1962

 From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1962--

 The 1962 Cadillac Sedan de Ville six-window sedan retails for $6,687. Folks purchase 2,830 of the GM’s posh flagships during the calendar year. 

Northern Electric began offering telephones in colours other than black in 1956.

January 1: Newfoundland and Labrador now has its own area code for long distance telephone usage. It is assigned area code 709. New Brunswick will become area code 506.

January 17: James Eugene Carrey is born in Newmarket, Ontario. The precocious kid will think he is funny and send his resume to superstar Carol Burnett when he is ten. With acting in his blood, he will drop out of high school at sixteen and try his hand at standup comedy. Hollywood will love him. Wildly successful at his craft, Jim will earn a star on Canada’s Walk of Fame in 1998.

January 27: Ottawa announces that the nation's new federal immigration policy will be broadened to include any person of any race or background as long as he or she has skills needed in this country. The Queen's Loyal Opposition charges that colour barriers are simply being replaced with education barriers.

Stamps and currency are issued in both French and English.

February 6: As of today, all cheques issued by the Federal Government will be bilingual.

March 6: A bomb destroys a huge hydroelectric transmission tower in Kootenay Lake, British Columbia. The RCMP suspect the sabotage is the work of the Sons of Freedom Doukhobors.

March 3: Senator Cairine Mackay Wilson is dead at the age of 77. Appointed by Prime Minister Mackenzie King as the first woman to take a seat in the Senate, she was also Canada’s first female delegate to the United Nations.  in 1955 she broke more ground as the first woman to hold the post of Deputy Speaker in the House of Commons.

Thalidomide is prescribed by doctors under the trade names of Kevadon and Talimol.

March 21: Ottawa orders the drug thalidomide be withdrawn from the market. There is proof that the sedative causes women to give birth to severely deformed babies. More than 100 children will be affected but the Federal Government won't compensate them for nearly 30 years.

March 27: Jann Arden is born in Calgary. The singer and songwriter will win two Juno awards for her hit I would Die For You in 1993.

April 9: Nearly 1,000 Canadian Pacific Railway employees who work at the Royal York Hotel in Toronto end a bitter 11-month long strike. Hotel & Club Employees Union Local 299 wanted a 15-cent hike over three years. Married men earned $27 a week but women earned only $20. The labour disruption was, by and large, unsuccessful.

March 31: Established in 1857, Newfoundland and Labrador's oldest and most successful financial institution—The Newfoundland Savings Bank— is purchased by the Bank of Montreal.

Macintosh the Cat is the logo for Mac's Milk. He will be replaced by Hibou the Owl in 1999.

 April 4: Mac's Milk Limited is incorporated in  Ontario. The convenience store chain will boast 5,906 stores and 52,000 employees throughout North America in 2014, making it the second largest in the industry. Mac's is known as Couche-Tard (night owl) in Quebec and Circle K in Atlantic Canada and the United States.

April 22: The Stanley Cup goes home with the Toronto Maple Leafs, who beat the Chicago Blackhawks, four games to two. It's the Leafs' first Stanley Cup win since 1951.

May 2: Our dollar continues its free-for-all. Today it slides downward more than two cents, the biggest drop in history. To offset the damage, the Bank of Canada sets our dollar permanently at 92.5 cents on the US dollar.

May 9:  A pair of Studebaker Lark VIIIs take first and second place in the Trans-Canada Rally sponsored by Shell Oil. The 6,400-kilometre race is from Vancouver to Quebec City.

Workers will build 21,852 Ramblers this year, up from 8,606 in 1961.

May 17: Orders for Rambler Classics are piling up faster than snowdrifts in a February blizzard. To meet the backlog, officials announce the Brampton, Ontario plant will be doubled in size at a cost of $2.5 million. The ultra-modern plant was only opened in January of 1961.

May 23: Workers begin drilling the first tunnel for Montreal’s new subway system—to be called le Metro. If all goes well the Metro will open in time for Expo ’67, Canada’s 100^th birthday party, and millions are expected to come. By 2010 the Metro will be the third busiest in North America and will have carried 7 billion passengers--the equivalent of the planet's population.

May 27: Actress Lucille Watson is dead of a heart attack in New York City at the age of 83. Born in Quebec City, the star of stage and the silver screen appeared in more than 40 Broadway productions and more than 40 Hollywood movies. She was nominated for an Oscar for her role as Aunt March in Little Women.

Trent University will be built along the Otonabee River.

May 31: The Government of Ontario announces the creation of a new institution of higher learning. Trent University will be located in Peterborough. 

