By: Rénald Fortier
Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation
“Worth Defending” – A brief look at the 1954 advertising campaign of a major Canadian aircraft manufacturing firm, Canadair Limited of Montréal, Québec, part 1
Oct 13, 2024
Media
One of the advertisements issued by Canadair Limited of Montréal, Québec, as part of its 1954 Worth Defending advertising campaign. Anon., “Canadair Limited.” Toronto Daily Star, 6 October 1954, 4.
As you are not without knowing, I hope, my reading friend, the fantabulastic Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa, Ontario, opened a permanent exhibition entitled The Cold War in April 2024. (Hello, EG, VW and EP! Great job by the way!)
Yours truly must confess to not having devoted much time to the troubled period of the 20th century that was the Cold War in the articles published since April 2024 in our blog / bulletin / thingee. I would like to partially repair that faux pas this week.
As I hope you are aware, again, Canadair Limited of Montréal / Cartierville, Québec, was among the most important Canadian aircraft manufacturing firms of the century which we have left almost 25 years ago. Do I need to remind you that this subsidiary of the American weapons maker General Dynamics Corporation has been mentioned many times in our amazing blog / bulletin / thingee, and this since February 2018? I thought so.
Err, and yes, General Dynamics has been mentioned many times in that same blog / bulletin / thingee, and this since March 2018.
Over the years, and this both during the most glacial years of the Cold War and the so-called détente period, Canadair obviously published a great many advertisements, and this, again, both in Canadian newspapers and in Canadian and foreign magazines.
And yes, there are a lot of “and this” in this article. Sorry.
Yours truly would like to discuss today a part of Canadair’s advertising history, namely its 1954 campaign, “Worth Defending,” in French “Défendons ce bien précieux / Digne de défense,” the first and only advertising campaign of a fundamentally ideological nature launched in the 1950s by a Canadian aircraft manufacturing firm.
A short text in small print at the bottom of each advertisement, there were 10 in all, confirmed that orientation: “One of a series dedicated to the survival of freedom – reprints on request.” There were two texts in French, one per advertisement of course, translated as “One of our advertisements dedicated to protecting our freedom – copies available on request,” and “Part of a series dedicated to maintaining freedom – Reprints on request / Reimpressions on request.”
Why two texts in French and only one in English, you ask, my reading friend? A good question. Yours truly will answer it a tad later.
This being said (typed?), Canadair published, in June 1954, in Canadian and foreign aviation magazines, publications like Canadian Aviation, Flight and Aircraft Engineer and Interavia, an advertisement which had absolutely nothing to do with its major advertising campaign. Entitled “Need Spare Parts?,” in French “Des pièces détachées,” that advertisement reflected the importance of an often neglected yet rather remunerative aspect of the automobile, err, sorry, of the aircraft industry: the sale of spare parts.
And yes, my reading friend, Canadian Aviation was indeed a monthly magazine.
“Need Spare Parts?” reappeared in Canadian Aviation in December 1954. It might, I repeat might, have been published for the first time in March 1954, in the American monthly magazine Aero Digest.
Said advertisement combined a text which had appeared in 1952-53 in Canadian and foreign aviation magazines with a new drawing which included a series of folders indicating the types of parts offered by Canadair. Four Douglas DC-3 airliners flew in the background. The very title of the advertisement was inserted into the right half-silhouette of a DC-3 seen from above – or below.
At that time, Canadair held the (Canadian? North American??) rights to sell parts for that world-famous aircraft used all over the world.
And yes, my wing nutty reading friend, there is indeed a DC-3 in the mirific collection of the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. (Hello, EG, big fan of the DC-3 before the lord!)
Mind you, yours truly also came across an advertisement which pointed out that the decision taken in February 1954 by Canada’s federal government to commission the Québec firm to design a long-range maritime patrol aircraft derived from a long-range British airliner, the Bristol Britannia, was, to quote the title of said advertisement, “Proof of Canadair’s Production Ability.”
The advertisement in question was published in the July 1954 issue of Aero Digest, as well as in August, September and December issues of Flight and Aircraft Engineer. Need I mention that this magazine was a well-known British weekly? Good for you.
