1948

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1948-

Folks like the Monarch, now in its third year on the market. Workers at Ford of Canada in Windsor build 6,682 of them. The four-door sedan lists for $2,968. 

January 15: Andrew Jordan Jones is born in St. John’s, Newfoundland. He will grow up to be a comedian and TV star appearing in the classic comedy series CODCO and This Hour has 22 Minutes.

January 16: Clifford Charles Devlin Thorburn is born in Victoria, BC. He will learn to play snooker, earn the nickname “The Grinder.” He will win the 1980 World Snooker Championship. Cliff will be made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1983.

January 19: Francis Joseph (Frank) McKenna is born in Apohaqui, New Brunswick. After serving as Premier of the Picture Province from 1987 to 1997 he will step down from office and become our shoot-from-the-hip, no-nonsense Ambassador to the United States in 2005.

February 6: It’s gold for Canada and Canada’s Sweetheart as Barbara Ann Scott takes top honours for figure skating at the Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland.

February 14: For the second year in a row Barbara Ann Scott wins the World Figure Skating Championship.

February 20: The Dominion Bureau of Statistics tells us that there are 3,136,000 homes in the country of which 90 percent have a radio and 50 percent have a telephone.

March 11: British officials announce that the future of Newfoundland and Labrador will be decided in a referendum. There will be three choices: return to independent Dominion status, stay as a colony for the next five years or join Canada in confederation.

March 20:  It’s a boy for Mr. and Mrs. Doug Orr of Parry Sound, Ontario. Robert Gordon will grow up to be the most dazzling defenceman that the NHL will ever see. Bobby will be forced to retire at the age of 31. He will be inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame and made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 1979.

April 1: The 40-passenger Northstar Skyliner makes its debut on a Trans-Canada Air flight from Montreal to New York City.

April 14: For the second year in a row, The Toronto Maple Leafs triumphantly skate off the ice with the Stanley Cup, this time snatching it from the Detroit Red Wings in four games.

April 18: Officials at Ford Canada unveil the Meteor as a 1949 model. The mid-priced offering will fit between Ford and Mercury. It’s a hit and Meteor will rocket to third place in sales, capturing nearly 11 percent of the domestic sales pie.

April 26: More than 2,500 homeless refugees have nowhere to go as floods sweep Manitoba. There is more rain and snow in the forecast and the floodwaters are now only three blocks from Portage and Main.

May 24: Spring means flooding and the Fraser River overflows its banks. Volunteers will be joined by the Royal Canadian Army. Folks work around the clock for three weeks solid to protect homes. Ten people will die, 2,300 dwellings are damaged or completely destroyed. Vancouver will be cut off from the rest of the country for three weeks.

June 3: Newfoundlanders line up at the polls to determine the fate of their homeland. When the votes are counted they add up to 69,000 votes for self-government, 64,000 for union with Canada and 22,000 want to remain a colony of Britain. Another referendum will be held on July 22.

June 5: Sandra Post is born in Oakville, Ontario. She will grow up to swing a mean club on the golf course and win eight LPGA tournaments. In 1988 she will be elected to the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame and made a Member of the Order of Canada.

June 8: Cecil George Harris of Rosstown, Saskatchewan is pinned under his tractor and bleeds to death. He scratched his will on the tractor's fender with a penknife. It will be upheld as a legal holistic will by the Law Courts and his widow will inherit the farm.
 

June 24: Members of the Toronto Board of Education pass a resolution to pay women teachers the same salary as their male counterparts. The annual average pay for a teacher is $3,500 and taxpayers will have to pick up the $120,000 tab needed to make up the shortfall.

June 30: Murray McLauchlan is born in Paisley, Scotland. His family will move to Canada when he is five. He will grow up to be folk singer and songwriter, winning 20 Junos. His first gold record will be Farmer’s Song.

July 8: Raffi Cavoukian is born in Cairo, Egypt. When he is ten, his parents will immigrate to Canada. Raffi will grow up to become a popular children’s entertainer; loved by millions of kids for such hit songs as Banana Phone, Down by the Bay and Shake My Sillies Out. He will be made a Member of the Order of Canada in 1983.

July 21: Arthur Hindle is born in Halifax. He will grow up to be an accomplished screen and TV actor playing the role of Jeff Faraday in Dallas. The Gemini winner will direct and star in the Showcase series, Paradise Falls.

Newfoundland and Labrador are coloured red on this map.

July 22: The polls are closed and the votes are counted. 47.6 percent of the population wants Newfoundland to be independent again and 52.2 percent favour Confederation with Canada. Britain’s oldest colony will enter into Confederation as Canada’s tenth and newest province next year.

