1973

From the big scrapbook of time, here is a look at Canada in 1973-

The full-sized Chevrolet is the Number One best-selling car this year.

January 25: There are headaches aplenty for residents on the northern side of Vancouver Island. Destined to dock in Squamish, the oil tanker Irish Stardust runs aground, spilling its cargo into Alert Bay.

American soldiers, now Prisoners of War, are held captive by the North Vietnamese in a Hanoi prison.

January 27: Governor General Roland Michner is at the airport to bid farewell and good luck to a group of fifteen civilians and 130 soldiers as they leave Montreal for Saigon. The Canadians are part of the International Control and Supervision Team. Along with Hungarians, Indonesians and Poles, they will arrange prisoner exchanges and attempt to broker cease-fire arrangements between the Americans and the Viet Cong.

February 1: Louis Rasminsky steps down as Governor of the Bank of Canada. Gerald Bouey will step into his shoes and set national fiscal policy for the next fourteen years.

The CN tower will cost the Canadian National Railway $63 million.

February 5: Construction begins on the CN Tower. When it is completed two years from now, it will be the tallest freestanding structure in the world. The tower is sorely needed as a communications centre; it is difficult to receive broadcast signals in and around Metro Toronto.

February 13: Published last year, the Gendron Report is released to the public. The controversial document recommends that French be made the only official language in Quebec in order to guarantee Francophones a place in 20th Century North America.

Lester B. Pearson was the nation's 14th Prime Minister. A spy in World War Two, he won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1957.

February 15: The Lester B. Pearson College of the Pacific is inaugurated in Victoria, BC. The unique school will be one of ten United World Colleges on five continents that brings together as many as 200 students from 80 different countries to promote international harmony and understanding.

February 28: It is a boy for Carl and Bonnie Lindros of London, Ontario. Eric will grow up to be 190 centimetres tall. The “Big E” will put on his skates for the Philadelphia Flyers and the New York Rangers.

March 12: Toronto Mayor David Crombie is at the Juno Awards and presents Stompin’ Tom Connors with a Juno for best country male vocalist. Anne Murray is honoured with a Juno for best female vocalist and Terry Jacks wins a Juno for best male vocalist.

Workers get $20 a week in strike pay during the long strike for better wages and living conditions.

March 15: Members of Local 5457 of the United Steelworkers of America reject the latest offer from The American Smelting and Refining Company—ASARCO—in Buchans, Newfoundland. The work stoppage is long and bitter and will not be resolved until a better contract is finally signed on October 3^rd.

March 22: St. Lawrence Seaway Authority strikes a deal with the Mohawks living in Kahnawake, Quebec. The First Nations people will be given $1.5 million and 321.7 hectares of land in compensation for the 526 hectares unilaterally expropriated in 1955.

Don Messer's Jubilee was broadcast on radio and then television from Charlottetown, PEI on CBC affiliate CFCY.

March 26: Folk music legend Donald Charles “Don” Messer is dead of a heart attack in Halifax at the age of 62. The star of Don Messer’s Jubilee was heard on the CBC from 1944 until it moved to CBC-TV in 1959. The programme was second only in popularity to “Hockey Night in Canada.”

March 28: Heritage Canada is founded. The non-profit organization is charged with the responsibility of identifying and preserving historical sites of national importance.

This satellite is one of the Anik family. Anik means 'brother' in Inuttitut, the language of the Inuit people.

April 2: The Anik A-2 satellite is launched. Once in orbit, it allows Arctic communities to receive live colour television broadcasts from southern Canada and phone service, too. Canada is the first country in the world to make use of satellites for domestic communication.

April 29: Flooding along the St. John River will cost residents of New Brunswick more than $25 million.

May 5: New Brunswick jockey, Ron Turcotte, rides Secretariat to win the Kentucky Derby in a record time of 1:59. The pair will go on to take the Triple Crown—the first time that has happened in a quarter century.

May 10: In a rematch of the 1971 playoffs, Montreal bests the Chicago Blackhawks after six games to take home the Stanley Cup.

May 18:  Prime Minister John George Diefenbaker’s family home in Prince Albert is donated to the University of Saskatchewan. Diefenbaker House will become a museum and be home to the Diefenbaker Archives.

The 1973 Oldsmobile Cutlass is takes Ninth Spot in automobile sales this year. GM publicity says the intermediate-sized car features 'Collonade Styling.'

May 29: The Canadian contingent of the International Control and Supervision Team will withdraw from Viet Nam because the committee is not impartial. 

June 5: Ottawa declares amnesty for some 50,000 illegal immigrants. They have until October 15 to apply for residency.

The star of Acadia graces the tri-colour flag of New France.