And yes, again, my wing nutty reading friend, there is indeed a Canadair CP-107 Argus long-range maritime patrol aircraft in the stupendous and tremendous collection of the Canada Aviation and Space Museum, but back to our “Worth Defending” advertisements.
Canadair’s 1954 advertising campaign did not go unnoticed. The financial weekly The Financial Post of Toronto, Ontario, devoted to it one of the many (9!) editorials published in a March 1954 edition.
When they saw our land first, Spaniards dubbed it ‘aca nada,’ nothing there.
We know it now as a land of mighty green forests, miles of golden wheat, glittering metals, black oil, great factories, the throb of growing cities.
But this is only part of the Canadian story.
Hence, the timeliness of some advertisements by Canadair, the Montréal aircraft manufacturers. It puts attention on the other side of Canada – the privileges which a free people enjoy, worshipping as we please, ruling ourselves, using free speech, certain of fair justice, exercising our free choice in politics or business.
Congratulations to Canadair for its worthy series. The company has courageously chosen a serious and important subject and is handling it with decorum and good taste.
A brief digression if I may. The aforementioned Spaniards might had been among the whalers, fishermen and others who visited the shores of North America during the first half of the 16th century. Fascinated by the treasures discovered in the viceroyalties of New Spain and Peru, more precisely in the independent countries which are today’s Mexico and Peru, some of those individuals hoped to discover similar treasures further north – and steal them from their rightful owners.
Some of those said individuals having found no wealth along the shores of Chaleur Bay, an arm of the sea which separates Québec from New Brunswick, they allegedly described it succinctly: aca nada or cà nada, or nothing there.
The story was certainly cute but also quite difficult to prove. This being said (typed?), it was allegedly around 1697-98 that the Recollet Louis Hennepin, born Antoine Hennepin in the Países Bajos españoles, or Spanish Netherlands, suggested that the word Canada originated from those Spanish expressions, a reference to the disillusioned comments of the aforementioned hispanophone explorers / invaders / pillagers, or even those of a well-known Spanish historian / cosmographer of the 16th century, Juan López de Velasco, all very grieved by the absence of treasures in the northern regions of the North American continent. End of digression.
An Ottawa daily newspaper which has been gone for quite some time, since August 1980 in fact, devoted one of the many (5!) editorials which appeared just 3 days after the March 1954 editorial in the financial weekly The Financial Post to the Canadair advertising campaign. The Journal also endorsed the spirit of the firm’s campaign:
Constantly we need to remind ourselves that the things we value most, such commonplace things (to us) as freedom of worship and freedom of self-government, would be stripped from us by the revolutionary regime the Communists would establish, or by any dictatorship that conceivably might seize power.
Canadair performs a public service in enumerating some of those rights and privileges, in bringing sharply before our minds the price we could pay for neglect to safeguard them.
Incidentally, Canadair’s 1954 advertising campaign consisted of advertisements available in both English and French. In fact, the advertisements were also available in Spanish and German. That multilingualism was due to the fact that there was a prestigious Swiss monthly aeronautical magazine at the time, Interavia, published in Spanish, German, French and English.
It went without saying that this multilingualism applied to the advertising campaigns of all the firms whose advertisements appeared in Interavia, and this regardless of their nationality.
Launched in April 1946, Interavia owed its existence to a German Swiss publisher, Eric E. Heiman, who believed that information about aeronautics and, later, astronautics should be transmitted to interested people in as many languages as possible, but I digress.
As you might have imagined, the advertisements in Canadair’s 1954 advertising campaign appeared in a variety of Canadian and foreign newspapers and magazines.
In Canadian newspapers published in major cities in various provinces such as
- Hamilton, Ontario (The Hamilton Spectator),
- Montréal, Québec (The Montréal Star and La Presse),
- Ottawa, Ontario (The Journal and The Ottawa Citizen),
- Toronto, Ontario (Toronto Daily Star),
- Vancouver, British Columbia (The Vancouver Province), and
- Windsor, Ontario (The Windsor Daily Star).
And in Canadian and foreign magazines such as such as the British weekly Flight and Aircraft Engineer, the American monthlies Air Force and American Aviation, and the aforementioned Interavia and Canadian Aviation.
