1936

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1936-

Workers at Ford of Canada in Windsor, Ontario build 180 luxurious and streamlined Lincoln Zephyrs for the domestic market.  

January 6:  Barbara Hanley is elected as mayor of the village of Webbwood, Ontario. The schoolteacher beats her opponent by 13 votes to become the first woman to head a Canadian municipality. Her Worship will serve for eight years and step down in 1944. She will serve as Clerk and Treasurer for another four years. Mrs. Hanley will die in Sudbury in 1959.

This 1909 Tudhope-McIntyre is featured a 1958 Mobiloil advertisement.

February 3: James Brockett Tudhope is dead at the age of 67. The automobile pioneer was responsible for the car that bore his name. He was also mayor of Orillia, Ontario and served as an MPP at Queen’s Park and a Liberal MP in the House of Commons.

February 9:  Charles Thomas Connors is born in Saint John, New Brunswick to an unwed teen. He will live in a woman’s prison, an orphanage and be and indentured child labourer before the Aylward family on Prince Edward Island adopts him. When he is 15, Tommy will leave home to wander the country with his guitar. He can write, sing and he can stomp. Stompin’ Tom will write 300 songs, record nearly 50 albums and sell more than 4 million,  including such classics as “The Hockey Song” and “Bud the Spud.” He will die of natural causes in 2013, at the age of 79.

February 13: Nearly 2,000 women in British Columbia have signed a petition demanding a free birth control clinic.

Our hockey team misses gold (above) but comes home with Olympic silver.

February 16: Canada beats the United States to take silver in hockey at the Winter Olympics in Germany. Our boys lose the gold medal to the UK—possibly because six Canadians are playing for Britain.

                                       

February 19: Boxing sensation Phil “Red” Munroe is crowned as the “White Hope” champion of Canada in front of 15,000 boxing fans in Toronto. It is the largest fight crowd ever assembled in the Dominion. 

March 5: In a private briefing with US Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Prime Minister Mackenzie King is told frankly, “War is in inevitable in Europe.” 

Downtown Fredericton is flooded with 33 centimetres of water.

March 19: An ice jam on the St. John River destroys a CNR bridge, cutting off train traffic between Saint John and Fredericton.

March 21: John Edward Broadbent is born. “Ed” will grow up to be a university professor and leader of the New Democratic Party in 1975.

March 24: David and Marcia Suzuki are born in Vancouver. David will grow up to be a scientist and host of the CBC television show The Nature of Things. By 2006, the environmentalist will have written 32 books and been awarded the Order of Canada.

Goalie Normie Smith makes 92 saves for the Red Wings in tonight's game.

March 25: It’s finally over. The longest NHL game ever played started last evening when Detroit Red Wings and the Montreal Maroons went to it. The Wings win 1 to zip in the ninth period. The game went into six overtime periods. It lasted 176 minutes and 30 seconds.

April 1: Times are tough. Alberta becomes the first province to default on its debt. Edmonton cannot pay the principal of a $3.2 million bond. Premier “Bible Bill" Aberhart says only, “We haven’t the money. I’m sorry; we must default.”

April 11:  The Toronto Maple Leafs lose the Stanley Cup for the second year in a row. Tonight the trophy goes home with the Detroit Red Wings.

April 12: The entire nation is glued to the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission when the Moose River Gold Mine collapses in Nova Scotia. For 69 hours straight, reporter, J. Frank Willis reports live from the scene about the survivors who are trapped underground. The miners will be dropped food through a rubber tube for ten days until frantic workers can dig them out.

When cars no longer run, folks hitch them to their horses and call them 'Bennett Buggies' after the Prime Minister.

April 22: The federal government will spend $60 million on public works projects, $26 million on relief and loan $40 million to Canadian National Railways. Most of the money will be spent in western Canada and $200,000 will be used for geological surveys because it is believed there may be oil in the region.

May 23: The 90-kilo hulk with the flaming thatch of red hair was convicted 19 times, escaped from Kingston Penitentiary, was in nine shootouts with police and killed six. Today police gun down Norman “Red” Ryan during a botched Liquor Control Board of Ontario robbery in Sarnia. The Number One Criminal’s story will be told in the book Big Red Fox in 1999.

May 28: The guardians of the Dionne quintuplets have inked a deal that will see the girls star in three Hollywood movies during the next two years.

