1961

From the big scrapbook of time, here’s a look at Canada in 1961--

The 1961 Monarch Richelieu four-door hardtop retails for $3,850 before tax. Canadians have lost their love for big automobiles and the grand name will be retired at the end of the model year.

Uncle Bobby will be one of the first network stars on CFTO. His show, Kids Corner will be seen across Canada from 1962 to 1979 on CTV.

January 1: Folks in Toronto have a new television station to watch as CFTO—Canada’s Foremost, Toronto’s Own—takes to the airwaves on Channel 9. It is an independent station but will become part of the CTN network on October  1^st.

January 17: Prime Minister Diefenbaker and US President Dwight Eisenhower sign a $3 billion deal to develop hydroelectric power on the Columbia River. Residents of British Columbia and Washington will be sleep easier once flooding is under control.

January 18: Mark Douglas John Messier is born in Edmonton, Alberta. He will grow up to be a one of hockey’s greatest legends, being the only man to ever lead two teams to Stanley Cup victories.

January 26: It’s a boy for Walter and Phyllis Gretzky of Brantford Ontario. Their firstborn son, Wayne Douglas will lace up and skate his way into history as the world’s finest hockey player. “The Great One” will be induced into the Hockey Hall of Fame and appointed to the Order of Canada.

The Canadian Bank of Commerce in Brandon, Manitoba

February 3: Ottawa gives its blessing and the Canadian Bank of Commerce will wed the Imperial Bank of Canada. The new name will be the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce.

The Right Honourable John G. Diefenbaker sits to the left of Her Majesty.

March 8: Prime Minister Diefenbaker is in London for the Commonwealth Prime Ministers Conference. Dief blasts South Africa for its practise of apartheid.

Massey College is named in honour of Vincent Massey, the first Canadian to be appointed as Governor General.

March 14: Massey College is founded as the graduate studies centre at the University of Toronto.  Robertson Davies will be the first Master.

April 16: The Chicago Blackhawks skate their way to the Stanley Cup by beating the Detroit Redwings four games to two.

May 8: Greg Thomey is born in St. John’s, Newfoundland. The kid will grow up to be a comedian and dramatic actor, best known for his outrageous performances on the CBC comedies CODCO and This Hour has 22 Minutes.

US President Kennedy (left) and Prime Minister Diefenbaker (centre).

May 16: Newly elected president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, is in Ottawa with his wife, Jacqueline. At the white tie dinner held in their honour in Rideau Hall, Kennedy will tell the guests, “Geography has made us neighbours but history has made us friends.”

May 16: Kevin McDonald is born in Montreal. He will grow up to become a comedian best known for his role in the immortal CBC-TV comedy classic, Kids in the Hall.

May 27: Northern Dancer is born at Windfields Farm in Oshawa, Ontario. When he is three years old, the bay colt will win the Triple Crown and go on to be the most successful thoroughbred racing sire horse in history. Northern Dancer will die on November 16, 1990.

May 30: At odds with James Coyne, Governor of the Bank of Canada, over fiscal policy, the government demands his resignation. The governor refuses.

May 30: One of the worst rainstorms in history is recorded in Buffalo Gap, Saskatchewan as 25 centimetres of rain falls in less than an hour.

June 1: The Dominion Bureau of Statistics counts noses. Now we know that there are 18, 238,247 of us living in the ten provinces and two territories.

CUSO doesn't send money, it sends volunteers. By 2011, more than 15,000 volunteers will have served with CUSO in more than 40 countries.

June 6: The Canadian University Overseas Service, better known as CUSO, is founded at McGill University in Montreal. The non-profit organization recruits university students across Canada to make a difference in poverty stricken nations.

June 9: Michael Andrew Fox is born in Edmonton. He will change the Andrew to “J” and become a famous actor appearing on television and the silver screen. Stricken with Parkinson’s disease; he will retire from his craft in 1999 and devote his time to finding a cure for the debilitating illness. He will return to TV in 2013.

The Voodoo will serve from 1961 to 1987.

June 12: The Department of National Defense will do a little horse trading. The DND will receive 66 McDonnell CF-101 Voodoos from the US in exchange for American control of the Pinetree Line—a series of radar stations running roughly across Canada and the United States at the 50^th parallel of latitude—the stations are designed to protect North America from Soviet nuclear attack. 

The CF-104 will be built by Canadair in Montreal.

June 12: A Mutual Air Program for the purchase of 200 CF-104 Starfighters is announced.

June 13: National Capital Commission creates a 16,590-hectare Greenbelt. Nature's buffer surrounds Ottawa. In 2011, the Greenbelt will have grown to 203.5 square kilometres, making it the largest urban park in the world.

1961 Suzuki Bellel with Diesel engine.

June 22: The Bladen Commission releases its report on the state of the domestic automobile industry. As a result, Volvo, Renault, Peugeot, Isuzu and Toyota will open assembly plants in Canada.

A federal excise stamp is proof that tax has been paid in full.

June 22: Ottawa rescinds the Federal Excise Tax on cars. It is welcome news throughout the auto industry and will spur sales.

