My father shaking hands with American Vice President Richard Nixon, 1953

My father and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau at Union Station in Ottawa, 1968

                                                                                                                           

The Canadian National Railway was a Federal Crown Corporation, owned by the people of Canada.
Then the railway was privatized, to the detriment of our economy, history and sovereignty.

 The Canadian National Railway's real estate portfolio was comprised of the CN Tower in Toronto, office towers, land, bridges, train stations, hotels...the list goes on.At one time a tunnel connected Union Station in Ottawa to the Chateau Laurier Hotel, located directly across the street.
Tunnels also connected:
Union Station in Toronto to the Royal York Hotel
Union Station in Winnipeg to the Fort Garry Hotel.
Union Station in Saskatoon to the Bessborough Hotel
Union Station in Edmonton to the Hotel Macdonald.
Union Station in Calgary to the Palliser Hotel

The railway hotels and train stations were Canada's Eiffel Towers, Taj Mahals and Parthenon Temples. However, the  CNR and CPR hotels were nothing more than an investment to Carl (Gordon Gekko) Icahn.
"The People's Railway" is now "North America's Railroad".
Carl Icahn, Prince al Waleed and Bill Gates profited from the denationalization of an irreplaceable Crown Jewel, that was created to benefit the inhabitants of this land; not to line the pockets of Wall Street investors.
The Crown corporation Via Rail has to pay CN to use tracks that were built physically and through their tax dollars by our ancestors. And CN, a multinational corporation, has priority over use of the tracks, they can tell Via Rail to stop their trains and wait if CN wants to use the railway tracks.
The owners of CN Rail couldn't care less about my country's built heritage; railway stations were either sold off, demolished or abandoned (for example, the Kingston, Ontario CNR train station was abandoned and had blue tarp covering it.)

 We as a nation are so apathetic that we allow the privatization of Olympic venues, Expo pavilions, Dominion Buildings, federal penitentiaries, lighthouses...

Many train stations in Canada were threatened with demolition---Windsor Station in Montreal, Union Station in Ottawa, Union Station in Toronto and Summerhill Station in Toronto, to name a few.
investment in the former Crown corporation.

We, the citizens of Canada, owned the CNR's 100,000 acres of land; thousands of train stations; a vast network of railroad tracks; CN towers in Toronto, Edmonton, Saskatoon and London, Ontario; and roundhouses. The Spadina roundhouse in Toronto was flattened to make way for the Skydome, now known as the Rogers Centre.

A statue commissioned by the Trudeau government called "The Universal Man" was wrenched from the base of the CN Tower and lay face down in a field for several years. The Universal Man, created by Gerald Gladstone, was eventually rescued and now stands in the parking lot of the Yorkdale Shopping Centre in Toronto, Ontario.

The Trump Tower was built on CNR land at Bay and Adelaide streets in Toronto.

I wrote a few articles about Canada's train industry on my blog savecfbrockcliffe:

1.) Prime Minister Trudeau tried to return Canadian Pacific Railway land to the people of Canada

2.) Railway properties

3.) Former railway properties

4.) The train doesn't stop here anymore

5.) Facts about Marathon Realty, the real estate arm of the Canadian Pacific Railway

Regarding the first document below: Canadian National  Railway staff refused to give Federal Minister of Public Works Erik Nielsen any information about CNR real estate holdings, in 1985. The Department of Public Works at one time was "The country's largest realtor". Erik Nielsen was interviewed by author Stevie Cameron for her book "On the Take" and Mr. Nielsen said "The crooks come out of the woodwork" whenever large sums of money are involved; and the largest chunk of money found in the Canadian government was in its real estate holdings. Billions of dollars worth of federal Crown property has been sold in the last 33 years.