Advertisements might also have been placed in The Aeroplane incorporating Aeronautical Engineering as well as in the Canadian monthly magazine Aircraft but the individuals who supervised the binding of the volumes donated many years later to the mind-blowing library of the Canada Aviation and Space Museum (Hello, FSH!) had the brilliant idea of removing all the full-page advertisements. I know, I know, that is utterly incomprehensible, but such is life.
Let us not forget either the presence of our advertisements in the Canadian financial weeklies The Financial Times of Montréal and The Financial Post of Toronto.
And yes, you are quite right, my reading friend, the Canadair advertising campaign for the year 1954 occupied a much larger place in the English language daily press than in its French language counterpart, and this even though the Canadair plant was located in Québec. Yours truly does not know, however, whether this very limited presence was due to the low interest of the francophone Québec press in military matters, or to the fact that La Presse had, and by far, the highest circulation, which made it a sufficient mouthpiece.
In any event, the advertising campaign “Worth Defending” was based on an excerpt from a text which was probably well known to some people at the time, and…
Why did Canadair’s advertising campaign had two French language titles, you ask yourself, my reading friend? A good question. You see, the French language sub-version of the advertising campaign of the Québec aircraft manufacturer which appeared on Québec soil, in La Presse, namely “Défendons ce bien précieux,” differed more or less significantly from the one which appeared in Interavia, “Digne de défense,” a title which was an almost literal translation of the English language title of the firm’s advertising campaign.
Indeed, yours truly believes that the person or persons who wrote the texts of the Québec French language sub-version of the Canadair advertising campaign were based on Québec soil. I have the impression that said person or persons wrote their texts in such a way that they would strike a chord with the Quebecers of 1954.
A reading of the English language advertisements published in Canadian newspapers and foreign magazines revealed that, here again, the English language sub-version of the Québec aircraft manufacturer’s advertising campaign which appeared on North American soil differed more or less significantly from the one which appeared in Europe, and this despite the fact that those two sub-versions had the same title, namely “Worth Defending.”
Was the English language sub-version which appeared on North American soil written by one or more persons based on Canadian soil, you ask, my reading friend? A good question. The use of the American spelling of the verb realize rather than the British one, realise, in one of the advertisements leads me to wonder whether said sub-version could, perhaps, have been written in the United States.
But back to the excerpt from the text probably well known to some people living in 1954 mentioned above.
Those words were indeed one of the highlights of the speech delivered before the United States Congress in early January 1941, precisely 11 months before the Japanese attack on what was then the Territory of Hawaii / Panalāʻau o Hawaiʻi and other American possessions, by the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a gentleman mentioned several times in our blog / bulletin / thingee, and this since May 2019.
In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.
The first is freedom of speech and expression – everywhere in the world.
The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way – everywhere in the world.
The third is freedom from want – which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants – everywhere in the world.
The fourth is freedom from fear – which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor – anywhere in the world.
Those were noble words, words rarely uttered by American or foreign politicians in recent years, which is a great pity. And yes, that is indeed my opinion, and I share it.
The advertisement “La liberté de conscience,” in English “Freedom of Worship,” published by Canadair Limited of Montréal, Québec, as part of its 1954 Worth Defending advertising campaign. Anon, “Canadair Limited.” La Presse, 12 January 1954, 29.
Canadair launched its 1954 advertising campaign with “Freedom of Worship,” in French “La liberté de conscience / La liberté du culte,” the second of Roosevelt’s four freedoms. Published in January, those advertisements showed the forecourt of a Christian place of worship seen from a distance and from above. Several people were passing through the doors of the place.
Four Canadair Sabre jet fighters of the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) accompanied the campaign’s title, the aforementioned “Worth Defending.” Those aircraft flying in formation actually accompanied the campaign’s title, and this both in English and French, in all the advertisements of said 1954 Canadair campaign.
A drawing of a Sabre in flight accompanied the name of the Montréal firm, and could be found at the bottom of a great many the advertisements published by Canadair during the 1950s.