May 31: It is the birth date of Corey Hart who will grow up to be a “bad boy” rocker with his pop hit, Sunglasses at Night.

Hillman will become part of Chrysler UK before the brand is laid to rest in 1970.

June:  Sales of imported cars will drop sharply now that a hefty new tax is imposed by the Federal Government. The tariff is designed to protect the domestic auto industry.

June 4: Ontario Hydro gets its first taste of atomic energy as nuclear power is fed into the grid for the first time from the Rolphton, Ontario generator. The joint effort between Atomic Energy of Canada Limited and Canadian General Electric has been eight years in the making.

June 8: Acting in the belief that God told them to do so, a group of Doukhobor women near Trail, British Columbia set fire to more than fifty of their own homes and allow them to burn to the ground. They throw stones at police and reporters who arrive on the scene.

St. Vincent de Paul Penitentiary opened in 1873. It is the nation's third oldest federal prison. It will close in 1989.

June 17: Convicts set fire to the buildings during a seven-hour riot at the St. Vincent de Paul Prison, north of Montreal. A total of 27 prisoners are injured during the rampage.

The Right Honourable John George Diefenbaker is our 13th Prime Minister.

June 18: The voters have spoken. John Diefenbaker and his Conservatives are returned to power with a severely reduced number of seats in the House of Commons. The minority government will not last long. Eleven months later citizens will line up at the polls to exercise their democratic rights, again. This time, they will turf out the Tories in favour of Mike Pearson’s Grits.

Summer: The curtain rises for the first time on Shaw Festival in the Ontario town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. The eight-week season is held in the Assembly Room in the historic Court House. The event will mushroom beyond anyone’s wildest dreams and in 1973 Queen Elizabeth II will dedicate the Festival Theatre. The popular venue will grow to be eight months long and become one of the largest repertory theatres in the world.

June 22: Nicholas Lea is born in New Westminister, BC. He will grow up to be an actor starring in TV shows like the X Files, Kyle XY and Whistler, star in the spy drama, Arrow, as well as Hollywood movies.

July 30: Fourteen years after Parliament voted to build it, Prime Minister Diefenbaker is in Roger’s Pass to open the Trans-Canada Highway.  Some 3,200 kilometres of the 7,511-kilometre long road are still unpaved but that doesn’t put a damper on anyone’s excitement. For the first time in history one can drive across the Dominion to St. John’s from Victoria without leaving the country.

July 1: The Saskatchewan Medical Care Insurance Act goes into force today. Unhappy physicians promptly go on strike to protest the law because they do not want to be civil servants and work for the province. Nearly a hundred doctors are brought in from the UK to provide emergency care. The bitter dispute will be resolved on July 23.

August 25: Polar explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson is dead at the age of 82. The Gimli, Manitoba hero conquered the ice caps to make many important contributions to our understanding of the Arctic.

September 13: Place Ville Marie is dedicated and open for business in Montreal.
The magnificent skyscraper is designed in the shape of a cross and takes honours as the tallest building in the British Commonwealth.

Dr. Colin Franklin, Keith Brown and Dr. John Barry (left to right) with the Alouette. Canada is the third country in the world, after the Soviet Union and the United States, to put a satellite into space.

September 29: The 145-kilo satellite Allouette is launched. Once in orbit, it will study the upper surface of the ionosphere. Ottawa intends to use the knowledge gathered to launch a series of domestic communication satellites.

October 22: The RCAF is on high alert and ordinary citizens scramble to prepare for World War Three as the United States and the Soviet Union threaten to duke it out. The flash point is the installation of Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuban soil.

October 25: The Bedford Institute of Oceanography is opened in Nova Scotia. The marine research facility is one of the largest in the world. Its 15-hecatare campus is spread out along the north side of Halifax Harbour.

October 31: Federal finance minister George Nowlan rises in the House of Commons to announce that automakers may import engines and transmissions duty free if their export of Canadian-made parts is of equal value.

The Canada-only Acadian will be one of the General Motors family of fine cars to use locally made automatic transmissions.

November 1: The new 25-percent tax federal tax on automatic transmissions prompts GM to announce that it will build them domestically.

September 13: At a cost of $31 million, Toronto’s new City Hall is dedicated by Governor General Georges Vanier. Designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell, his design called for two elegantly curved towers to flank the Council Chambers.

December 2: The Winnipeg Blue Bombers finally whip the Ti-Cats 28 to 27 for the Grey Cup at the CNE Stadium in Toronto. The game takes two days to complete because it is interrupted by dense fog coming from Lake Ontario. History books record this match as “The Fog Bowl.”

