1989

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1989—

Ford Tempo is the Number One selling passenger car. Canadians purchased 48,975 of them during the calendar year. 

NAFTA is the largest free-trade zone in the world.

January 1: The controversial Canadian-American Free Trade Agreement takes effect. It will be implemented over a ten-year period. 

du Maurier has long been the nation's favourite cigarette. This advert is from 1951.

 January 1: Advertisements for tobacco are banned. 

Women may now serve as combat soldiers in the Canadian Forces.

 January 19: The country gets its first female combat soldier when Heather Erxleben graduates from CFB Wainright. The Vancouver native was one of only 21 women to pass the training. 

Former Premier Peckford will publish his memoirs in 2012.

 January 21: After ten years as Premier of Newfoundland and Labrador, Brian Peckford announces he will step down from office. 

February – The 400^th Tim Horton’s opens. This coffee shop is located in Halifax.

February 4:  Scientists at Laval University in Quebec City send shock waves across the country when they release data showing that Inuit in Arctic Quebec have the highest levels of PCBs in mother’s milk on the planet.

March 1: The Canadian Space Agency is created by Parliament. It will open its doors in 1990 in St. Hubert, Quebec.

March 2: It is revealed that track athlete Ben Johnson had been taking anabolic steroids for months before the Seoul Olympics. The springer was stripped of his gold medal because he used the drugs. 

March 4: Ed Broadbent announces his retirement after leading the New Democratic Party for 14 years. He will be named Director of the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development in Montreal.

March 6: The Roman Catholic Church in Newfoundland will establish an inquiry to look into charges that priests may have sexually assaulted children.

March 9: The Supreme Court of Canada refuses to rule on an abortion case. The justices order MPs  to draw up legislation that defines whether a fetus has the right to life or not.

An Air Ontario 24-1000 Felowship by Fokker.

March 10: An Air Ontario flight crashes after takeoff near Dryden, Ontario. The death toll from the crash is 24 and another 45 are injured. An inquiry will determine that ice buildup on the wings caused the tragedy.

Andre-Phillipe Gagnon is one of the nation's best known comedians.

 March 12: Andre-Philippe Gagnon hosts the Juno Awards, held at the O’Keefe Centre in Toronto. Best Female Vocalist Juno goes to k.d. lang. Best Male Vocalist Juno goes to Robbie Robertson who also wins a Juno for Album of the Year. Single of the Year Juno goes to Blue Rodeo for their hit, Try. 

 

March 16: Kurt Browning wins the gold in the men's division at the World Figure Skating Championship in Paris.

March 31: Financial woes have forced the sale of Wardair to Canadian Airlines International. The steak & champagne air carrier was founded by aviation pioneer Max Ward in 1953 to serve people in the Northwest Territories and the Yukon.

April --  The new CAMI plant opens in Ingersoll, Ontario. It is a 50-50 joint venture between GM Canada and Suzuki of Japan. 

  Built in the CAMI (Canadian Automotive Manufacturing, Inc.) plant in Ingersoll, Ontario, this 1989 GM’s Geo Tracker is for Canadians only. The  Suzuki Sidekick 4WD is built alongside the Tracker. Workers build 6,100 of the pint-sized SUVs in 1989.

April 1: Canada and France have agreed to have the territorial boundary dispute between Newfoundland and St. Pierre & Miquelon settled by an international tribunal. 

April 7: Greyhound Bus 1482, headed from Montreal to New York City, is highjacked and the driver forced to drive to Ottawa where the passengers are held hostage on Parliament Hill. The highjacker claims to have dynamite and will blow up the bus if Syria does not withdraw its troops from Lebanon.

April 20: The last dollar bills are printed. The $300 million of paper bills in circulation will be replaced by the new dollar coin dubbed the “loonie” because the coin has a depiction of a loon on the obverse side.

April 23: The Roman Catholic Church authorizes a five-member panel in St. John’s, Newfoundland to inquire into allegations of sexual abuse of children at the Mount Cashel Orphanage. The investigation will be most troubling.

May 25: The Calgary Flames burn up the ice and take home the Stanley Cup after beating les Habs four games to two.

This is the flag of the Fransaskois--Francophones who live in Saskatchewan.

 June 1: Saskatchewan will spend $4 million to translate all its laws into French. It is estimated that 50,000 Francophones live in the province.

The SkyDome and the CN Tower in the background.

June 3: Toronto’s SkyDome opens officially. The $500 million structure features a fully-motorized, retractable roof, seats 50,000 spectators  and boasts a 348-room hotel with 70 rooms overlooking the stadium’s interior.

VIA Rail serves eight provinces.

June 5: Via Rail has its budget slashed in half. Gone is the famed Canadian with its fabled dome car.  So are 2,700 jobs. Parliament has ordered the Crown corporation to save $1 billion over the next five years.

