lapine massacres fourteen students at the Montreal Polytechnique in 1994, Marc will express his admiration for Denis Lortie in his suicide note. 

February 20: Greenpeace protesters are furious as the first test of a US Cruise Missile takes place at CFB Cold Lake in Alberta. The test was flawless; the bomb was dropped over the Beaufort Sea then filmed as it made its way to the Northern Alberta Primrose Weapons Range.

February 28:  Ernst Zundel is convicted of spreading hatred for the Jews and publishing false news. Among his publications are The Hitler We Loved and Why and Did Six Million Really Die?  In 2005 he will be stripped of his Canadian citizenship and returned to Germany to stand trial in 2006 for his extreme views on the Holocaust.

March 12: Three Armenian terrorists storm the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa. A dozen people are taken hostage and a security guard is killed before order is restored.

From left to right, the Right Honourable Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, wife Mila, Nancy Reagan and the President of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan.

 March 17:  Prime Minister Mulroney and US President Ronald Regan meet at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City for the Shamrock Summit. The meeting was intended to set the stage for the upcoming Free Trade Agreement but the event will be best remembered for the two world leaders breaking into song this St. Patrick’s Day with their rendition of When Irish Eyes are Smiling.

Rick Hansen trains at the University of British Columbia for his Man in Motion Tour.

March 21: Super athlete Rick Hansen begins his round-the-world Man in Motion Tour in Vancouver. Inspired by Terry Fox, Rich will raise money for spinal chord injury research. The tour has its own hit song—St. Elmo’s Fire. The Paralmpian's 40,000-kilometre journey will take 26 months and cross four continents.

March 29:  Ten are dead as two military aircraft crash near CFB Edmonton.

These instructions on how to make a long-distance call in Nova Scotia are from 1954.

April 15: The stocks for Maritime Telegraph & Telephone split three-for-one. The company was organized on April 29th, 1910 when the Nova Scotia Telephone Company Limited acquired the Prince Edward Island Telephone Company, Limited. The latter had been serving Islanders since April 10th, 1885.

April 21: Hockey legend Foster Hewitt is dead at the age of 83 in Toronto. Hewitt broadcast the first hockey game on CFCA radio on March 22, 1923. He retired in 1963 but came out of retirement for the 1972 Summit Series. His colour commentary including coining the the term, “He shoots, he scores!” and will be remembered by millions for opening each Hockey Night in Canada show with, “Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland.” The ‘Voice of Hockey’ will be buried in Toronto’s Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.

April 24: International Business Machine Co. launches a new line of small computers. IBM has named the new product, the PC for personal computer. It's novel because it can fold up and be carried.

April 25: The Supreme Court rules the Lord’s Day Act is unconstitutional because it interferes with people’s lives. The national Sunday blue law has been effect since 1906. Now folks can go bowling, see a movie, lift a pint and shop on Sundays without being arrested.

The penny will be withdrawn from circulation in 2012.

May 9: Folks in Newfoundland and Labrador are the first in the nation to declare tax freedom day—their obligations to St. John’s and Ottawa are paid in full.

Steve Weston starred in The Trouble with Tracy a CTV situation comedy that aired in 1970 and '71. It will develop a cult following and hold the dubious honour of being one of the worst sitcoms ever made.

May 12: Actor Steve Weston is dead as the result of a fall from a roof. He will be best remembered for is role as Steve Weston in the 130-episode CTV sitcom, The Trouble with Tracy.

May 19: Air Canada and the union representing its 2,900 striking ticket agents sign a deal that ends a three-week-old strike.

May 29: Steve Fonyo, age 19, arrives in Victoria, BC and dips his artificial leg in the Pacific Ocean. He celebrates a cross-Canada marathon that began in St. John’s, Newfoundland 14 months ago. His goal was to complete the 8,000-kilometre run inspired by Terry Fox. Steve has raised more than $13 million for cancer research.

May 30: The Edmonton Oilers whip the Philadelphia Flyers in four games to one to skate home with Lord Stanley’s cup.

May 31:  Tornadoes sweep Ontario, killing 12 people and leaving $200 million worth of damage behind.  The F-4 storm’s winds are clocked at between 313 and 450 kilometres an hour. The city of Barrie is especially hard hit.

June 13:  Translators will be busy because the Supreme Court justices have ruled the laws of the Province of Manitoba are not legal. The justices say the laws must be provided to citizens in French as well as English.

The Honourable Rene Levesque, August 24, 1922 – November 1, 1987

June 20: Rene Levesque, longtime proponent of an independent Quebec, announces he will retire from public life and step down from his job as Premier of the province.

This photo of the Air India Boeing 747 was taken only 13 days before the explosion.

June 23: Air India flight 182 explodes off the coast of Ireland. There are 329 people on board, 280 Canadians. It is believed a bomb was placed on board the aircraft by Sikh extremists.

Queen's Park in Toronto has been  home to the Ontario Legislature since 1897. The building's 10.5 million bricks were made by convicted criminals.

June 26: Ontario’s Blue Machine is laid to rest 42 years of governing Ontario. The Tories will sit in Queen’s Park as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition because David Peterson and the Grits will form a minority government with the help of Bob Rae and the NDP.