Arthur Lucas (left) and Ronald Turpin (right) are the last men to be hanged.

December 11: At 12:02 am, two convicted criminals are hanged until dead at the Don Jail in Toronto. Ronald Turpin, 29, killed a police officer. Arthur Lucas was an American who killed two witnesses scheduled to appear in a trial. They will be the last men to be hanged in this country as capital punishment is soon to be abolished.

 Pontiac is the best selling car in the country. A top-of-the-line Parisienne four-door hardtop is seen here.

December 31: It is the biggest year ever for the automakers as more than 500,000 domestically built cars and trucks roll out the factory doors. The Top Ten selling cars for the calendar year are the full-sized Pontiac, the full-sized Chevrolet, the full-sized Ford, Volkswagen, Ford Fairlane, Rambler, the Chevrolet Chevy II, Ford Falcon, Mercury Meteor and the Valiant.

Studebaker sponsors the popular TV comedy Mr. Ed. The plot line revolves around a talking horse.

02: With a list price of $3,640 f.o.b. Hamilton, Ontario, the Studebaker Cruiser V-8 four-door sedan weighs in at 1,374 kilos (3,030 pounds). The final tally for the calendar year is 7,386 units sold.

1985

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1985-

Orders for the 1985 AMC Eagle 4x4 have slowed to 80 units a day at the Brampton, Ontario plant but AMC has announced a new $748 million factory will be built in nearby Bramalea to manufacture a large, luxurious Renault model for the North American market.   

 January 29: New Brunswick’s Premier, Richard Hatfield, is found not guilty of drug possession. The judge suggests a member of the media planted the 35 grams of marijuana in the premier’s suitcase last fall, during Queen Elizabeth’s visit to get “the juiciest story to ever crack the media.” 

The countries in green use the International Metric System.

 January 30: The new Tory government relaxes the law regarding the use of the Metric System in business.

February 10: It’s a virtual Who’s Who of the music industry as Canada’s singing superstars gather together to record the album Tears are Not Enough. Calling themselves “Northern Lights,” the $3.2 million raised through sale of the album will go to help feed the starving in Ethiopia. 

Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Brian Peckford and Prime Minister Mulroney--with their teams--have signed the Atlantic Accord.

 February 11: Prime Minister Mulroney and Premier Brian Peckford put their signatures to the Atlantic Accord. The document guarantees Ottawa’s help in developing Newfoundland and Labrador’s offshore resources. 

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization began on April 4th, 1949 with 12 member nations, including the Dominion of Canada.

 February 12: Federal Minister of Defense Robert Coates is forced to resign when it is learned he visited a strip club in West Germany while he had top secret NATO documents in his possession. The security breach could have put national security at risk. Bob will still be a backbencher, representing the good folks of Cumberland, Nova Scotia.

Denis Lortie entered the National Assembly in Quebec City armed with a pair of Sterling Mk4 submachine guns and an Inglis pistol.

 February 13: Denis Lortie is convicted of first-degree murder for his rampage at the Quebec National Assembly during which he killed three innocent people. His conviction will be overturned on a technicality, The former Corporal in the 22^nd Regiment will be convicted of second degree murder in 1987 and be paroled in 1995. When Marc Lapine massacres fourteen students at the Montreal Polytechnique in 1994, Marc will express his admiration for Denis Lortie in his suicide note. 

February 20: Greenpeace protesters are furious as the first test of a US Cruise Missile takes place at CFB Cold Lake in Alberta. The test was flawless; the bomb was dropped over the Beaufort Sea then filmed as it made its way to the Northern Alberta Primrose Weapons Range.

February 28:  Ernst Zundel is convicted of spreading hatred for the Jews and publishing false news. Among his publications are The Hitler We Loved and Why and Did Six Million Really Die?  In 2005 he will be stripped of his Canadian citizenship and returned to Germany to stand trial in 2006 for his extreme views on the Holocaust.

March 12: Three Armenian terrorists storm the Turkish Embassy in Ottawa. A dozen people are taken hostage and a security guard is killed before order is restored.

From left to right, the Right Honourable Prime Minister of Canada, Brian Mulroney, wife Mila, Nancy Reagan and the President of the United States of America, Ronald Reagan.

 March 17:  Prime Minister Mulroney and US President Ronald Regan meet at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City for the Shamrock Summit. The meeting was intended to set the stage for the upcoming Free Trade Agreement but the event will be best remembered for the two world leaders breaking into song this St. Patrick’s Day with their rendition of When Irish Eyes are Smiling.

Rick Hansen trains at the University of British Columbia for his Man in Motion Tour.