June 8: The New Brunswick Society of Acadians is established. It will enrich the lives of all Canadians and honour the heritage of some 34,000 Francophone New Brunswickers. 

June 28: Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, is in Niagara-on-the-Lake to participate in the inauguration of the Shaw Festival Theatre.

July 1:Long live the glass bottle!  Prince Edward Island bans the sale of beer in tin cans. Soft drinks sold in non-refillable plastic will be banned in 1974 and soft drink cans will be banned in 1984. The law will be repealed in 2008.

July 12: The Supreme Court of Canada rules that the Indian Act of 1876 is unconstitutional because it infringes on the human rights of Aboriginal Canadians.

July 18: Super model Christine Demeter is brutally murdered. Police find her battered body in the family home in Mississauga, Ontario. The police investigation quickly points to her husband, one of the wealthiest men in the world. The lurid details of the slaying will be revealed at a trial that will grip the entire nation. Christine’s sensational death will be the subject of numerous books and movies for years to come.

July 25: Louis St. Laurent dies in Quebec City. He is 91. St. Laurent served as the nation’s 12th Prime Minister from 1948 until the Liberals were defeated by Deifenbaker’s Tories in the general election of 1957. Under St. Laurent’s guidance, Canada joined NATO and his Minister of External Affairs, Mike Pearson, won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1956 for Canada’s brilliant solution to the Suez Canal Crisis.  “Uncle Louis” will be interred in his hometown of Compton, Quebec.

August 10: A tornado is spotted in Upper Garry Lake, NWT--now Nunavut. It is the most northerly twister recorded in this country.  

August 30: Railway workers are on strike. Some 200 of them have occupied the Centre Block of the Parliament building to protest forced arbitration.

August 31: Scott Niedermayer is born in Edmonton. He will grow up to play hockey for the New Jersey Devils.

Kids in Edmonton, Alberta were the first students in the world to ever ride in a “school truck”.  Engineers at Ford of Canada invented it during World War One. For 65 years Ford buses have faithfully delivered millions of kids to school and home again. A total of 7,217 Ford school buses are built in 1973.

The Right Honourable Jules Leger and Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.

October 5: Jules Leger is appointed to be the 21st Governor General of Canada. The career diplomat is currently Ambassador to Belgium. His brother is Cardinal Leger, the Archbishop of Montreal. 

OPEC member nations are marked in green.

October 17: The Organization of Petroleum Exporting States votes to cut production of oil by 5 percent and to hike the price by 70 percent to protest the American backing of Israel during the Yom Kippur War. This is good news for Alberta but not so good for other provinces. The OPEC hike will prompt the Trudeau government to set up Petro-Canada as a Crown corporation. 

The Right Honourable Wilfred Laurier was the nation's seventh Prime Minister.

November 1: Established in 1911, Waterloo Lutheran University gets a new name. Henceforth the institution of higher learning will be known as Sir Wilfred Laurier University. 

November 13: The battle may be won but the war is not over. A Montreal jury refuses to find abortion rights activist Dr. Henry Morgentaler guilty of performing an illegal abortion because the law is perceived to be unjust.

December 4: Alfred Carl Fuller is dead at the age of 88. Born and raised in Welsford, Kings County, Nova Scotia, the budding entrepreneur moved to the United States when he was 18. He founded the Fuller Brush Company, one of the most successful door-to-door businesses in the world. He will be buried in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Somerset, Nova Scotia. The millionaire’s home in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia will become a museum. 

December 7: The government sells a CANDU nuclear reactor to South Korea. It is the Atomic Energy Commission’s first international sale. It won the bid because the system is relatively inexpensive, using un-enriched uranium.

The Royal Canadian Air Farce will win many awards for their eight comedy albums.

December 9: Folks who tune their radio dials to the CBC are treated to the antics of a wacky new comedy troupe, The Royal Canadian Air Farce. Their weekly radio show is highly popular and will become a staple on CBC Television in years to come.  In 2008, the show will retire after 35 years of tickling our funny bones.

Volkswagen was the tenth best-selling nameplate this year.

December 31: Automakers close out the year with sales reports. The Top Ten sellers for the calendar year are Chevrolet (full size), Toyota, Datsun, Ford (full size), Plymouth Valiant, Ford Torino, Dodge Dart, Chevrolet Vega, Oldsmobile Cutlass and Volkswagen.

Visit my old car website at: The Oilspot Eh!

Copyright James C. Mays 2005
All rights reserved.

1976

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1976-

Lincoln introduces its Designer Series for 1976 with specially trimmed models by Cartier, Pucci, Bill Blass and Givinchy. Sales for the calendar year added up to 5,045 units delivered across the nation.