August 1: Ottawa drops the sliding excise tax on new cars. That’s a good thing because it has nearly destroyed the industry since its introduction last November.

August 2: Robert Keith Rae is born in Ottawa to a career diplomat and his wife. Bob will be the first NDP Premier of Ontario, be named Chancellor of Sir Wilfred Laurier University in 2003 and serve as interim leader of the federal Liberal Party from 2011 to 2013.

Prime Minister Mackenzie King will appear on the $50 bill when it is introduced in 1975.

August 7: William Lyon Mackenzie King officially retires after 21 years as Prime Minister. The Liberal Party chooses Louis St. Laurent to lead the Grits. “Uncle Louis” is a perfectly bilingual lawyer from Quebec City and most recently served as Minister of External Affairs in the King government.

August 18: As 400 employees watch, the press is on hand as the first Studebaker rolls out the doors of the new plant in Hamilton, Ontario. It is a blue four-door Champion. Workers will build exactly 3,000 Champions before the model year ends.

Margaret Trudeau will write about her bi-polar condition and be the honourary patron of the Canadian Mental Health Association.

September 10: Margaret Sinclair is born in Vancouver, BC. She will grow up and obtain a degree in English Literature from Simon Fraser University. When she is 22 years old, she will marry Pierre Trudeau, our 15^th Prime Minister. Margaret will become an author, actress, photographer, talk show host,

September 24: Phil Hartman is born in Brantford, Ontario. He will grow up to become one of the funniest people on stage or in front of a camera, appear on Saturday Night Live for eight seasons and star in the TV sitcom NewsRadio. He will be murdered by his wife in 1998.

October 15: October 15: Ernest D'Israeli Smith is dead at the age of 94. Born near Stoney Creek, Ontario. E.D. and his sons founded the food giant that bears his name. The company's first product was ketchup but expanded to jams, jellies and pie fillings. The family also owned the Canadian rights for HP Sauce and Lee & Perrins Worcestershire sauce. Mr. Smith served as a Conservative Member of Parliament until he was appointed to the Senate where he served from 1909 until 1946.

October 17: Margaret Ruth Kidder is born in Yellowknife, NWT. The budding actress will change her name to Margot and star in the Superman movies as well as The Amityville Horror and other Hollywood films.

November 24: Spider Robinson is born in New York City. The Hugo and Nebula award winner will move to Canada in his twenties and become one of the world’s most renowned science fiction authors.

December 11: The terms of Confederation between Newfoundland and Canada are agreed upon and the document signed this evening in a royal ceremony held in the Senate Chamber in Ottawa. God Save the King and O Canada are played but no one can find the music for Ode to Newfoundland.

December 14: The Supreme Court overturns a ban on the sales of oleomargarine throughout the Dominion. Though suspended during World War One, the ban on the butter substitute has been in effect since 1886. Margarine may not be coloured yellow. That will only change in 1995 but Quebeckers will eat uncoloured margarine until 2008.

The 1948 Studebaker Champion Regal De Luxe is Studebaker's economy model.

The newest manufacturer in the Dominion in Studebaker. Now located in Hamilton, Ontario, the company’s cars and trucks had been imported from the United States since its factory in Windsor, Ontario was shuttered in 1935.

1983

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1983--

The 1983 Alliance is a joint effort from American Motors and Renault. The stylish compact is named Car of the Year by Motor Trend magazine.  The four-door Limited carries a $9,145 price tag.

January 1: Though it has been in use since 1976, the federal government adopts the Metric System as our official weights and measurements.

Joe Clark was Canada's  16th and youngest Prime MInister, sworn into office when he was 39 years old.

January 2: Parliament reconvenes. There is a standing ovation for The Right Honourable Joe Clark as he enters the House of Commons. To avoid tearing his party apart, he has announced he will resign as leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition and as leader of the Progressive Conservative Party as well. 

January 7: Statistics Canada reports 12.8 percent of all Canadians are out of work. That translates to 1,454,000 people collecting pogey. Another 150,000 have grown discouraged and quit looking altogether. It is the highest unemployment figure seen in the country since the Dirty Thirties. 

The grisly murder of JoAnn Thatcher by her politician husband will be made into a CBC-TV movie in 1989, starring Kate Nelligan and Kenneth Walsh.

 January 21: JoAnn Thatcher, estranged wife of Saskatchewan MLA Colin Thatcher, is brutally slain in her Regina residence. It will take the Mounties 16 months to gather enough evidence to charge the politician. He will be found guilty of first-degree murder serve 25 years in prison before being paroled in 2006. 