Important Canadian symbols, landmarks and institutions

1. The Parliament Buildings and Parliament Hill in Ottawa.
2. Canada's Maple Leaf Flag
3. Canada's Coat of Arms
4. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police - in 1995 the Walt Disney Corporation bought the rights to the RCMP image, Google "1995 - Disney scores right to market Mountie products- CBC".
5. The CN Tower in Toronto - a decade ago the Walt Disney Corporation and Viacom wanted to buy the CN Tower. The CN Tower should be privatized and sold off, according to the Fraser Institute, see the article "Time to privatize: Governments should begin selling off assets."
6. Ottawa's Mile of History on Sussex Drive
7. Canada's National Parks - The Fraser Institute wants to see the devolution of  the National Parks in British Columbia to the provincial government of B.C.
8. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
9. Niagara Falls
10. Lighthouses - Fisheries and Oceans Canada divested more than 900 lighthouses. Community groups are trying to save these properties, including "Save the Peggy's Cove Lighthouse".
11. UNESCO World Heritage Sites - 
12. The CPR and CNR railway hotels - 
13. Dominion Buildings - Many Dominion Buildings are gone; Canada Post, Manpower, Canada Customs, the RCMP and the Passport Office were located in Dominion Buildings. Almost every city and town in this country had one of these structures. Many featured clock towers, and Canada's Maple Leaf Flag and our Coat of Arms were prominently displayed. 
14. Illanaaq - a Vancouver 2010 Olympics logo.
15. Grain elevators - many grain elevators have bitten the dust.
16. Niagara Falls
17. The Calgary Tower - 
18. The Dominion Observatories - several years ago the federal government wanted to demolish the Dominion Observatory in Ottawa because of 'budget cuts'.
19. The Canada Place Sails on the Vancouver waterfront. Canada Place was built with taxpayers money for Expo 86. The Fraser Institute is calling for the privatization of Canada Place.
20. Habitat - built for Expo 67, then privatized.
21. The Gulf of Georgia Cannery National Historic Site - located in Steveston B.C.
22. CPR and CNR train stations - In 1970, Marathon Realty planned to bulldoze Windsor Station in Montreal to build an office tower. The National Capital Commission wanted to demolish the Conference Centre, where I worked as a cleaning lady. And two railway stations in Toronto were at risk--Union Station and Summerhill Station. Regarding Summerhill, see the book "Marlborough Marathon: One Street Against a Developer" by J.L. Granatstein.
23. The Canada Wordmark - the global identifier of the Government of Canada.
24. Old Fort Henry in Kingston, Ontario
25. Totem Poles
26. The "Canada" Word mark - Google "Federal Identity Program"-Wikipedia.

Kingston Penitentiary and the Saint-Vincent de Paul Penitentiary in Laval, Quebec were National Historic Sites of Canada. Today, Kingston Pen is a popular tourist attraction, while the movies "Deathrace" and "Battlefield Earth" were filmed at the Laval pen.
     The Prison for Women in Kingston, known as P4W, was a Classified Federal Heritage building.
A tunnel connected Kingston Pen to the nearby Prison for Women. Queen's University now owns P4W.

My mother, brother, niece and nephew at the High Level CPR Bridge in Lethbridge, Alberta - May of 1990.

Dawson Creek B.C. in 1974.

A southern Alberta town in 1974.

The Higginbotham Dominion Bldg.  

During World War 11 my father was a United States Army Air Forces tail gunner, based in England.

The movie "Twelve O'Clock High" was based on the experiences of USAAF airmen who were stationed in England during World War 11.

Crown Princess Margrethe and Prince Henrik of Denmark on Parliament Hill, Ottawa 1967.

Jacqueline Kennedy, the former First Lady of the United States, visiting Expo 67.

John Kenneth Galbraith is also pictured.

                                               

The Hollowing Out of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

     The CBC is an important national democratic institution. People fight and die for international and national democratic institutions---Radio Free Europe, a free press, the Internet, Wikipedia, YouTube...
A law created in 1991, "The Broadcasting Act" legalizes the sale, give away, transfer and destruction of billions of dollars worth of CBC property:
real estate
transmission towers
memorabilia
furniture
hundreds of thousands of vinyl records

American media tycoon Barry Diller (Paramount; Fox News) was interested in buying the CBC's 600 transmission towers and thousands of communications transmitters. The CBC is a federal Crown corporation, which means that the people of Canada own(ed) all the CBC property. We will never know who bought the infrastructure, because of Confidentiality and Non-Disclosure agreements.