A brief digression if you will allow me. After all, once is not custom. The Sabre, one of the most famous fighter planes of the 20th century, was then the standard daytime fighter plane of the RCAF. That American aircraft, designed by North American Aviation Incorporated, was then manufactured under license by Canadair.
The Québec aircraft manufacturer delivered 1 815 or so Sabres between 1950 and 1958, of which 1 120 or so were destined for the RCAF. The other aircraft produced on Canadian soil were delivered to 4 foreign air forces (Royal Air Force, South African Air Force, Fuerza Aérea Colombiana and Luftwaffe). Second-hand Sabres manufactured in Canada also served in the armed forces of 8 countries (Bangladesh, Greece, Honduras, Italy, Pakistan, Turkey, West Germany and Yugoslavia).
Yes, yes, in the Yugoslav armed forces. You see, the government set up in 1945 by the Komunistička partija Jugoslavije and its leader Josip Broz, better known as Tito, pursued economic and political objectives which were not aligned with those of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). The growing tensions between the two countries led to a rupture in May 1948.
As you might have imagined, Yugoslavia experienced severe economic difficulties in the months and years which followed, its economy having depended on unfettered trade with Bulgaria, Hungary, Romania and the USSR. The Yugoslav government was in fact concerned that the latter would launch an invasion.
Disregarding its rather hostile relations with its Yugoslavian counterpart between 1945 and 1948, the American government decided to help Yugoslavia. That aid, initially of a humanitarian nature, soon included war supplies. As grateful as the Yugoslav government was, it politely refused to abandon communism and join the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
Speaking (typing?) of NATO, the following might perhaps be of interest.
Towards the beginning of 1956, the Israeli government indicated to its Canadian counterpart that it was considering ordering Sabres. That spring, in May, NATO foreign ministers met in Paris, France. Canada’s Secretary of State for External Affairs, Lester Bowles “Mike” Pearson, a gentleman mentioned on moult occasions in our superb blog / bulletin / thingee, and this since June 2019, raised the issue when he met with the American Secretary of State. To Pearson’s surprise, John Foster Dulles, who was mentioned only once in our you know what, in October 2020, did not object to that idea.
Questioned on more than one occasion by the official opposition, the federal government procrastinated. In truth, given the increasing tensions in the Middle East, Prime Minister Louis-Étienne Saint-Laurent wondered if it was the right time to sell fighter planes to a Middle Eastern country. In the end, the sale did not take place. The federal government was mainly responsible for that state of affair. You see, rather than sell 24 shiny new aircraft as originally discussed, it had offered to deliver 24 second-hand Sabres. The Israeli government had politely turned down that offer.
And yes, my reading friend, Saint-Laurent has indeed been mentioned several times in our blog / bulletin / thingee, and this since July 2019, but you digress.
This being said (typed?), the Cabinet of Canada approved the sale of 24 shiny new Sabres in September 1956. For months, Arab countries in the middle East had been receiving mountains of Soviet war material, declared Saint-Laurent. The balance now had to be restored.
To tell the truth, Canada’s aid was not without conditions. Israel, for example, had to agree not to use the Sabres for offensive purposes. Under Canada’s export control regime, the federal government could also cancel the order in the event of a serious international crisis.
At the end of October, the Middle East exploded. You see, Israel launched a surprise attack on Egypt. As had secretly been planned, France and the United Kingdom militarily supported that attack. The American government, which had been kept in the dark, was furious.
Acting in concert, for once, the United States and Union of Soviet Socialist Republics imposed a ceasefire. The United States also put a temporary end to American arms deliveries to Israel. Given all of that, the Canadian government was forced to cancel the Sabres’ export permit, and this even though some Israeli pilots were apparently at the Canadair factory at the time.
And yes, my reading friend who wants to change topics, the incomparable collection of the equally incomparable Canada Aviation and Space Museum in Ottawa includes a Sabre manufactured by Canadair, but back to “Freedom of Worship.”
An advertisement issued by the Montréal, Québec, restaurant owned by the Italian Quebecer Franco “Frank” Roncarelli. Anon., “Café-Restaurant Roncarelli.” Le Passe-Temps, November 1946, 32.