June 24: Sociologist Pierre Simard estimates there are as many as 15,000 homeless people living on the streets of Montreal. The figure has been rising by 2,000 a year.

Her Majesty's new image was designed by Dora de Pédery-Hunt who lives in Toronto.

June 26: Our coins look a little different as The Royal Mint updates Queen Elizabeth’s image. This is the third time our coins have changed since Her Majesty ascended to the throne in 1953.

Trans-Canada Air was created by an act of Parliament in 1936. TCA became Air Canada in 1965.

 July 6: The federal government sells off the remaining 53 percent of Air Canada. The company is now private, no longer a Crown corporation.

A tanker plane drops water on a fire.

 July 7:  More than 250 forest fires in Manitoba have caused 23,000 people to flee their homes. The fires are the result of a prolonged drought.

July 8: A tornado slams the village of Peebles, Saskatchewan, striking with such force that the remains of the general store and the skating/curling rink are found three kilometres away.

July 31:  Because the world never sleeps, CBC Newsworld take to the airwaves for the first time.

The Honourable Michael Wilson was Finance Minister from 1984 to 1991.

 August – Finance Minister Michael Wilson proposes a new tax to replace the hidden federal sales tax. The new tax will be called the Goods & Services Tax, GST for short. It is slated for introduction in 1991.

August 11: The Canadian Automobile Association reports that it costs an average of $100 a week to own and operate a car. The cost is only $87.50 in Alberta.

August 24: A team of Canadian and American scientists has discovered the cause of cystic fibrosis  is a defective gene.

September 1: RDS, the French-language sports network, is launched on cable TV.

September 8:  Residents of White River, Ontario win a victory over the Disney Corporation. The town will have a statue dedicated to the Winnie-the Pooh. The real-life bear was born in the small Ontario town in 1914.

October 15: Wayne Gretzky beats Gordie Howe’s all-time scoring record of 1,850 points in Edmonton, in a game against the Los Angeles Kings.

October 16: Federal Environment Minister, Lucien Bouchard, announces Ottawa will give the provinces $100 million to clean up a thousand toxic waste sites around the country.

November 9: The world changes today as the Berlin Wall falls and Communism crumbles. Within a year East and West Germany will be reunited as one nation.

November 16: A tornado strikes Mont-Saint-Hilaire, Quebec, causing $2 million in damage. This is the latest in the year that a tornado has ever been recorded in the province.

The Christian Brothers in Newfoundland in 1900.

November 17: The Mount Cashel orphanage in St. John’s, Newfoundland closes it doors after sheltering boys for 90 years. The institution has become the subject of controversy, accusation and public scrutiny for alleged abuse of youngsters by the brothers who run the home.

The Grey Cup  match is held in Toronto's new SkyDome. It is one of the best playoff games in CFL history and will be honoured with a stamp from Canada Post as part of the CFL's hundredth anniversary.

November 26:  The Saskatchewan Roughriders take down the Hamilton Tiger Cats to win the Grey Cup. The final score is 43 to 40.

The Honourable Audrey McLauglin is the NDP Member of Parliament for the Yukon.

December 2: Audrey McLaughlin is elected to lead the New Democratic Party at the convention in Winnipeg. She is the first woman to head a national political party.

The 14 victims at l'Ecole Polytechnique at l'Universite de Montreal.

December 6: Mark Lepine walks into the Universite de Montreal with a semi-automatic rifle to stalk and kill students. He murders 14 young women and injures 12 more before killing himself. It is the most horrific bloodbath in our nation’s history.

December 13: Ottawa announces it will spend $150 million on Canadians who contracted AIDS. Some 1,250 patients have been infected by tainted blood collected by the Red Cross from 1979 to 1985.

Copyright to James C. Mays 2012
All rights reserved

1992

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1992-

The compact, front-wheel-drive Chevrolet Cavalier is the best-selling car this year.

January 22: Roberta Bondar becomes the first Canadian woman to defy gravity as an astronaut in outer space. The medical doctor is the prime payload specialist aboard the space shuttle Discovery and will spend nine days researching space medicine. In 2003 she will be named Chancellor of Trent University.

February 1: Gary Lautens is dead of a heart attack at the age of 63. The humourist was penned the most widely read newspaper columnist in Canada. Gary had worked for the Toronto Star since 1962.

In Lloydtown, Ontario is a 1932 oil painting by Alfred Joseph Casson.

February 19: Artist Alfred Joseph Casson is dead in Toronto at the age of 91. The artist was a member of the Group of Seven painters who defined Canada through their unique landscapes.

February 23: The XVI Winter Olympic Games, held in Albertville, France, are over. Canada comes home with nine medals, including two in shining Gold. The Olympic torch will pass to Lillihammer, Norway for the 1994 games.

March 11: Environment Canada begins tracking the ozone layer and issuing weekly ozone warnings.