January 5: The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals opens a blood bank for dogs in Montreal.

January 7: Eric Serge Gagne is born in Montreal. He will teach himself English by watching TV sitcoms and grow up to be a pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Gagne will win the Cy Young Award in 2003.

January 12: General Vehicles, Incorporated is declared bankrupt by a judge in Phoenix, Arizona. Among its subsidiaries is Bricklin Canada, Limited, a sports car manufacturer with factories in Minto and Saint John, New Brunswick.

January 14: For the first time since 1884, there will be no future editions of Eaton’s Catalogue. Once the nation’s largest retailer, the T. Eaton Company Limited will file for bankruptcy in 1997.

January 20: The Quebec Court of Appeals upholds the acquittal of Dr. Henry Morgentaler from a lower court. He was charged with performing an illegal abortion.

January 25: Mia Kirshner is born in Toronto. She will grow up to be a Hollywood star, seen in such movies as Love and Human Remains, the popular Global TV series, The L Word and the CTV fantasy series, The Vampire Diaries.

January 28: The government of Saskatchewan nationalizes the province’s potash industry.

February 3: Prime Minister Trudeau and wife Margaret are in Havana to strengthen ties Canada’s ties with Cuba. Margaret tells the Cuban leader that Pierre has taught her about love. The PM tells Premier Castro to get his troops out of Angola.

February 4: The Supreme Court rules that provinces can no longer censor movies.

February 7: Toronto Maple Leaf Darryl Sittler scores six goals and four assists in a game against the Boston Bruins.

February 22: The Tories have a new leader. On the fourth ballot they have elected Joe Clark, an Albertan. Claude Wagner is second and third is a lawyer by the name of Brian Mulroney.

Oil rigs pump around the clock in Alberta.

March 1: Alberta establishes the Alberta Heritage Savings Trust fund with money from the province’s oil-rich economy.

March 2: Time magazine ceases publication in Canada when tax advantages for US magazines offering Canadian content are dropped. Such publications are viewed as being a threat to Canadian culture.

March 9: It’s a boy for Brian and Mila Mulroney. Benedict (Ben) will grow up to earn degrees from Laval University and Duke University and will be best known to millions of viewers as the host of Canadian Idol on CTV.

Queen's Park has been home to the Ontario Provincial Parliament in Toronto since 1860.

March 10: The proceedings at Queen’s Park in Toronto are now broadcast throughout Ontario on radio and TV for the first time.

March 12: The oil refinery at Come By Chance, Newfoundland is bankrupt to the tune of  $500 million. It opened three years ago to great fanfare by industrial tycoon John Shaheen. The refinery will reopen in 1987 and be profitable, serving the needs of Newfoundland and Labrador while exporting more than $2 billion worth of gasoline-based products annually by 2007.

The Homecoming was a surprise hit, based on a TV commercial that Hagood Hardy wrote for Salada Tea.

March 15: John Allen Cameron hosts the Juno Awards, held at the Ryerson Polytechnic Institute. Joni Mitchell wins a Juno as female vocalist of the year. Gino Vannelli wins a Juno as male vocalist of the year. Bachman-Turner Overdrive get the group of the year Juno, another for best album Juno for Four-Wheel Drive and a third for best single, You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet. Haygood Hardy wins a Juno as composer of the year for The Homecoming.

March 29: The Man Who Skied Down Everest is the first Canadian feature-length documentary film to win an Oscar. The movie was made by Crawley Films.

April 1: Ottawa places broadcasting and telecommunications under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission. Now, the agency has the authority to regulate telephone companies, too.

April 1: The federal government hikes the minimum wage to $2.90 an hour.

April 5: Wilder Penfield is dead at the age of 85. The father of neurosurgery made the first maps of the sensory and motor cortices of the brain. He was a pioneer in understanding and treating epilepsy. The street that passes in front of the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital he founded will be renamed in his honour on October 5, 1978.

April 14: Some 90,000 angry teachers stage a 24-hour wildcat strike across Quebec.

April 15: The Federal Cabinet lifts the moratorium on oil exploration in the Beaufort Sea. Dome Petroleum will buy $50 million in insurance against any possible environmental damage.

April 18: Somebody has goofed. It is revealed that the new Olympic Stadium in Montreal has 15,000 seats with no view of the field.

May 2 – The Canadian edition of Time magazine is discontinued.

May 10: It is the birth date of Kristen French. The vivacious teen will be kidnapped, tortured and murdered by Karla Homolka and her husband Paul Bernardo in 1992.

May 16: The Habs trounce the Philadelphia Flyers four games to zip to take home the Stanley Cup.