At the risk of overstepping the bounds of good taste, yours truly would like to remind you of the nightmare that the Italian Quebecer Franco “Frank” Roncarelli had to endure courtesy of the Premier and Attorney General of Québec, Maurice Le Noblet Duplessis, a very (too?) conservative premier mentioned many times in our apolitical blog / bulletin / thingee, and this since January 2018.
You see, Roncarelli, the well-off owner of a popular restaurant in Montréal, followed the teachings of a Christian denomination known as the Jehovah’s Witnesses, a denomination which was quite hostile other Christian denominations, including the roman catholic church, a denomination which exerted a great deal of control over the lives of the great majority of Quebecers in 1954.
He got on the radar screens of that church and of the government of Québec when he began to provide bail money to members of his denomination who had been accused of illegally distributing pamphlets.
And yes, Jehovah’s Witnesses were then facing persecution in Québec.
The cancellation of his liquor permit and the seizure of the liquor he had on site, in November 1946, as ordered by Duplessis himself, led to the closure of Roncarelli’s establishment, the Quaff Café.
Duplessis declared in December, and I quote, in translation, that “Communists, Nazis, as well as those who set themselves up as the propagandists of the insidious campaign of the Jehovah’s Witnesses, will be treated as they deserve, because under the government of the Union nationale, there is no and cannot be any compromise with those people.”
If yours truly may be permitted to express an opinion, that statement quite literally took my breath away. Putting Communism, National Socialism and the Jehovah’s Witnesses in the same bag? Really??
Need yours truly remind you that Communism and National Socialism directly and indirectly caused the deaths of tens of millions of people in the 20th century? I thought so.
Incidentally, in 1945, there were but 350 or so Jehovah’s Witnesses in Québec. How much of a threat do you think that handful of people posed to the 3 000 000 or so French-speaking roman catholics present in Québec at the time? Anyway, let us move on.
Roncarelli refused to bow down. He fought and fought to obtain justice. The Supreme Court of Canada sided with him, ruling that Duplessis’ action had been “a gross abuse of legal power,” but only in January 1959. It even ordered Duplessis, well, the government of Québec, to cough up more than $ 33 000 in damages, a sum which corresponded to more than $ 350 000 in 2024 currency. Even so, sadly enough, the 11-year court battle had ruined Roncarelli.
Interestingly enough, in October 1953, the Supreme Court of Canada had thrown out the conviction of a resident of Québec, Québec, Laurier Saumur, accused in September 1946 of distributing Jehovah’s Witnesses’ pamphlets without the written permission of the city’s chief of police.
The 700 or 800 or so other prosecutions pending at the time in Québec, yes, the province, were dropped.
Greatly aggrieved by the decision of the Supreme Court of Canada, Duplessis set out to circumvent it. Tabled in January 1954, Bill 38 made it an offence to disseminate, in written, visual, televised, spoken or radio broadcasted forms, statements which were offensive or injurious to members of a religious denomination. And yes, the denomination Duplessis wanted to defend was, of course, the roman catholic church,
Unanimously (!) adopted in the Assemblée législative de la province de Québec in January 1954, and this from first to third readings, Bill 38 was denounced primarily by anglophone Canadians.
It should be noted that, while 81 members of that legislative body voted for the bill, no less than 11 other members were seemingly absent during all three votes. A triple coincidence, of course.
Before I forget, let me remind you that the 92 people in question were male Homo sapiens. The first woman elected to the Assemblée législative de la province de Québec joined that august institution in December… 1961. It was precisely 40 years before that date that the first woman had entered the House of Commons of Canada
For some reason or other, however, Duplessis chose not to use Bill 38 to perse…, err, sorry, prosecute Jehovah’s Witnesses. The mere presence of that hammer might have been deemed sufficient to intimidate them into submission.
Incidentally, Duplessis obtained more than 50 % of the popular vote, and a large majority in the Assemblée législative de la province de Québec, as a result of the general elections held in July 1948, July 1952 and June 1956.
The irreducible opponents of the duplessian regime could be found mainly in Montréal and / or in areas where many anglophone Quebecers lived.
I do not know about you, but I find all this very depressing. Why not call it quits for this week? Wunderbar!
Rénald Fortier
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