A member of Parliament tried to denationalize the CBC in 2017, but Bill C-308 was defeated.
In the year 2005, Canada's National Broadcaster planned to sell all the radio and television archives to the British Broadcasting Corporation. Why would the British be interested in:
Front Page Challenge
The Forest Rangers
Quentin Durgens M.P.
The Juliette Show
Anne Murray specials
Hockey Night in Canada
The Tommy Hunter Show
This Hour has Seven Days
Billy Bishop Goes to War
Don Messers Jubilee
The Arrow - the list goes on...it should be a crime to sell, give away or trash Canada's cultural history.
Glenn Gould spent a lot of time at the Jarvis Street Complex in Toronto, and recorded many of his albums at the CBC in-house studio. I appeared on the television program "Take 30" in 1979, and I  remember the beautiful building and the massive parking lot. High rise condos were built on the parking lot.
Land Transfers
Order-in Council - Grant approval for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (a) to sell some 4,898 square metres of land at 263 and 303 Mutual Street in Toronto, Ontario to Context Real Estate Inc. and
(b) to convey another 4,970 square metres of land at 354 and 372 Jarvis Street in Toronto to the National Ballet School, for a nominal sum. (Approved June 26, 2000). 

 The foundations (literally) of Canada's public broadcaster are being sold off. If I were the head of the CBC I would guard the Crown assets with my life, if necessary.

                                      My father with actor Gordon Pinsent, star of "The Forest Rangers"
                                      and "Quentin Durgens MP".

Canadian companies that were either sold to foreigners or no longer exist.

(I created a video that documents how Walmart and globalization affected the Canadian economy---Google "savecfbrockcliffe a video I produced for Nancy".)

The kitten in the video refers to the Glenayr Kitten Mill in Lanark, Ontario, where I bought sweaters during the 1980's. RCA Victor and the Hershey Factory were located in Smiths Falls, Ontario. Walmart is wholly owned by the Americans.

2. MacMillan Bloedel Ltd.
3. .Woodward Stores Ltd.
4. Zeller's Limited
5. Simpsons Limited
6. Hiram Walker - Gooderham and Worts Limited
7. F. W. Woolworth Co. Ltd.
8. Hawker Siddeley Canada
9. Petrofina Canada Ltd.
10. Falconbridge Limited
11. Inco Ltd.
12. The T. Eaton Company Ltd.
13. Massey-Ferguson Ltd.
14. Hudson's Bay Company
15. Canadian Pacific Ltd.
16. Gulf Oil Canada Ltd.
17. Avro Canada
18. de Havilland Canada
19. S.S. Kresge Company Ltd.
20. Canadian General Electric Ltd.
21. Abitibi Paper Company Ltd.
22. Texaco Canada Ltd.
23. Dylex Limited
24. Blockbuster Canada
25. Dominion Foundries and Steel Ltd. (Dofasco)
26. Rothmans of Pall Mall Canada
27. Swift Canadian Company Ltd.
28. Husky Oil Ltd.
29. Union Carbide Canada Limited
30. Westinghouse Canada Ltd.
31. Canadair Limited
32. Eldorado Mining and Refining Ltd.
33. Teleglobe Canada - a privatized federal Crown corporation.
34. Boutique Jacob
35. Alcan Aluminum Canada
36. Nortel
37. Kodak Canada
38. Blacks Photography
39. Bata Shoes
40. 
    
41. Hershey's Chocolate
42. Sears
43. The Canadian National Railway - The People's Railway is now owned by Bill Gates among others. Prince al Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia owned the CN and CPR hotels, including the Chateau Laurier, Royal York, Chateau Frontenac, Banff Springs, Jasper Park Lodge, Empress Hotel, Queen Elizabeth Hotel...the list goes on. John Lennon and Yoko Ono sang "Give Peace a Chance" in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel. In 1973 I paid about $120 dollars for a railway pass, which gave me the opportunity to see Canada from Coast to Coast. Janis Joplin, Buddy Guy, Ian and Sylvia, the Band and the Grateful Dead also traveled cross country on a CN Rail train; the trip  (in more ways than one) is documented in the movie "The Festival Express". The CNR was a federal Crown corporation, owned by all Canadians, until it was denationalized.
44. Glenayr Kitten Mill
45. Electro-Motive Division
46. ATI Technologies
47. Viterra
48. International Harvester of Canada Limited
49. Wardair Canada Ltd.

Companies that are still Canadian owned:

1. Canadian Tire Corporation
2. Maple Leaf Foods
3. Bell Canada
4. Rogers Communications 
5. Comwave Networks Inc.
6. Iron Ore Company of Canada
7. Hydro-Quebec
8. Second Cup Coffee Co

 Factories in London, Ontario manufactured railway cars and equipment for the CNR, thanks to Sir John Carling. The excerpt from a Geography essay was written in 1970.