Point Lepreau is the only nuclear generator in Atlantic Canada.

 January: The Point Lepreau Nuclear Generating Station comes on line in New Brunswick. Located southwest of Saint John on the north shore of the Bay of Fundy, the facility will add 680 megawatts to the NB Hydro power grid. In 2005, $1.4 billion will be spent to upgrade the plant and keep it in operation for another 20 years. 

February 1: Pay television debuts as First Choice and Premier Choix begin broadcasting.

February 10: Ottawa and Washington sign a deal that permits the US military to test unarmed nuclear missiles over Western Canada. Many citizens are alarmed that our sovereignty is being undermined.

March 2: Philips Electronics unveils the latest way to listen to music as it shows off the compact disc a.k.a. the CD Player. The unit costs $1,000 and comes with all 12 CDs, also manufactured by Philips. 

March 4: Bertha Wilson is appointed to the Supreme Court of Canada. She is the first woman to hold the position.

March 5: Steve Podborski wins gold for Canada at the World Cup of Skiing. He is the only North American to ever win the event and he will win it eight times.

April 5: The Juno Awards are hosted by Burton Cummings and Alan Thicke.  Broadcast live on the CBC, 4.4 million viewers watch the music award extravaganza. Album of the Year is Get Lucky by Loverboy, best single is  Eyes of a Stranger by the Payola$. Carole Pope takes home a Juno for best female vocalist and Bryan Adams wins one for best male vocalist.

April 7: Kyle Labine is born in Brampton, Ontario. He will grow up to be a Hollywood star and hold the distinction of being the only actor to be in a Freddy film, a Jason flick and a Michael movie, too.

April 11: Statistics Canada reports that the national unemployment rate for March has reached an all time high of 13.6 percent. That translates into 1,658,000 people unemployed. The figure does not include those who have given up looking for work.

The Sky is Falling will tell the story of the Squamish Five when published in 2010.

April 12: Five Vancouver-area residents, members of an urban terrorist group called Direct Action—a.k.a. The Squamish Five--are charged in a Toronto court with last year’s bombing of the Litton Systems plant in Toronto that builds guidance systems for cruise missiles.

April 12: The controversial movie If you Love this Planet wins an Oscar at the Academy Awards.  The documentary was produced by the National Film Board and shows the dark side of nuclear war. The US State Department classifies the film as propaganda and 'surpresses' the movie. 

April 23: More than 80,000 angry citizens across the nation come out to protest the American government’s plan to test its Cruise missiles in Western Canada.

This will be the last year for the Chrysler New Yorker to be built in Windsor, Ontario.

May 9:  The 5,000,000^th Chrysler car rolls out the factory doors in Windsor, Ontario. Company chairman Lee Iacocca is on hand for the milestone as the white New Yorker makes its way down the line.

May 09:  Donald Marshall is acquitted of murder. The Mi'kmaq man from Cape Breton Island spent eleven years in a Nova Scotia prison for a homicide he did not commit.

A traditional lobster trap.

May 11: Angry about new restrictive lobster quotas, a mob of 100 fishermen burn and sink two federal fisheries patrol boats in West Pubnico, Nova Scotia.

May 17:  The Edmonton Oilers make the playoffs for the first time. They lose the Stanley Cup to the New York Islanders four games to zip, their fourth Stanley Cup victory.

May 25: French becomes an official language in Manitoba. Francophones in the Keystone Province were stripped of that right in 1890, twenty years after Manitoba entered into Confederation.

June 2: A flash fire in the washroom forces Air Canada Flight 797, on its way from Houston to Toronto, to make an emergency landing in Cincinnati, Ohio. The disaster claims the lives of 23 of the 41 passengers on board. Folk singer Stan Rogers dies in the fire as he helps others to safety.  The Stan Rogers Folk Festival will be held in his memory each summer in Canso, Nova Scotia.

June 9:  The Supreme Court rules that Canadians who are educated in English have the right to send their children to English-language schools if they live in Quebec. Bill 101, the law protecting the French language in Quebec, is ruled to be unconstitutional.

June 11: A 44-year old lawyer with no political experience has won the leadership of the Progressive Conservative Party, beating out former Prime Minister Joe Clark. The vote is 1,584 to 1,234.  Brian Mulroney must now get himself elected to the House of Commons.

June 12: Hollywood star Norma Shearer is dead at the age of 82. Born in Montreal, she moved to Tinseltown early and first appeared on the silver screen in 1920. The Oscar-winning actress will be laid to rest in Forest Lawn Cemetery, next to actress Jean Harlow.

