1975

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1975--

January 1: All domestically sold products must now be labeled in both Imperial and Metric measure. It will be confusing at first but we need to practise.  Canada will officially adopt the Metric System a year from today.

January 25:  Her Worship, Charlotte Whitten is dead at the age of 79. The colourful, four-term mayor of the nation’s capital was famous for her quip, “Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good.”

February 14: Fans in Winnipeg go wild as hockey star Bobby Hull ties Rocket Richard’s 30-year old record of scoring 50 goals in 50 games. Hull is playing for the Jets this season.

February 25: American Motors introduces the Pacer. Folks snap up 7,381 of the small, wide cars during the calendar year. Happy officials at American Motors Canada Limited record sales of 36,385 passenger cars and 5,196 Jeep trucks and SUVs during the year.

March 1: Music industry icons Anne Murray and Oscar Peterson win Grammys tonight.

March 4: Today’s sitting of the House of Commons is recorded by CBC Television crews.  It is the first time that cameras have ever been allowed into the House.

March 12: The RCMP charge 14 individuals and more than a dozen companies with conspiracy to defraud the government of $4 in what will come to be known as the Hamilton Harbour dredging scandal.

March 17: Gina Holden is born in Smithers, British Columbia. She will grow up to become a model—become famous in Japan—before returning to Canada to begin an acting career. She will appear in TV shows including Flash Gordon, Blood Ties, Life Unexpected and Harper’s Island.

March 24: Members of Parliament vote to make the beaver our national symbol. 

Seasons in the Sun will hit the top of the music charts in the US and the UK.

March 24: Paul Anka hosts the Juno Awards, televised for the first time, from the CNE  in Toronto. Anne Murray and Gordon Lightfoot win Junos for male and female vocalists of the year. Bachman-Turner Overdrive win best album Juno, Not Fragile and best single Juno goes to Terry Jacks for Seasons in the Sun.

March 25: Thunder Bay is snowed in. Environment Canada reports the city was hit with 102 centimetres of the white stuff, making it the biggest one-day snowfall on record.

March 26: It is 18 months in prison for Dr. Henry Morgantaler. The avowed abortion-rights doctor tells the press he has no regrets; that he is on the side of right. The Supreme Court has ruled otherwise.

April 1: Environment Canada begins reporting temperatures in Metric. To translate, double the Celsius temperature and add 32 to find the old Fahrenheit-degree equivalent.

The CN Tower will change the skyline of Toronto for years to come.

April 2: The last section of the CN Tower is lifted into place by a helicopter. The world’s tallest freestanding structure is owned by Canadian National Railways and cost $44 million. It is 533.33 metres tall and used 145 tonnes of concrete but it won’t open officially until October 1 of next year. When it does, it will attract 2 million visitors a year. Those who ride to the top in the glass elevators will hear the operator say, “Thank you for flying CN.”

Osgoode Hall in downtown Toronto is home to the Ontario Court of Appeals.

April 14: The Ontario Court of Appeal hands down a ruling that divorced women may legally pursue their ex-husbands for damages.

There will be more than 200,000 Vietnamese refugees in years to come. Half of the 'boat people' will find new homes in Canada.

May 1:  As a humanitarian gesture, Canada will accept 3,000 South Vietnamese refugees who have lost everything in a civil war and escaped the country in rickety boats.

May 2: The first shovel goes into the ground as construction of the Point Lepreau nuclear power station gets underway. The cost of the mega-project will be $1.3 billion and the facility will provide 30 percent of New Brunswick's electricity requirements when it opens in 1983.

May 17: Ten women begin training at the Ontario Police College in Aylmer, Ontario. When they graduate they will be the first female constables in the Ontario Provincial Police force. 

May 24: It is the birthday of Marc Gagnon. Born today in Chicoutimi, Quebec and faster than greased lightening on a pair of skates, he will grow up to earn more Olympic medals at Winter Games than any other Canadian athlete.

Lord Stanley's Cup, raised in victory by Bernie Parent and Bobby Clark.

May 27: The Stanley Cup belongs to the Philadelphia Flyers as they whip the Buffalo Sabres, four games to two. Unusually hot weather created a fog and the match will come to be known as The Fog Game.  It's the first time the Sabres make the finals and every one of the Flyers is Canadian.

Senators are appointed by the government of the day, not elected.

May 30: The Yukon and the Northwest Territories now have seats in the Senate. That brings to 104, the number of Senators who sit in the Red Chamber, the house of sober, second thought.

Prince Edward Island is 'the Garden in the Gulf'. The province's most famous resident is Anne of Green Gables, a character created by author Lucy Maude Montgomery.

June 26: The Supreme Court of Canada rules in favour of Prince Edward Island’s law that forbids non-residents from owning more than four hectares of land.

June 27: Prime Minister Trudeau is on hand in L’Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland to cut the ribbon and officially open the country’s newest National Park. The 8,000-hectare preserve contains the oldest known settlement in the New World, one belonging to long-ago Viking pioneers.