Unemployed men line up for work in Quebec in 1932.

May 20: The ranks of folks on pogey swells. StatsCan announces that unemployment has hit 7.4 percent, the highest level since 1961.

The Honourable Eugene Whelan wore a green Stetson hat when he was Minister of Agriculture.

June 3: Angry about cuts to production and lower subsidies, 5,000 Quebec dairy farmers storm Parliament Hill. Parking their tractors on the lawn, they throw milk at Eugene Whelan, Minister of Agriculture.

A Canadian natural gas plant.

June 10: The National Energy Board hikes the price of natural gas being exported to the United States by a whopping 21 percent.

June 11: The National Energy Board announces the amount of natural gas being shipped to the United States will be cut by twelve percent.

Between Friends/Entre Amis depicts life on the Canadian and US border.

June 16: Prime Minister Trudeau is in Washington to present President Ford with Canada’s gift to the United States as it marks its 200^th birthday. The gift to our neighbours and friends is the lavishly illustrated coffee table book, Between Friends/Entre Amis.

Canadian Pacific is but one airline that won't be taking anyone anywhere until the strike is settled.

June 20: Tens of thousands of travellers are grounded as the 2,800 members of the Canadian Air Line Pilots Association go on strike. The issue is whether or not French is acceptable in the air. The walkout is resolved in nine days.

June 25: The CN Tower is officially open. At 533.33 metres, it is the tallest freestanding structure in the world. The proud owner is Canadian National. More than 2 million people will visit annually. In 2003, the Ostankino Tower in Moscow will open and it will eclipse the CN Tower with its taller antenna.

July 1: It is the birth date of Leslie Ernin Mahaffey. She will be kidnapped, tortured and slain by serial killers Karla Homolka and her husband Paul Bernardo in 1991.

July 10: James Moore is born in Vancouver. He will grow up to host a conservative radio talk show before be elected to Parliament as a Tory for the British Columbia riding of Port Moody-Westwood-Port Coquitlam.

July 14: Members of Parliament vote to abolish the death penalty. It has been 14 years since the last hanging took place in this country.  Of the 1,481 people sentenced to death since Confederation, 710 have been executed—697 men and 13 women.

July 17: Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, is in Montreal to open the 21^st Olympic Games. Tickets are $30 for the opening ceremonies.

August 1: The Olympic Games are over and the torch will pass to Moscow which will host the 1980 Summer Olympic Games. Our athletes earn eleven silver and bronze medals.

August 4: Newspaper baron and billionaire Roy Herbert Thomson is dead at the age of 82. The Toronto born native, Lord Thomson of Fleet owned a media empire made up of more than 200 newspapers. Toronto’s prestigious Roy Thomson Hall will be named in his honour,.

September 15: Team Canada wins the first Canada Cup beating Czechoslovakia 5 to 4.

August 27: Sara Chalke is born in Ottawa. Her family will move to Vancouver. When she grows up she will star in the TV series Roseanne, in the role of Becky,  and appear in the TV sitcom Scrubs as Dr. Elliot Reid.

September 29: The courts rule that the use of French is acceptable in the skies. Air Canada will lift its ban. Some pilots are still convinced that use of another language may lead to an air tragedy.

October 7: Rachel McAdams is born in London, Ontario. She will grow up to study acting and graduate with honours from York University. Rachel will appear in movies such as The Hot Chick, Mean Girls and The Wedding Crashers.

November 15: It is election night in Quebec. The Liberals are defeated roundly by a political newcomer, the Parti Quebecois. Under the leadership of former CBC/SRC reporter Rene Levesque, the PQ wants to lead la belle province out of Confederation and make Quebec a sovereign nation.

November 24: The PQ government is sworn in. Though the platform calls for Quebec to be an independent nation, democratically elected officials dutifully pledge their allegiance to the Queen.

November 28: Playing before 53,467 fans at Exhibition Stadium in Toronto, the Ottawa Rough Riders squeak past the Saskatchewan Roughriders 23 to 20 for the Grey Cup. The match will be considered to be the most thrilling Grey Cup games of all times.

St. Paul's Anglican church in Halifax was founded in 1749.

November 30: The Anglican Church of Canada ordains its first female priests.

Built by Chrysler Canada workers in Windsor, Ontario, the 1976 Chrysler Cordoba, with seats of rich Corinthian leather, garnered 19,378 domestic sales during the calendar year.

December 31: The Top Ten selling cars this year are the full-size Chevrolet, Plymouth Volare, Chevrolet Malibu, full-size Ford, Dodge Aspen, Oldsmobile Cutlass, Honda, Toyota, Chevrolet Nova and the Chevrolet Monte Carlo.