Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges into Canada Read online

  Henry Ford’s introduction of the Model T in 1909 changed the automobile industry forever.

  Successful Formula—to a “T”

  It’s hard to overexaggerate the Model T’s impact. Instead of building luxury cars by hand one by one, Ford offered a bare-bones design “in any color they want, as long as it’s black,” built by the hundreds on an ever-moving assembly line. Despite this, his no-frills car was sturdy, dependable, and half the price of other cars, starting at $850 Canadian (about $19,000 in today’s money). People didn’t know it at the time, but with increased efficiency and the economies of scale, Ford would reduce the price each year—down to $300 by 1920—and offer payment plans so almost anybody could buy a car, even if it took years to pay it off.

  The Model T became a necessity in rural areas. Not only did it make traveling easier, but from Ford, farmers could buy plans and parts to turn the car into a tractor. They could also use the car’s engine power to run shredders, flour grinders, butter churns, pumps, and anything else normally powered by horse, hand, or a strong back. In 1909 Ford Canada sold 1,200 Model Ts—by 1915, that had grown to 18,700. Both Ford and McGregor became extraordinarily rich, and Windsor became the “automotive capital of Canada,” as General Motors and Chrysler followed Ford across the Detroit River.

  Ford Canada offered its customers the Fordor.

  2-Door Tudors and 4-Door Fordors

  For whatever reason, even if it were to just assert some independence from the mother company, Ford Canada’s versions of the American-designed Fords usually ended up being a little bit different. For example, the first Model Ts in the United States had an open-air design without car doors; passengers just stepped over the car’s side panel into the car. Ford Canada, on the other hand, provided actual doors from the start.

  A few years later, when the American model became more enclosed, Ford America offered two doors—both on the passenger side. (Henry Ford resisted putting a door on the driver’s side because he feared the danger of the driver stepping into traffic.) Ford Canada did away with that nonsense by offering a four-door design, two on each side, justifying it to the home office by pointing out that (at the time) some Canadian provinces drove on the left side, some on the right, and it wouldn’t be worth the added expense of making two different body designs.

  The names were different, too. A 1923 Model T was called the Roadster south of the 49th parallel, but it was the Runabout north of it. Both countries called the two-door sedan a Tudor, but the Canadians played a sly joke by coming out with a four-door version called the Fordor. The tradition continued into the 1960s. Canadian models like the Monarch, Frontenac (named after Louis de Buade de Frontenac, a governor of New France in the late 17th century), Victoria, and Mercury (two years before Ford America released a different car with the same name), provided different brands and models from the American lines.

  This 1928 Model T shows how the cars evolved over the years.

  The Bottom Falls Out

  Over the ensuing decades independent Canadian companies—like Gray-Dort and the Canada Cycle and Motor Company in the early years, and Bricklin later on—tried to compete with the American-based Canadian giants, but all eventually failed. Then when the Great Depression hit in 1929, the Canadian companies suffered along with their American counterparts. Canadian car production plummeted from a high of more than 200,000 a year—nearly half of them exported to other markets—to a paltry 60,000, less than 10,000 of which were exported. Canadian car factories shrank to minimal operations with skeleton crews. They wouldn’t become fully active again for a decade. And they had no idea that when their factories did get busy again, they wouldn’t be making cars.

  World War II’s CMP vehicles breathed new life into the Canadian car industry…for a while.

  War…What’s It Good For?

  In 1939 Canada joined Great Britain in declaring war against Germany and its allies. Suddenly, the car companies got an order they couldn’t refuse: produce Canadian military pattern (CMP) vehicles, military trucks that were to be made to British army specifications.

  Under pressure and with barebones staffing, Ford and GM pooled their engineers and designers. Working together, they created an ugly but rugged design with a blunt snout and a windshield that slanted downward to reduce glare to both the driver and enemy planes flying overhead. Their plants also combined efforts and produced more than 400,000 of the sturdy beasts that were put to good use by Commonwealth troops during, and after, the war.

  An illustration advertises Ford’s closed cars.

  The Import Questions

  After the war, the Canadian auto industry returned to civilian production, experiencing prolonged growth as new cars, replaced every year or two, became part of the new suburban existence. Between 1946 and 1954, Canadian production increased from 92,000 to 375,000 cars a year; employees, from 22,000 to 29,000. Cars for export began rolling onto ships in huge numbers, aided by the fact that postwar England, Italy, and Germany were in no condition to produce their own. Ford Canada opened a huge new headquarters and plant in Oakville, Ontario, and GM became the country’s largest employer.

  But it couldn’t last. By the mid-1960s, Canadian carmakers were struggling again with flagging exports, outdated factories, and a small, mostly saturated domestic market.

  In 1965 Canada’s prime minister Lester Pearson negotiated an agreement with American president Lyndon Johnson that eliminated tariffs and essentially merged the two countries’ auto industries. This sparked a wave of investment by American firms in Canadian plants, but it also marked the end of the Canadian car industry as a distinct entity. And by the 1970s, even these consolidated car companies were suffering. An oil embargo and a tsunami of imports challenged North American car companies.