June 28: Jeff Geddis is born in Thunder Bay. He will grow up to be an actor, starring as Mike Nesmith in the VH1 Daytime Believers: The Monkees’ Story; Andrew Shepherd in the Family Channel series, The Latest Buzz and as Matt Scott on the CBC comedy Sophie.

July 7: The New Democrats elect a university professor to lead their party. Ed Broadbent wins on the fourth ballot, beating out Lorne Nystrom, John Harney and his most formidable opponent, Rosemary Brown. Broadbent will lead the NDP for 15 years before retiring from politics to become director of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development. In 2004 he will come out of retirement to run for Parliament again.

Springhill, Nova Scotia is the hometown of superstar Anne Murray.

July 20: A raging fire sweeps through the downtown business core of Springhill, Nova Scotia, destroying 25 buildings. Damage is estimated at $3 million.

These USSR stamps honour the Soviet fishing fleet.

July 23: Fishing vessels belonging to the Soviet Union are banned from docking at Canadian ports of call. This drastic measure is taken because the Soviet Atlantic fishing fleet continually ignores set catch quotas. They take what they want. The super trawlers are floating factories. Soon, there won’t be any cod stocks left for anyone. 

July 30: There ís a new kid on the street corner as the federal government orders the creation of Petro-Canada. The Crown corporation will protect national interests. It makes Ottawa a big player in the oil patch; its coast-to-coast-to-coast retail chain is made up from the purchase of Belgium’s Petro-Fina and the American Pacific 66 chains.

August 1: Representatives of Canada are in Finland to sign the Helsinki Accord. The international agreement respects the rights of nations at the same time holding sacred individual human rights. The historic document is signed by delegates from 35 countries in all.

September 1: The CBC purchases CKLW-TV, Channel 9, in Windsor, Ontario. The station’s new call letters are CBET. 

Mirabel International will lose favour as an airport because there is no light, rapid transit to and from Montreal.

October 4: The nation’s newest airport opens in Mirabel, Quebec. The $500 million facility is intended to be a super airport serving both Ottawa and Montreal. Critics call it a white elephant. By 2004 it will only serve cargo planes. 

The SS Edmund Fitzgerald in the Detroit River.

November 10: The SS Edmond Fitzgerald sinks in a violent storm on Lake Superior with all 29 hands on board. The 222-metre long ship was carrying a load of taconite. Folk singer Gordon Lightfoot will immortalize the marine disaster in his ballad The Wreck of the Edmond Fitzgerald.

November 11: The Cree and Inuit of Northern Quebec sign the James Bay and Northern Quebec Agreement. This treaty gives them sovereignty over a portion of Quebec that is the size of Texas.

November 18: Buckle up or pay a big fine in Ontario. The wearing of safety belts in moving automobiles becomes law today. A dramatic public service announcement put out by the provincial Ministry of Transport is aired around the province. It shows a pumpkin flying through the air and smashing into bits on a highway. The question is asked, “If you’re not wearing your seatbelt, what’s holding you back?”

November 18: Ottawa will bail out floundering Canadair. The company that started as Vickers in 1944 will now become a new Crown Corporation. The St. Laurent, Quebec-based manufacturer will be restructured and will develop an Aerospace Division. When profitable, it will be sold to Bombardier in 1986.

November 23: Edmonton squeaks past the Alouettes 9 to 8 on the last play of the game to win the Grey Cup. It is the first time that Calgary has ever hosted a Grey Cup game. This win is sweet revenge for the Eskimos who lost the Grey Cup to Montreal last year.

Canada Post piggy bank.

December 2: By a narrow margin, posties vote to return to work after a six-week strike. The Union of Postal Workers demanded protection from jobs being replaced by machines that can read the new Postal Code, a 40-hour workweek and a $1.70 per hour wage increase over three years. They get the raise but the union position was weakened because more than 2,000 workers crossed picket lines and went to work anyway.

December 3: In a bid to deal with runaway inflation, Ottawa establishes the Anti-Inflation Board to be headed by Jean-Luc Pepin. Voters are outraged; Robert Stanfield’s Tories had announced they would set up such a commission to control prices and wages during last year’s election, which gave the Grits a minority government. 

Bricklin is a fibreglass sports car built in Saint John, New Brunswick.

December 31: The Top Ten selling automobiles for the calendar year are Chevrolet (full size); Ford (full-size); Plymouth Valiant; Chevrolet Malibu; Dodge Dart; Oldsmobile Cutlass; Toyota; Pontiac (full-size); Pontiac LeMans and Chevroletís Nova. At the bottom of the list is Dodge Challenger and Plymouth Barracuda with 13 sales; Bricklin with 22 sales; clearance of last yearís AMC Javelin and Ambassador with 97 sales; the Pontiac Sunbird with 120 sales; Dodge Aspen with 241 sales; Plymouth Volare with 266 sales; Jaguar with 340 sales; Imperial with 369 sales and the Pontiac Acadian with 708 sales.