The price tag for BC Place is $126 million.

June 19:  BC Place is officially opens in False Creek, British Columbia. As the new home of the BC Lions, the domed stadium seats 60,000. The facility will be used for the 1986 World’s Fair and the 2010 Winter Olympics.

June 22: Prince Charles and Princess Diana are in Canada for an 18-day royal visit. Despite the fact that acid rain is an extremely sensitive subject with our American neighbours, the Prince of Wales warns that the phenomenon is a major hazard as he speaks to a group of 600 Kinsmen.

June 27: Alden Nowlan is dead. The noted poet won the Governor General’s Award for his book Bread, Wine and Salt. He was the Poet-in-Residence at the University of New Brunswick.

July 13: Author Gabrielle Roy is dead at the age of 74. Born in St. Boniface, Manitoba, her novel Bonheur d’Occasion--translated into English as The Tin Flute-is an unvarnished look at the working poor in the St. Henri neighbourhood of Montreal. She won the Governor General’s Award for literature three times and is considered to be the most important Francophone writer of the 20^th Century.

July 15: The federal government approves the US government’s request to test the Cruise Missile in Canadian air space.

July 23: Air Canada Flight 143, en route to Edmonton from Montreal, is forced to land at a mothballed Canadian Forces Base in Gimli, Manitoba. Because of a mix-up in Metric and Imperial measurements, the Boeing 767 ran out of fuel 12,000 metres in the air.

July 29:  Raymond Hart Massey is dead of pneumonia at the age of 87. Born in Toronto, the son of Massey-Harris magnate Chester Massey, Raymond was a Broadway sensation and Hollywood star best remembered for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln.

Canadian astronauts in 2007.

August 3:  The National Research Council tells the press that Canada’s new space programme has brought a tidal wave of applications. Only two of the 1,500 people will be trained as astronauts and go into outer space on NASA missions.

August 12: There are changes on Parliament Hill as Prime Minister Trudeau shuffles his cabinet for the third time this year. There are five new faces and eight ministers are assigned to other portfolios.

August 23: Canada and the United States sign a joint treaty to study the movement patterns of pollutants that may cause acid rain.

September 5:  All flights into Canada by Aeroflot, the official airline of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, are suspended. The measure is to protest last week’s shooting down of a South Korean Airline flight that strayed into Soviet airspace. The death toll on the ill-fated flight was 269.

The Right Honourable Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada and the Right Honourable Margaret Thatcher, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

September 26: British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is in Ottawa. She addresses a joint session of Parliament.

October 2: Lee Iacocca, Chrysler’s world chairman, is on hand in Windsor, Ontario to dedicate the revamped factory. Some $400 million has been spent to make this one of the most technologically advanced manufacturing facilities in the world. Now it will build mini-vans. The factory has been in operation since 1929.

October 7:  Chrysler makes automotive history as the first front-wheel drive T-115s roll out the factory doors in Windsor, Ontario. The trucks are better known as the Dodge Caravan and Plymouth Voyager.

October 16: Folks in Windsor, Ontario now have a television station of their own to watch as CHWI, Channel 16 takes to the airwaves. In 2013 the station will be known as CTV2.

October 20: Author Yves Theriault is dead at the age of 67. He wrote Agaguk, a story of conflict between the Inuit and White cultures. The book is his sixth novel. It will sell more than 300,000 copies, be translated into seven languages and be made into a blockbuster movie.

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is the nation's public broadcaster.

October 24: The Minister of Communications, Francis Fox, orders CBC Television to increase Canadian content to 80 percent during prime time viewing hours.

The first minivan off the line will be on display in the Walter P. Chrysler Museum in 2013.

November 2: The Dodge Caravan and the Plymouth Voyager debut. Built in Windsor, Ontario, the Magic Wagons will be a big hit for Chrysler.

November 10: Microsoft Inc. releases Windows. The Globe and Mail speculates that this operating system may change the way people use computers.

Margaret Trudeau will publish her memoirs in 1979.

November 16: Separated for six years, Margaret Trudeau files for a divorce from her husband, Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

November 27:  The Toronto Argonauts whip the BC Lions 19 to 17 to take home the Grey Cup.

December 23:  Jeanne Sauvé, former Speaker of the House of Commons, is appointed to the position of Governor General. The Saskatchewan-born broadcaster is the first woman to be named Vice Regal, Canada's head of state.

Built in St. Thomas, Ontario, the 1983 Ford EXP costs $7,740 and the Sport Coupe lists for $9,234.

Copyright to James C. Mays
All rights reserved 2001