The Fab Four with their yellow 1965 Rolls-Royce.

June 29: Vancouver businessman Jim Pattison drops $2,229,00 for a yellow Rolls-Royce once owned by the Beatles.

July 22: Jim Keegstra, a former schoolteacher, is in trouble for promoting hatred against the Jews. The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench fines him $5,000 for claiming the Holocaust never happened.

August 1:  The Canadian Red Cross announces it will begin screening blood donations for the AIDS virus.The organization will be stripped of its blood services on September 28, 1998 when it is learned that blood tainted with HIV had been given knowingly to patients needing transfusions.

August 11: Relations with Washington grow pretty cold today as a US Coast Guard icebreaker, the Polar Sea, makes a voyage through the Northwest Passage without bothering to ask Ottawa’s permission.

August 20: Air Canada vows to keep flying despite a strike by 3,211 flight attendants.

September 1: The hulk of the RMS Titanic is located on the seabed, off the coast of Newfoundland. The super luxury liner struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, broke into half, taking 1,490 passengers to their deaths.

September 6: The Canadian Encyclopaedia is launched by Hurtig of Edmonton. The three-volume set of work contains more than 14,000 articles written by more than 3,000 authors. A CD-ROM version will be released in 2005.

September 7: St. Elmo’s Fire—Rick Hansen’s theme song for his 40,000-kilometre Man in Motion tour—hits Number One on the Hot One Hundred Billboard chart.

The Northwest Passage is marked in red.

September 10: External Affairs Minister Joe Clark announces that Ottawa will build the world’s most powerful icebreaker in order to better protect our sovereignty in the Arctic.

September 15: Nestled in the badlands of Alberta, the Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology opens in Drumheller. The museum is chock-full of dinosaur skeletons and other really cool fossils. It’s full of visitors, too. More than 600,000 curious folks visit annually.

September 17: Ottawa has another scandal on its hands as Tunagate is revealed to the public by CBC Television’s investigative news show, The Fifth Estate. Rotten StarKist tuna from a New Brunswick plant was reclassified as edible rather than risk closing the factory. The tainted tuna won’t hurt the Minister of Fisheries who will later became Speaker of the House but StarKist’s share of the market will drop to zero and the factory will close, throwing 400 people out of work.

September 20:  Lincoln Alexander is appointed the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. The hardworking Tory MP from Hamilton, Ontario is the first African-Canadian in this country to represent Her Majesty in the vice-regal position.

September 30: The signal for radio station CHSK-FM fades into history. The station started in 1965 as student radio at the University of Saskatchewan and carried CBC programming.  

October 15: UAW Canada workers at Chrysler Canada trade their tools for placards as they walk the picket lines. The strike will last two weeks.

A 1985 Toyota Corolla.

November --  Toyota Motor Corporation announces it will build a $400 million plant in Cambridge, Ontario and hire 1,800 workers to build “Corolla-like” cars. That brings to $900 million the amount of investment announced this year by Hyundai, Honda and Toyota.

November 4: Hosted by Andrea Martin and Martin Short, the Juno Awards are held at the Harbour Castle Hilton in Toronto.  Luba wins a Juno for Female Vocalist of the Year. Bryan Adams wins a Juno for Male Vocalist of the Year as well as a Juno for Reckless, the Album of the Year.  Corey Hart wins a Juno for his Single of the Year, Never Surrender. 

November 11:  Kalen Porter is born in Medicine Hat. Alberta. He will grow up to beat out 8,977 other contestants to win the title of Canadian Idol in 2004. His first album, Awake in a Dream, will go platinum eight times in 2005.  In 2006 he will present the Juno Awards but mostly he will take time off to stay on the ranch and look after his mum, who has breast cancer.

November 24: Thee B.C. Lions battle the Hamilton Tiger Cats to a 37-24 victory and win the Grey Cup.

December 2: All eyes are on la belle province as voters turn the Parti Quebecois out of office and bring the Liberals to power in Quebec City.

"Silent Witness" is the name of the copper memorial erected in honour of the American soldiers who died when their chartered jet crashed. A soldier holds the hands of a little boy and a little girl as a DC-8 flies overhead.

December 12: Arrow Air, flight 1285, a chartered jet, crashes outside of Gander, Newfoundland, 73 seconds after takeoff. All 256 people on board are killed—most of them American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, headed home for Christmas. A tree will be planted for each life lost.

The 1985 Hyundai Pony was exported to Canada from South Korea.

December 31:  The Top selling passenger cars this year are the Hyundai Pony with 56,000 sales, Ford Tempo with 47,692 sales; Plymouth Reliant with 36,066 sales; Dodge Aries with 28,931 sales; Chev Cavalier with 29,333 and the Pontiac 6000 with 29,029 sales.       

The 1985 Ford Tempo GLX Coupe.

Assembled in St. Thomas, Ontario, the 1985 Ford Tempo is the best selling domestically built car with 47,692 units delivered during the calendar year. The Essex Engine Plant in Windsor gets a $100 million makeover to produce a transverse 3.8-litre V-6.