The Governor of the Bank of Canada and his wife, Meribeth, walk to the Bank of Canada. Mr. Coyne will die in 2012 at the age of 102.

July 13: The Governor of the Bank of Canada resigns to protest the Diefenbaker government’s loose monetary policies. James Coyne is of the opinion that expansionism is fiscally unsound. The press calls the very public disagreement The Coyne Affair.

July 14, 1961: in Castlegar, British Columbia, the thermometer hits a nation-wide record high of 53.4C with the Humidex factored in. The record will almost be equaled on July 5^th, 2007 when the temperature in Carmen, Manitoba reaches 53C.

1921 Brock Six

July 22: Automotive pioneer William Stansill dies in his hometown of Courtland, Ontario. He was the genius behind the Brock Six built in Amherstburg, Ontario and the sleek and racy London Six automobile of which 98 were built before the company slid into bankruptcy in 1925.

August 3: The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation Party is no more. Delegates to the political convention in Ottawa change the name to the New Democratic Party and elect silver-tongued Saskatchewan Premier Tommy Douglas to be its leader.

August 26: Prime Minister Diefenbaker is on hand at the CNE Fairgrounds to officially open the Hockey Hall of fame and the Sports Hall of Fame. Among those attending the ceremony are hockey heroes Maurice “Rocket” Richard and Babe Pratt.  The Hall of Fame will move to downtown Toronto at the corner of Front and Yonge Streets in 1993.

September 7: The threat of nuclear war grows closer. Addressing the House of Commons, Prime Minister Diefenbaker announces funding to train 100,00 men to handle emergency survival operations for the civilian population. Shelters are to be built outside of large urban centres and stocked with emergency supplies of food and medical supplies.

Canada Post will honour Bob Hayward with a stamp in 2011.

September 10: World champion powerboat racer Bob Hayward is killed instantly when his boat, Miss Supertest II, flips over at 280 kilometres-per hour during the Silver Cup Regatta on the Detroit River. The soft-spoken, 33-year old chicken farmer from of Embro, Ontario won the Harmsworth Trophy for the past three years in a row. After Hayward’s death, the international competition is cancelled permanently.

Electrohome has been building televisions in Kitchener Ontario since 1949.  This is a Kirby Console model. The company will get out of  television manufacturing in 1984, though the Electrohome name will be used under license by several Japanese manufacturers well into the 21st Century.

October 1: The CBC gets some competition is the Canadian Television Network, a.k.a. CTN, signs on the air for the first time. Backed by Marconi and Electrohome, the privately owned broadcaster has affiliates in Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Calgary and Vancouver. It will change its name to CTV within months.

k.d. lang in 1989

November 2: Kathryn Dawson Lang is born in Edmonton but grows up in the Prairie town of Consort, Alberta. Known as k.d., she will grow up to become a velvety voiced torch singer, a Juno and Grammy winner and be invested as an Officer in the Order of Canada in 1996.

Protesters and doctors will gather at the provincial legislature in Regina next summer when Medicare becomes law on July 1st.

November 17: The Saskatchewan legislature passes its universal free Medicare bill. To pay for the scheme, the provincial sales tax will jump from three to five percent and citizens will pay $12 a year of $24 per family. Doctors threaten to go on strike.

December 2: The Hamilton Tiger Cats face off with  the Winnipeg Blue Bombers in front of 32,651 fans at the CNE Stadium in Toronto. At the end of regulation play, the score is tied, 14 to 14. It's the first time a Grey Cup match has gone into overtime. Quarterback Ken Ploen makes a touchdown for the Bombers making the final  score 21 to 14.

December 18: Born at 7.30 in the morning in Belleville Ontario, Brian Orser will skate home with Olympic silver in 1984 and 1988, be the World Freestyle Champion from 1984 to 1988 and be made an officer of the Order of Canada.

December 28: The first Bomarc Missile Squadron is formed. Prime Minister Diefenbaker scrapped the Avro Arrow for this joint defense program with the US. The government will dither over whether the Bomarcs on Canadian soil will carry nuclear warheads or not. The controversy will split Diefenbaker’s cabinet and cause the Tories to lose the federal election in 1963.

December 30: Benjamin Sinclair Johnson is born in Falmouth, Jamaica. He will immigrate to Canada when he is fifteen. The world’s fastest man will be the centre of a steroid scandal and be stripped of his 1988 Olympic gold medal when he tests positive.

The mid-sized Ford Fairlane has a wheelbase of 115.5 in 2 934 mm (115.5in).  It is built in Oakville, Ontario.

December 31: The Top Ten selling cars this year are the full sized Chevrolet, the full sized Pontiac, Volkswagen, Ford Fairlane, Ford Falcon, Mercury Comet, Plymouth, Meteor, Dodge and Rambler.

Chrysler Canada’s Valiant is sold as a stand-alone brand, replacing DeSoto in the Chrysler family. In its second year on the market, the compact brand rings up 9,831 sales during the calendar year. The 1961 Valiant V-200 two-door hardtop sells for $2,596 f.o.b. Windsor, Ontario.

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.