1911

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1911-

January 1: It is time to count noses. The population of the Dominion of Canada is 7,206,643 people stretched out from Sydney to Victoria. 

January 3: A Maritime Singer Six arrives at Halifax City Hall at ten o’clock. The touring car has made the grueling trip from Saint John, New Brunswick in 58  hours. Passengers are frostbitten and sleep deprived but triumphant. Unfortunately, the company will go broke in 1915.

January 31: Under the auspices of the University of Saskatchewan's School of Agriculture, the Homemaker’s Club organizes in Saskatoon. The 42 women in attendance include well-known journalists Lillian Benyon and author Nellie McClung. The purpose of the group is to promote voting rights for women and the banning of alcohol sales.

February 1: The current issue of Motoring suggests that drivers who operate their cars in winter should cover the radiator and hood with a duster and park the car into the wind—as one would with a horse.

March 7: Sir Wilfred Laurier rises in the House of Commons to speak on the issue of reciprocity—free trade—with the United States. He tells MPs that Canada will not lose its independence if it signs a trade treaty with Washington. 

March 11: The National Battlefields Commission is established by the federal government. It has the power to preserve the Plains of Abraham in Québec City, where the British beat the French in the Battle of Québec. That is good because a property developer has other ideas.

March 16: The Ottawa Senators send the Port Arthur Bearcats down to defeat to win Lord Stanley’s Cup. The final score is 14 to 4.

March 21: Motorists will be able to purchase gasoline from a new company as Royal Dutch Shell Canada is incorporated in Montréal. There are only 34,000 automobiles in the country, consuming only 22 730 450 litres (five million Imperial gallons) of gasoline but Shell Canada’s administrators are optimistic. The company’s six employees begin to serve customers from its headquarters on the corner of Peel and Ste. Catherine Street and opens a bunkering plant in Longue Point a few weeks later. In 2007 the company will have more than 1,800 retail outlets across the nation, be one of Canada’s Top 100 most desirable companies to work for and be worth more than $75 billion.

March 24: MPPs at Queen’s Park pass legislation to govern the film industry. The Theatres and Cinematographs Act will give the lieutenant governor of Ontario the power to censor films that do not meet the high standards set by society.

March 24: Residents of Manitoba will now pay $5 to register their vehicles but the province will supply the porcelain license plates. Records show that 2,436 vehicles are registered in the Keystone  Province during the calendar year.

April 3: Hélène Olivine Veilleux is born in St-George, Québec. She will grow up to be a Hollywood actress, starring in fifteen movies—under the names Nanette Bordeaux and Francine Bordeaux--including several Three Stooges movies until her sudden death--brought on by pneumonia--on September 20, 1956.

April 25: The Moral Reform Committee meeting in Woodstock, Ontario decries the lax observance of the Lord’s Day and demands that bridge and movie attendance be made illegal on Sundays. The committee is also opposed to picnics, tea parties and social gatherings of any kind, other than worshipping God in church. 

May 2: Electricity generated at Niagara Falls is plugged into the Toronto city grid for the first time. 

May 9:  Ottawa will give Adam Graham $562 to cover losses incurred while he was held prisoner by Louis Riel during the Red River rebellion.

In 1911, more companies and businesses buy Ford trucks.

May 15: His Majesty’s Royal Canadian Post Office purchases a trio of Model T Fords to deliver mail in the Toronto area. These are sturdy cars that will log more than 120 700 kilometres (75,000 miles) over the next three years. 

May 27: Dispirited coal miners in Springhill, Nova Scotia return to work after a 22-month long strike fails to win them union recognition and a pay hike.

June 1: The Dominion Bureau of Statistics has counted noses and says there are 7,206,000 of us from Cape Breton to Vancouver Island and thousands of points between.

Canada Post will honour the internationally acclaimed contralto with this stamp in 2016, the 75th anniversary of her debut in Toronto.

June 24: Portia May White is born in Truro, Nova Scotia.  This African-Canadian will astonish the world with her beautiful voice. The shy contralto will sing for Queen Elizabeth II at the opening of Confederation Centre in Charlottetown in 1964. Ill health will force her to retire early and she will die in 1968. 

July 7: Canada, Japan, Russia and the United States sign a joint treaty to prohibit seals from being hunted in the international waters of the North Pacific Ocean by commercial sealers.

July 10: An Everitt automobile leaves Calgary, Alberta and arrives 19 hours later in Cranbrook, British Columbia. It is the first automobile to make the 523-kilometre trek across the 1,358-metre high Crowsnest Pass under its own power and wins the gold medal offered by the West Coast Highway Association to the first motor car to make it to Victoria from Winnipeg.

July 11:  More than 300 people are dead after a wall of fire sweeps through the northern Ontario communities of Cochrane, Pottsville and South Porcupine. The fire reaches Timiskaming, Ontario where some attempt to survive by running into the lake. Sadly there are drowning casualties when panic stricken people push others too far out into deep water.

Jessica Tandy and Hume Cronyn in 1941.

July 18:  It’s a boy for brewery heiress Frances Labatt and her federal MP husband Hume Blake Cronyn, Sr. Hume Jr. is born in London, Ontario. He will not become a lawyer but choose Broadway as his home and later Hollywood. He will marry actress Jessica Tandy and be together until her death in 1994. The recipient of the Order of Canada will appear in more than 50 movies. The First Gentleman of Broadway will die of prostate cancer in 2003 when he is 91 years old.

July 21:  Herbert Marshall McLuhan is born in Edmonton. He will grow up to be an educator and a communication theorist. While teaching at the University of Toronto, he will coin the expressions “the media is the message” and the phrase “global village.” The world-renowned media guru will die in 1980.

July 21: At 3.30 pm the crew of a McLaughlin declares success in Edmonton after having driven their motor car 1,853.9 kilometres from Winnipeg in eleven days.

July 22: The United States Congress votes in favour of reciprocity with Canada. The deal will mean that duties will be eliminated on raw materials, and duties will be lowered on imports and exports between the two nations. 

July 31: The Russell Motor Car Company of Canada Limited pays hefty dividends to stockholders. The Toronto-based manufacturer counts the Governor General among its loyal customers.

A 1911 Ford Model T Torpedo Runabout is seen here.

August 1:  Ford increases capital stock to $1 million and changes its name to The Ford Motor Company of Canada, Limited. A new four-storey building is started on Sandwich Street in Windsor, Ontario. This one will cover 5 574 square metres (60,000square feet) and be home to the power plant.

September 19: The first synagogue is dedicated in the city of Edmonton.

September 22: Voters have had their say. Reciprocity is dead and the Grits are tossed from power. Robert Borden will lead a majority Tory government, having won 134 seats to the Liberals’ 87. 

October 1:  There are two million people living in Québec. Citizens boast 1,532 automobiles in la belle province of which 293 are Fords. Some 500,000 people reside in Montréal, a city with just under 1,000 automobiles registered, of which 149 are Fords.

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November 3:  D.M. McIver of the G.F. Stephens Company in Winnipeg writes to Ford headquarters in Windsor that he has already put more than 7,000 miles on his new Ford and spent only $5 in repair. 

November 6: Sir John Carling is dead at the age of 83. The distinguished Minister of Agriculture and Postmaster General was appointed to the Senate twice. The millionaire brewer of suds that bears his father’s name, will be buried in London, Ontario.

November 25: The University of Toronto whips the Toronto Argonauts 14 to 7 for the third annual Grey Cup playoffs.

December 31:  Ford Canada has 251 employees on its payroll.