1930

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1930--

The six-cylinder Durant is a decent seller with 5,526 units delivered throughout the Dominion of Canada in 1930.

January 11: Harold Greenberg is born in Montreal. He will become a film producer known for such flicks as Porky’s—the most successful Canadian film ever—and— rich fare as The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravits. Greenberg will head Astral Communications, pioneer pay TV and own The Movie Network. He will be made an Officer in the Order of Canada and a Knight in the National Order of Quebec. Greenberg will die in 1996.

January 12:  Tim Horton is born in Cochrane, Ontario. By the time he is five he will be playing hockey. The NHL legend will be killed in a horrible auto accident in 1974 on the QEW but live on forever through his international chain of Tim Horton’s doughnut shops.

Varick Frissell and his dog Cabot.

January 16: Movie director Varick Frissell arrives in St. John’s, Newfoundland to begin filming a motion picture about the famed Newfoundland seal hunt. The movie will be a wrap in May but the 27-year old film genius' quest to make the movie even better will cause his death.

January 29: Because of last year’s drought, it is reported that hundreds of horses are starving to death in Saskatchewan. Desperate farmers are already shooting livestock because there is nothing left to feed the animals.

January 29: Using horses and motorcars, police in Vancouver arrest 29 men for rioting in Stanley Park. Hundreds of men, hungry for jobs, are angered that former city workers are being offered work at $2 a day for married men and single men $1 a day. They should get in line like everyone else.

February 15: Mrs. Cairine Wilson becomes the first woman to be appointed to the Senate. She will be the first woman named as Speaker of the Senate.

February 19: In Quebec City the National Assembly rejects a bill that would allow women to practise law in la belle province.

 February 20: Folks who work at Heinz of Canada can brag a bit because the factory in Leamington, Ontario is now  the world's largest ketchup producer.

March 4: To silence critics that Ottawa is adding to the woes of the people, the federal government hands immigration over to the provinces.

March 11: Claude Jutra is born in Montreal. He will study medicine but give it up for acting and the camera. His passion will earn him international honours for his 1971 film, Mon oncle Antoine. He will die in 1986 and the Prix Jutra will be established to honour the best of Canadian films.

March 12: World War air ace William G. “Billy” Barker is killed in a airplane crash while testing a Fairchild two-seater near Rockcliffe, Ontario. The Dauphin, Manitoba native was a true hero who downed 53 enemy planes during the Great Way and was awarded the Victoria Cross for his valour in the skies.

April 3: Last year’s Stanley Cup winners, the Boston Bruins, give up holy grail of hockey to the Montreal Canadiens who take the trophy home after winning two games in a best of three game series.

May 1:  Montrealers who are getting married this spring can hire a Diamond Taxicab for only $2.50 an hour.

Uranium is the energy source of nuclear medicine, nuclear power and nuclear bombs.

May 16: Gilbert A. Labine has found sufficient radium and uranium deposits to begin construction of a uranium mine on Great Bear Lake in the Northwest Territories. The intrepid prospector will discover more uranium in northern Saskatchewan in the 1950s—Uranium City will be built there. Gilbert will be inducted into the order of Canada in 1969 and die in 1977.

May 24:  Robert Bateman is born in Toronto. He will be inspired by the Group of Seven and become one of the world’s best-known wildlife artists. In the 21^st Century he will live on an island off the coast of British Columbia.

May 29: Roy Bonisteel is born. He will become a broadcaster in 1951, taking to the airwaves of a radio station in Belleville, Ontario. He will join the CBC as host of Man Alive and spend the next 22 years exploring our relationship with God.

June 10: The Winnipeg Rugby Football Club is chartered as all football teams in the city amalgamate. They will become the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in 1936.

Planes will land on grass landing strips at the Halifax Municipal Air Field when it opens next year.

June 16: Halifax city councillors have approved $190,000 to build an airfield. Today construction begins on two landing strips. One will be 549 metres by 182 metres and the other will measure 609 metres by feet by 182 metres.

June 17: Rosemary Brown is born in Kingston, Jamaica. She will come to Canada in 1951 to study at McGill and become a politician. She will become the first African-Canadian to run for the leadership of a federal political party when she takes on Ed Broadbent and the New Democratic Party in 1975. She will teach at Simon Fraser University, be a member of the CSIS spy agency and die of a heart attack in 2003.

June 20: Eight Jesuit martyrs become Canada’s first Roman Catholic saints.

June 28: Lightning strikes the 42.6-metre long wooden drill boat John B. King expanding ‘the narrows’ in the St. Lawrence River, near Brockville, Ontario. The ship is full of dynamite. Lightning strikes and sets off a blast that kills 33 of the 44 crew.

July 1:  Many folks in the very dry United States are not pleased to discover that liquor is even harder to find. As of today the Canada Export Act now forbids shipping alcohol to “countries under prohibition.”

July 1: The Seigniory Club opens in Montebello, Quebec. The elegant log cabin—the largest in the world—with its 168 luxurious rooms will later be renamed the Chateau Montebello. Visitors will include Prime Ministers, Governors General, a raft of royalty from many countries and a host of Hollywood movie stars, too.