  Decades later, they’re still having trouble—an economic recession caused the country’s carmakers to request government help in 2008 and 2009. But somewhere, among Canada’s businessmen and industry folk, there’s an entrepreneur like Gordon McGregor keeping an eye out for the next big thing.

  God Save the Queen

  Let’s get to know the woman on the money.

  The Royal Canadian Mounted Police pipe band performs in a parade in Edmonton.

  Queen Elizabeth II visits Ottawa during the 2010 Royal Tour of Canada.

  •Elizabeth II is a “queen regnant” because she’s got all the powers and duties of a ruling monarch. A “queen consort” is someone who’s married to a king but has no official power.

  •Also among Elizabeth’s official titles is “Queen of Canada,” which means that technically, she’s the employer of the country’s government workforce, owner of all companies that the government owns, the legal guardian of Canada’s foster children, and the Honorary Commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

  •Elizabeth learned to drive a car when she was 19 years old.

  •She met her future husband Phillip for the first time in 1939, when she was just 13. (He was 18.) She started sending him letters, and the two kept in touch, eventually marrying in 1947. Their marriage is the longest-lasting of any British monarch.

  •When World War II ended in 1945, Elizabeth and her sister Margaret asked their parents, the ruling monarchs, to let them go outside and walk among the ecstatic Londoners celebrating the victory in Europe. There were some security concerns, but the two weren’t recognized. Of the experience, Elizabeth said, “I remember lines of unknown people linking arms and walking down Whitehall [Road], all of us just swept along on a tide of happiness and relief.”

  Technically, all the whales (like these belugas) that live in British waters belong to the queen.

  •According to British law, all the whales and sturgeon in British waters belong to Queen Elizabeth. The animals are called “fishes royale” because of a law passed in the 14th century that said, “The [monarch] shall have…whales and sturgeons taken in the sea or elsewhere within the realm.”

  •Queen Elizabeth and Prince Phillip traveled to Can
ada for the first time in 1951, two years before her coronation, and 20 times since, making Canada the most-visited country in the Commonwealth.

  •In 2013 about half of all Canadians said they thought the monarchy Elizabeth heads was outdated, and 45 percent wanted to abolish it altogether.

  Canada: from Space

  In January 2008, someone logged on to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia and edited the page on the NASA spacecraft Messenger, which was launched in 2004 to study the planet Mercury. Here’s what you could “learn” about Messenger and its mission, before someone noticed the crazy entry and fixed it:

  The Canada Surface, Space Environment, Geochemistry and Ranging probe (or MESSENGER for short) is a NASA spacecraft, launched August 3, 2004, to study the characteristics and environment of Canada from orbit. Specifically, the mission is to characterize the chemical composition of Canada’s surface, the geologic history, the nature of the magnetic field, the size and state of the core, the volatile inventory at the poles, and the nature of Canada’s exosphere and magnetosphere over a nominal orbital mission of one Earth year. The mission is the first to visit Canada in over 30 years; the only previous probe to visit Canada was Mariner 10, which completed its mission in March 1975. MESSENGER has vastly improved scanning capability, with cameras that can resolve surface features down to just 60 feet (18 m) across compared to the 1 mile (1.6 km) resolution of the Mariner 10. MESSENGER will also be able to image the entire planet; Mariner 10 was only able to observe one hemisphere that was lit during its flybys. In addition to being an acronym, MESSENGER was chosen as the probe’s name because Canada was the messenger of the gods in Roman mythology.

  An artist’s rendering shows the Messenger spacecraft orbiting the planet Mercury.

  Million Dollar Names, Part III

  It makes sense: you build a company and you want to put your name on it. Here are a few more stories of people whose names probably sound familiar.

  James Lewis Kraft

  Kraft Foods

  James Lewis Kraft (1874–1953) from Stevensville, Ontario, was one of 11 children raised on the family’s dairy farm. At 18, he entered the retail grocery business by working at a food store in Fort Erie. Jumping the border in 1903, Kraft moved to Chicago, where he bought cheese wholesale and then resold it to local merchants from a rented horse and wagon. Eventually, he started making his own cheese. In 1916, wanting to extend the shelf life of cheddar, he invented processed cheese (cheese blended with other dairy and nondairy ingredients), which allowed him to ship his cheeselike product throughout North America without fear of it spoiling. By the 1930s, Kraft was selling more than 450,000 kilograms (1 million pounds) of the stuff every day. His company also came up with Velveeta, Jell-O, Kraft Dinner, Miracle Whip, and dozens of other household staples.

  Neilson’s Dairy

  William Neilson of Almonte, Ontario, had been trained as a small-town machinist, but in 1890, he moved to the big city of Toronto and opened a grocery store, figuring a can-do man like himself could make it even without much experience or knowledge. Three years later, he was bankrupt and working in North Dakota at a $4-a-day job on his brother ’s farm.