John Ireland was nominated for an Oscar for his portayal of hard-boiled journalist Jack Burden in All the King's Men.

March 21: Actor John Benjamin Ireland is dead of leukemia at the age of 78. Born in Vancouver, the Hollywood heartthrob starred in more than 200 movies including All the King’s Men, Little Big Horn and Spartacus.

Barbara Frum and Alan Maitland co-hosted the in-depth news show, As it Happens on CBC Radio.

 March 26: The airwaves will never be the same. Barbara Frum, the highly respected journalist and host of the CBC’s As it Happens on radio and The Journal on TV, is dead of leukemia at the age of 54.

The nation's highest music award is the Juno. The statue is 46 centimetres tall and made of acrylic material.

 March 29: Rick Moranis is host for the Juno Awards, held at the O’Keefe Centre in Toronto. Celine Dion wins a Best Female Vocalist Juno. Tom Cochrane wins a Best Male Vocalist Juno and another for his album, Mad Mad World and, if that's not enough he wins Single of the Year Juno for Life is a Highway.

April 1: Members of the National Hockey League Players Association have hung up their skates for a strike. Never before has this happened in the league's 75-year history. The walkout will end in ten days.

The 1961 Rambler Classic was the first product to be assembled at the American Motors plant in Brampton, Ontario.

April --: Chrysler Canada closes its plant in Brampton, sending Jeep production back to Toledo. The factory was built for assembly of the popular Rambler, opening officially on January 26th, 1961.

April 2: Fire rips through a stable at the Mohawk Raceway in Guelph, Ontario. It is the worst racetrack fire in history—69 horses are lost in the disaster.

April 5: The Christian Brothers issue a formal apology to the children they abused during more than 50 of the 115 years they operated the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John's, Newfoundland. The award-winning 1992 movie, The Boys of St. Vincent, will chronicle the events in the house of horrors but it cannot be broadcast in Ontario and Quebec because of ongoing trials. Viewers in those provinces will see the movie in 1993. In 1996 the provincial government will pay $11.5 million to settle the claims of the 40 victims who come forward to testify to their years of abuse at the hands of the brothers.

May 4: Residents of the Northwest Territories vote to divide the sprawling jurisdiction into two parts. The eastern portion is to be called Nunavut—meaning "our land". Its population is 29,000 people living in an area the size of Western Europe. The capital will be Iqaluit (formerly Frobisher Bay). The change will take place on April 1, 1999.

May 7: Citizens of the sleepy Cape Breton community of Sydney River are stunned as a brutal robbery at McDonald’s results in three dead employees and a fourth who is permanently handicapped.

The Westray Mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia.

May 9: At 5.18 in the morning a methane gas explosion rips through the Curragh Westray Mine in Plymouth, Nova Scotia, killing 26 coal miners. Criminal charges will be laid against the owners but the company will go bankrupt before trial. A Royal Commission report on the disaster will be released in 1998 and almost all of the recommendations made into law.

May 12: Ten-year old Holly Jones is kidnapped and killed. Her dismembered body is found in Toronto Harbour. Michael Briere will plead guilty to her murder and be sentenced to life in prison.

Built in Oakville, Ontario, the compact Ford Tempo is the Blue Oval's best selling car this year.

May 19: Ford Canada declares a loss of $209 million on $4 million worth of sales. Industry experts blame unfair import rules for the poor showing.

May 24: Prime Minister Brian Mulroney withdraws Canada’s ambassador from Belgrade and expels Yugoslav diplomats from Ottawa in a bid to achieve a ceasefire in Bosnia.

Her Excellency, Governor of Queensland, Leneen Forde.

May 27: Mary Margeurite Leneen Forde is appointed Governor of the Australian State of Queensland. The Ottawa-born native will hold the position until 1997 and be appointed Chancellor of Griffith University.

Fishing boats are tied up in harbour.

 June 2: More than 1,000 years of fishing comes to a halt as Ottawa declares a moratorium on Newfoundland and Labrador’s oldest industry. More than 39,000 fishermen, plant workers and others in the industry are suddenly unemployed. The government plans to reopen the fisheries in two years but the stocks won’t rebound and the fisheries won’t open again until 2006. 

June 8: The Canadian Space Agency announces its newest astronauts. Chris Hadfield is aviation systems specialist and an Air Force Major; Julie Payette is a computer engineer with Bell-Northern Research from Montreal; Robert Stewart is a geophysicist at University of Calgary and Dafydd Williams is medical doctor from Toronto. These four were chosen from 5,300 applicants.

June 11: The Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops wants changes designed to prevent sexual abuse by priests. They also want dioceses to look into allegations of sexual assault and to support those who are victims.

Motorola introduces the first mobile phone that makes use of digital technology.

 June 12: Bell Canada is not the only phone company in town anymore as the Canadian Radio & Television Commission (CRTC) allows competitors to offer long distance services.