June 16: Oil is discovered in the Turner Valley of Alberta. The gusher is the first of many, turning the area into an overnight major oil producer.

The Silver Dart is depicted flying over Cape Breton Island.

June 17: A military airport opens near Petawawa, Ontario. It is named the Silver Dart Aerodrome to commemorate Alexander Graham Bell’s plane that made the first flight in the British Empire.

 July 4:  The fiercest heat wave of the Twentieth Century kills more than 5,000 people across North America including many in Manitoba and Ontario. The continent-wide disaster will finally come to an end on August 14.

July 7: People are sick and dying in Toronto as the mercury hits 40.5C and stays there for the next three days.

 July 11: People and animals suffer as heat continues to scorch Manitoba. The temperature reaches 44.4C in the village of Treesbank, 43.3FC in Brandon and Winnipegers do what they can to keep cool as the temperature reaches 42.2C.

July 17: The killer heat wave is over for Canadians—at least—leaving 1,180 people dead.

July 26:  The Vimy Ridge Memorial is dedicated by King Edward VIII in front of 100,000 people. Some 6,000 Canadians are in France for this momentous occasion. The monument was 11 years in the building. It honours the 60,000 Canadians who died in the Great War. Engraved are the names of the 11,285 men who were missing in action and never buried.

July 31:  The popularity of the Dionne quintuplets is so great that 141,342 visitors came to see them this month at the Dafoe Hospital in Callander, Ontario. About 70 percent of the visitors are American. The quints are two years old, now.

September 29: Prime Minister Mackenzie King addresses the League of Nations in Geneva. He tells the assembly that Canada will not automatically support every action undertaken by the League. The PM is accused of undermining the international body’s authority.

October 7:  It is the birth date of Charles Edouard Dutoit. He will grow up to be director of the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, making it one of the finest in the world. Under Dutoit’s direction the orchestra will win more than 40 international awards including seven Junos and two Grammys.

October 9:  Nearly 1,000 unemployed men petition Ottawa for tickets to sail to Spain and fight the Fascist General Franco and his rebellious troops who have taken on the government in a civil war.

VOCM stands for the Voice of the Common Man. It will still be strong  in 2013.

October 19: Broadcasting from Walter Williams’ living room at 80 Circular Road in St. John’s, Newfoundland, VOCM takes to the airwaves at eight o'clock pm for the first time. His Worship, Mayor Andrew Carnell is the first to speak.

November 2: By act of Parliament the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation replaces the old Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission.

November 3: It's Tuesday. Here is the CBC's very first night of programming for listeners in Vancouver.

November 8: After three days of negotiations, the Mail & Empire newspaper has been purchased by the Toronto Globe. The two papers will merge next week to become the Globe and Mail. With the largest circulation of any daily in the country, the new paper will be marketed with the catchy slogan “Canada’s national newspaper.”

November 25:  There may indeed be war. Germany, Japan and Italy sign the Anti-Comintern Pact, each nation vowing to protect the other if attacked by enemies.

December 3: Employees' hours at Heinz in Leamington, Ontario  are cut from ten hours a day to nine and accompanied by a ten percent pay rise just in time for Christmas.

December 11: King Edward VIII stuns the world with his revelation that he will abdicate the throne for the woman he loves. The divorced Wallace Warfield Simpson awaits His Royal Highness in France.
Canadians warm up their Marconis to hear His Majesty’s farewell speech on the CBC at 6 o’clock Atlantic Standard Time.

December 31: Though LaSalle production was discontinued in Oshawa, Ontario at the end of 1935, GM Canada reports domestic production of 38,473 Chevrolets, 3,378 Pontiacs, 4,722 McLaughlin-Buicks, 4,727 Oldsmobiles and 81 Cadillacs during the past 12 months.

1936 Chrysler Imperial Airflow

December 31: Chrysler Canada reports domestic shipments of 11,350 Plymouths, 11,841 Dodges, 1,198 DeSotos and 2,693 Chryslers for 1936.

December 31: Ford of Canada built 21,014 passenger cars and 6,191 trucks for sale in the nine provinces.

December 31: Ford of Canada has exported 80 passenger cars and 40 trucks to Newfoundland this calendar year.

A total of 880 Nash automobiles are sold throughout the Dominion in 1936. This is up sharply from 286 units delivered in 1935.