March 21: Super athlete Rick Hansen begins his round-the-world Man in Motion Tour in Vancouver. Inspired by Terry Fox, Rich will raise money for spinal chord injury research. The tour has its own hit song—St. Elmo’s Fire. The Paralmpian's 40,000-kilometre journey will take 26 months and cross four continents.

March 29:  Ten are dead as two military aircraft crash near CFB Edmonton.

These instructions on how to make a long-distance call in Nova Scotia are from 1954.

April 15: The stocks for Maritime Telegraph & Telephone split three-for-one. The company was organized on April 29th, 1910 when the Nova Scotia Telephone Company Limited acquired the Prince Edward Island Telephone Company, Limited. The latter had been serving Islanders since April 10th, 1885.

April 21: Hockey legend Foster Hewitt is dead at the age of 83 in Toronto. Hewitt broadcast the first hockey game on CFCA radio on March 22, 1923. He retired in 1963 but came out of retirement for the 1972 Summit Series. His colour commentary including coining the the term, “He shoots, he scores!” and will be remembered by millions for opening each Hockey Night in Canada show with, “Hello Canada and hockey fans in the United States and Newfoundland.” The ‘Voice of Hockey’ will be buried in Toronto’s Mt. Pleasant Cemetery.

April 24: International Business Machine Co. launches a new line of small computers. IBM has named the new product, the PC for personal computer. It's novel because it can fold up and be carried.

April 25: The Supreme Court rules the Lord’s Day Act is unconstitutional because it interferes with people’s lives. The national Sunday blue law has been effect since 1906. Now folks can go bowling, see a movie, lift a pint and shop on Sundays without being arrested.

The penny will be withdrawn from circulation in 2012.

May 9: Folks in Newfoundland and Labrador are the first in the nation to declare tax freedom day—their obligations to St. John’s and Ottawa are paid in full.

Steve Weston starred in The Trouble with Tracy a CTV situation comedy that aired in 1970 and '71. It will develop a cult following and hold the dubious honour of being one of the worst sitcoms ever made.

May 12: Actor Steve Weston is dead as the result of a fall from a roof. He will be best remembered for is role as Steve Weston in the 130-episode CTV sitcom, The Trouble with Tracy.

May 19: Air Canada and the union representing its 2,900 striking ticket agents sign a deal that ends a three-week-old strike.

May 29: Steve Fonyo, age 19, arrives in Victoria, BC and dips his artificial leg in the Pacific Ocean. He celebrates a cross-Canada marathon that began in St. John’s, Newfoundland 14 months ago. His goal was to complete the 8,000-kilometre run inspired by Terry Fox. Steve has raised more than $13 million for cancer research.

May 30: The Edmonton Oilers whip the Philadelphia Flyers in four games to one to skate home with Lord Stanley’s cup.

May 31:  Tornadoes sweep Ontario, killing 12 people and leaving $200 million worth of damage behind.  The F-4 storm’s winds are clocked at between 313 and 450 kilometres an hour. The city of Barrie is especially hard hit.

June 13:  Translators will be busy because the Supreme Court justices have ruled the laws of the Province of Manitoba are not legal. The justices say the laws must be provided to citizens in French as well as English.

The Honourable Rene Levesque, August 24, 1922 – November 1, 1987

June 20: Rene Levesque, longtime proponent of an independent Quebec, announces he will retire from public life and step down from his job as Premier of the province.

This photo of the Air India Boeing 747 was taken only 13 days before the explosion.

June 23: Air India flight 182 explodes off the coast of Ireland. There are 329 people on board, 280 Canadians. It is believed a bomb was placed on board the aircraft by Sikh extremists.

Queen's Park in Toronto has been  home to the Ontario Legislature since 1897. The building's 10.5 million bricks were made by convicted criminals.

June 26: Ontario’s Blue Machine is laid to rest 42 years of governing Ontario. The Tories will sit in Queen’s Park as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition because David Peterson and the Grits will form a minority government with the help of Bob Rae and the NDP.

The Fab Four with their yellow 1965 Rolls-Royce.

June 29: Vancouver businessman Jim Pattison drops $2,229,00 for a yellow Rolls-Royce once owned by the Beatles.

July 22: Jim Keegstra, a former schoolteacher, is in trouble for promoting hatred against the Jews. The Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench fines him $5,000 for claiming the Holocaust never happened.

August 1:  The Canadian Red Cross announces it will begin screening blood donations for the AIDS virus.The organization will be stripped of its blood services on September 28, 1998 when it is learned that blood tainted with HIV had been given knowingly to patients needing transfusions.