  Eventually, though, William saved some money and returned to Toronto, where he bought seven cows and some used, hand-turned ice cream makers. His son Morden went to work as the churner, a tedious and strenuous job. (On the other hand, Morden later became Canada’s amateur wrestling champion from 1900 to 1903, and he credited his muscle-building churning with helping him win the title.) This time, William’s business was an instant success. By 1915 it was selling a million pounds of ice cream and half a million pounds of candy a year. William also died that year, and Morden took over as company president…and made some great decisions. Morden Neilson didn’t invent the Eskimo Pie, but in 1922, he was smart enough to buy the rights to it. Two years later, he introduced the Jersey Milk chocolate bar with a mail-in contest that offered an actual Jersey cow as the first-place prize. We don’t know what the winner did with the cow, but we do know that the Jersey Milk bar became the company’s all-time bestseller.

  A vintage Neilson’s Jersey Milk chocolates tin

  Leon’s Furniture

  This Canadian superstore chain got its start in 1909 when a Lebanese immigrant named Ablan Leon saved his earnings as a door-to-door salesman and opened a small dry-goods store in Welland, Ontario. Eventually (and accidentally), though, Leon discovered that furniture had a much better profit potential. Leon’s son was getting married, and Dad decided that the newlyweds needed a mattress, so he bought one as a wedding gift.

  Knowing he’d have trouble hiding a mattress at home, Leon had it delivered to his store. He left it leaning against the front window as he went into the back room to make some space to store it. Within minutes, a customer walked back to the storeroom, wanting to buy the mattress. After a brief hesitation, Leon named a price, sold it at a healthy profit, and presumably found a different wedding present for his son. The ball was rolling, though, and Leon’s Furniture was born.

  When Ablan Leon died in 1942, he left the store to his children. They expanded it, but one store was too small to have that many managers. To reduce sibling squabbling, they spread out, building new stores; today, there are about 50 across southwestern Ontario.

  Warner Bros.

  In 1888 a family of Jewish refugees from Poland crossed the ocean, settled in Ontario, and changed their name to Warner. In 1903 the three eldest brothers bought a movie projector and visited mining towns in Ohio and Pennsylvania, selling tickets to see their single, worn copy of The Great Train Robbery.

  Eventually, it became clear to the brothers that they could make more money by making movies than showing them. So after adding younger brother Jack to the mix, they moved to California and founded what’s now the third-oldest American movie studio. (Paramount and Universal are first and second.) The wily Jack Warner eventually took control of the studio, where he ruled with an iron fist, firing employees and actors with particular relish. In 1966 Jack Warner sold controlling interest in the studio to fellow Canadians Eliot and Kenneth Hyman.

  Reporting on news, pop culture, and politics, Macleans became Canada’s leading magazine publisher.

  Maclean’s

  John Bayne Maclean was born in Crieff, Ontario, in 1862. Beginning as a financial editor for the Toronto Mail, he joined his brother Hugh in publishing specialized trade papers, starting with Canadian Grocer and General Storekeeper in 1887, then expanding into magazines with a more general audience. Besides founding the Financial Post, Mayfair, and Chatelaine, he purchased the rights to already-established magazines like Canadian Homes and Gardens and something called Busy Man’s Magazine. Liking its content but not its name, Maclean decided to rename Busy Man’s with a title he was already fond of: Maclean’s. By the 1930s, Maclean’s was Canada’s leading magazine publisher.

  An ad explains the superiority of the Robertson screw.

  Robertson Screws

  The good sense of the Robertson screw and screwdriver are not lost on Canadians…and much of the rest of the world. Accounting for 85 percent of all screws used in Canada, the color-coded, square-holed, nonslip design makes you wonder why anybody would use those inferior flat-slot and Phillips screws. (Yet, the Americans continue to do so—the Robertson design accounts for only 10 percent of the U.S. market, and mostly in the manufacture of recreational vehicles.)

  You can credit Peter Lymburner Robertson from Milton, Ontario, for the design. According to legend, he gouged his hand when a flat-slot screwdriver slipped and vowed “Never again!” The square hole did the trick: strong, impossible to strip or slip, possible to use one-handed, and unlikely to gouge wood, metal, paint…or hands.

  Robertson began making his screws and drivers in 1908, and their elegant simplicity caught on quickly—so quickly that he had to struggle against court challengers and patent infringers from the start. In the end, though, he won out. By 1945 Robertson had a factory with 500 workers, so much money that he
could be a generous philanthropist, and six years to enjoy it all before he died.

  The Halifax Explosion

  In late 1917, World War I raged in Europe. Back in North America, the port of Halifax, Nova Scotia, was the hub of Canada’s war effort. Most ships heading out to the Atlantic brought prosperity to the small town…but two also brought disaster.

  A lighthouse keeps watch over Halifax Harbor.

  Medical personnel attend to the injured after the explosion.

  Two Ships Not Passing in the Night

  In December 1917, the French cargo ship Mont-Blanc took on 3,000 tons of explosives in New York, including more than 181,436 kilograms (400,000 pounds) of TNT, for the war effort. The 97.5-meter (320-foot) ship was going to Halifax Harbor to await a convoy of ships to accompany it to England. The captain, Aimé Le Medec, should have been flying a red flag to warn other ships of the dangerous cargo, but he was afraid enemy ships might see the flag and start shooting at him.