June 19: After a decade long legal battle, Alberta Francophones win the right to establish school boards and to set the curriculum.

 

June 27: Printers walk off the job, stopping the presses at the Toronto Star for the first time in the newspaper’s 99-year history.

Parliament burns in Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia & Herzegovina.

July 1: The Van Doos, a.k.a. the Royal 22^nd Regiment, serving in war-torn Yugoslavia, successfully secures the airport in Sarajevo.

July 1: Queen Elizabeth II is in Ottawa to help celebrate the nation’s 125^th birthday. She thrills a crowd of  50,000 who come out to see Her Majesty.

July 2: The Toronto Symphony Orchestra is on the verge of bankruptcy. Musicians agree to a pay cut. Salaries will drop to $48,300 from $57,000.

Superman made his first appearance in June of 1938.

 July 30: Creator of the Superman comic book series, Joe Shuster, is dead at the age of 78. The Canadian-born artist fought with DC Comics over the rights until 1975 when the two parties finally settled.

August 9:  King Juan Carlos of Spain is in Barcelona to declare the Games of the XXVth Olympiad to be open. Canada sends 306 athletes who make us proud by coming home with 18 medals, among them seven Gold.

August 12: The details have been hammered out and the historic North American Trade Agreement is released to the public. The continental trade bloc will come into effect on January 1, 1994.

The Henry F. Hall Building.

 August 24: Disgruntled professor, Valary Fabrikant, walks into Engineering Department on the 9^th floor of the Hall Building at Concordia University in Montreal with a loaded gun. He shoots four colleagues and injures a fifth. He will be convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole at the federal penitentiary in Archambault, Quebec.

August 29: Federal, provincial, territorial officials along with the Assembly of First Nations, the Inuit Tapirisat and the Metis National Council have come to an agreement in Prince Edward Island.  Details of the Charlottetown Accord are released. The proposed constitutional reforms will be voted on in a referendum in the fall of the year.

The Geo Metro is built and sold only in Canada.

 September 14 : The 2,100 workers at the CAMI factory in Ingersoll, Ontario walk off the job. They want parity wages with the Big Three. The strike will be settled in five weeks in favour of the workers. They will go back to building the Geo Metro, Suzuki Swift, Geo Tracker and the Suzuki Sidekick. 

September 18: Striking employee Roger Warren detonates a bomb in a shaft of the Giant Mine, in Yellowknife. He will confess and be convicted on nine counts of second-degree murder. Giant Mine, a movie about the horrific event will be made for CBC-TV in 1996. An investigative book, Dying for Gold, will be published in 1997.

October 1: The policy that bans gays and lesbians from serving in the Canadian Forces is abandoned by top brass before Michelle Douglas' case goes to court.

October 8: They’re b-a-c-k! There is hockey once again in the nation's capital. The reorganized Ottawa Senators open the season by trouncing the Montreal Canadiens 5 to 3.

October 24: The Toronto Blue Jays win the World Series. It is the first time a baseball team outside the United States has won the pennant.  The Jays are hot; they will make a stab at the pennant next year, too.

October 26: The Charlottetown Accord is dead. Voters have rejected constitutional reform by 54.5 percent. Anger against Progressive Conservative party will be almost lethal. Only two Tories will be elected in the next federal election.

November 12: A referendum in the Northwest Territories is favourable to the creation of Nunavut in the eastern Arctic. The new political entity will become reality on January 1, 1999.

A ticket for the CFL's 80th Grey Cup is seen here.

November 29: Celine Dion sings for a sellout crowd of 48,863 Grey Cup fans at Toronto's Skydome. The Winnipeg Blue Bombers get trounced by the Calgary Stampeders. The final score of the 80^th Grey Cup match is the Stamps 24 to 10 for the Bombers.

This Irving station  is located in Woodstock, New Brunswick.

December 13: Industrialist Kenneth Colin (K.C) Irving is dead at the age of 93 in Saint John, New Brunswick. His business empire is vast and he could honestly boast that he one out of every ten people in the Picture Province was in his employ. 

December 17: It’s official. Prime Minister Brian Mulroney puts Canada’s signature to the North American Trade Agreement. People worry that factories will close and move to the United States.

Built in Oakville, Ontario,  Mercury Topaz is the ninth best-selling car. This is the last year for the LTS model seen here.

December 31: Sales of automobiles are off by 1.2 million units this year. Analysts blame the five percent decline on the new federal Goods and Services Tax introduced last year. In order, the top ten best-selling vehicles in Canada this year are the Chevrolet Cavalier, the Honda Civic, the Honda Accord, the Ford Tempo, the Pontiac Sunbird, the Ford Taurus, the Toyota Camry, the Toyota Corolla, the Mercury Topaz and the Toyota Tercel.