August 11: Relations with Washington grow pretty cold today as a US Coast Guard icebreaker, the Polar Sea, makes a voyage through the Northwest Passage without bothering to ask Ottawa’s permission.

August 20: Air Canada vows to keep flying despite a strike by 3,211 flight attendants.

September 1: The hulk of the RMS Titanic is located on the seabed, off the coast of Newfoundland. The super luxury liner struck an iceberg on April 14, 1912, broke into half, taking 1,490 passengers to their deaths.

September 6: The Canadian Encyclopaedia is launched by Hurtig of Edmonton. The three-volume set of work contains more than 14,000 articles written by more than 3,000 authors. A CD-ROM version will be released in 2005.

September 7: St. Elmo’s Fire—Rick Hansen’s theme song for his 40,000-kilometre Man in Motion tour—hits Number One on the Hot One Hundred Billboard chart.

The Northwest Passage is marked in red.

September 10: External Affairs Minister Joe Clark announces that Ottawa will build the world’s most powerful icebreaker in order to better protect our sovereignty in the Arctic.

September 15: Nestled in the badlands of Alberta, the Tyrrell Museum of Paleontology opens in Drumheller. The museum is chock-full of dinosaur skeletons and other really cool fossils. It’s full of visitors, too. More than 600,000 curious folks visit annually.

September 17: Ottawa has another scandal on its hands as Tunagate is revealed to the public by CBC Television’s investigative news show, The Fifth Estate. Rotten StarKist tuna from a New Brunswick plant was reclassified as edible rather than risk closing the factory. The tainted tuna won’t hurt the Minister of Fisheries who will later became Speaker of the House but StarKist’s share of the market will drop to zero and the factory will close, throwing 400 people out of work.

September 20:  Lincoln Alexander is appointed the 24th Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. The hardworking Tory MP from Hamilton, Ontario is the first African-Canadian in this country to represent Her Majesty in the vice-regal position.

September 30: The signal for radio station CHSK-FM fades into history. The station started in 1965 as student radio at the University of Saskatchewan and carried CBC programming.  

October 15: UAW Canada workers at Chrysler Canada trade their tools for placards as they walk the picket lines. The strike will last two weeks.

A 1985 Toyota Corolla.

November --  Toyota Motor Corporation announces it will build a $400 million plant in Cambridge, Ontario and hire 1,800 workers to build “Corolla-like” cars. That brings to $900 million the amount of investment announced this year by Hyundai, Honda and Toyota.

November 4: Hosted by Andrea Martin and Martin Short, the Juno Awards are held at the Harbour Castle Hilton in Toronto.  Luba wins a Juno for Female Vocalist of the Year. Bryan Adams wins a Juno for Male Vocalist of the Year as well as a Juno for Reckless, the Album of the Year.  Corey Hart wins a Juno for his Single of the Year, Never Surrender. 

November 11:  Kalen Porter is born in Medicine Hat. Alberta. He will grow up to beat out 8,977 other contestants to win the title of Canadian Idol in 2004. His first album, Awake in a Dream, will go platinum eight times in 2005.  In 2006 he will present the Juno Awards but mostly he will take time off to stay on the ranch and look after his mum, who has breast cancer.

November 24: Thee B.C. Lions battle the Hamilton Tiger Cats to a 37-24 victory and win the Grey Cup.

December 2: All eyes are on la belle province as voters turn the Parti Quebecois out of office and bring the Liberals to power in Quebec City.

"Silent Witness" is the name of the copper memorial erected in honour of the American soldiers who died when their chartered jet crashed. A soldier holds the hands of a little boy and a little girl as a DC-8 flies overhead.

December 12: Arrow Air, flight 1285, a chartered jet, crashes outside of Gander, Newfoundland, 73 seconds after takeoff. All 256 people on board are killed—most of them American soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division, headed home for Christmas. A tree will be planted for each life lost.

The 1985 Hyundai Pony was exported to Canada from South Korea.

December 31:  The Top selling passenger cars this year are the Hyundai Pony with 56,000 sales, Ford Tempo with 47,692 sales; Plymouth Reliant with 36,066 sales; Dodge Aries with 28,931 sales; Chev Cavalier with 29,333 and the Pontiac 6000 with 29,029 sales.       

The 1985 Ford Tempo GLX Coupe.

Assembled in St. Thomas, Ontario, the 1985 Ford Tempo is the best selling domestically built car with 47,692 units delivered during the calendar year. The Essex Engine Plant in Windsor gets a $100 million makeover to produce a transverse 3.8-litre V-6.