July 12: Gordon Edward Pinsent is born in Grand Falls, Newfoundland. He will grow up to become one of the greatest actors ever to appear on radio, television, theatre and the silver screen. Pinsent will be best known for movie roles in  Lydia, The Rowdyman, Who Has Seen the Wind, John and the Missus and The Shipping News. 

July 15: On its 60^th anniversary of entering into Confederation, Manitoba is given responsibility for its natural resources. Ottawa will write a cheque to the Receiver General of Manitoba for $4,584,212.29.

The Right Honourable Richard Bedford Bennett is our 11th Prime Minister.

July 28: The voters have spoken and Richard Bennett and his Conservatives will form a majority government in Ottawa.

August 1: Montrealers are treated to the unforgettable spectacle of watching the R-100, the world’s largest airship, moor at the airport in St. Hubert. The luxurious vessel can sleep 100. It carries 44 passengers and 38 crew on its maiden Trans-Atlantic voyage from the UK. The trip took 78 hours. The dirigible will be in Canada for nearly two weeks. More than a million Canadians will see the vast flying boat. Sister ship R-101 will crash on a flight to India and the R-100 will be dismantled in 1931 and sold for scrap.

August 7: Richard Bedford Bennett is sworn in as the nation’s eleventh prime minister. The New Brunswick native will have a tough row to hoe; millions of Canadians are out of work as the Great Depression continues to worsen.

August 9:  Sprinter Percy Williams sets a world record of 10.33 seconds for the 100-metre dash in Vancouver.

August 9: Jacques Parizeau is born. He will earn a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of London School of Economics and be dedicated to making Quebec an independent country. Entering politics he will become Premier of Quebec in 1994 and step down in 1996.

Immigrants from The Netherlands wait their turn to be processed by Immigration agents at Pier 1 in Halifax.

August 15: The Tory government attempts to stem the flow of immigration into Canada but the new law does not affect British subjects who can travel to Canada for $15 a head, 3^rd Class on the Canada Pacific Steamship Lines. Children under the age of 17 sail for free.

August 16: The British Empire Games open today before an enthusiastic crowd of 17,000 in Hamilton, Ontario. It is the first time the games have ever been held outside of the UK.

September 8: The federal Department of Marine announces that it will establish radio stations in the Arctic communities of Coppermine and Chesterfield Inlet.

A construction crew build a road for the Department of National Defense in Rockliffe, Ontario.

September 20: The House of Commons passes the Unemployment Relief Act. Ottawa will spearhead $20 million worth of projects and hire an estimated 30,000 unemployed men to build large public projects such as highways, wharves and railways.

One of Alberta's best natural resources will be oil.

October 1: Alberta is given control over its natural resources. They have been held in trust by Ottawa since the province joined Confederation in 1905.

October 2: Fed up with criminal activity, a judge in Quebec orders two men convicted of robbing a taxi driver to five years in prison and 18 strokes of the lash.

October 9: J. Errol Boyd becomes the first Canadian to fly across the Atlantic. He leaves Harbour Grace, Newfoundland in The Maple Leaf, a Bellanca WB-2 monoplane. He will make an emergency landing on an island just off the coast of England and then continue to London on the 11^th.

October 21: Demanding $1 a day for single men and $2 a day for married men, unemployed men in Port Arthur (Thunder Bay), Ontario grow rowdy. Every policeman in the city, 30 special officers and the RCMP are called into help make arrests of these alleged Communists.

October 30: Timothy Finley is born in Toronto. He will grow up to become one of the nation’s most famous novelists. He will write screenplays, teleplays and pieces for theatre as well. He will win the Governor General’s Award for his book The Wars in 1977. His best-selling novel will be The Piano Man’s Daughter will be published in 1995. Timothy will die in France in 2002.

November 3: The 1 570-metre (5,150 feet) long  Windsor-Detroit Tunnel is officially open. Passengers may ride the Tunnel Bus for 10 cents. It costs 50 cents to drive a car across but a book of 50 tickets—good for one year—can be had for $20. The international roadway lies 25 metres beneath the Detroit River.

November 12: Now our north is more secure as Norway withdraws its claim against the Sverdrup Islands off the coast of Baffin Island.

November 15: Times may be tough but that doesn't stop Eaton's from sponsoring its annual Christmas parade in downtown Toronto.

People call the 25C note 'shinplaster' because of its small size.

November 18: Union leaders demand the minimum wage be raised from 25 cents to 50 cents and hour for en in factories and the workweek be lowered to 40 hours. Ottawa is shocked at this “Communist-inspired” rhetoric.

 

December 6: The Regina Roughriders go down to defeat to the Toronto Balmy Beach who take home the Grey Cup. This is the third year in a row that the Roughriders have made it to the championship match and lost.

December 8: To prevent mix-ups, babies born in the Victoria Hospital in London, Ontario will now be footprinted at birth. Mothers will be fingerprinted as well.

December 31: There are 3,111 vehicles registered in the Dominion of Newfoundland. That is triple the number reported five years ago. 

Essex, the lower-priced companion car to Hudson, sold 4,005 units during the 1930 calendar year.