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Though the Canadian Car & Foundry, or Can Car, was well established by the end of the 19th century, it played an integral role in manufacturing and creating many different types of aircraft for the military. Initially, the Foundry's production concerned railway cars and other related products, but with the onset of the war it quickly made accommodations for the production of aircraft instead, as many facilities were appropriated and altered to accommodate the war effort. Not only this, Can Car was one of the first facilities to employ women during the war, and also the place of employment of Elsie Macgill (originally from Vancouver. B.C.), who overcame polio and became Canada's first female engineer and Chief Engineer at the Foundry, helping to revolutionize the industry with her aircraft designs (21). Already a large facility, the demands of the war effort saw it increase the number of buildings, machinery, and staff over the six year period. Can Car & Foundry went from around 200 employees who produced the first of Canada's Second World War aircraft by the end of January in 1940, to employing over 3,000 people and producing approximately 20 planes every week (22). The Foundry would have been supplied with aluminum from processing facilities much like Arvida in order to make the planes, and with hydroelectricity from power plants much like Shipshaw in order to power their operations, receiving increasing amounts of both as the war dragged on and more supplies were needed to maintain levels of operation and production. This showcases the ways in which multiple industries were fundamentally interconnected on multiple levels: as demand for products increased, so too did demands for materials and power with which to make them, and as demands for material and power increased, it became necessary to build the facilities needed to meet those demands. While it eventually returned to its original functions after the war was over, all told, the Foundry would have been responsible for the creation of over 5,000 planes of all kinds, and would have helped to supply Britain as well as Canada with the aircraft necessary for defense.
The Foundry contributed much to the war effort, but in doing so it too had its detrimental impacts on the environment. The construction involved in the expansion of its facilities, much like the construction that occurred in conjunction with aluminum and hydroelectric power plants, of course would have presented its own issues: the use of heavy machinery and the materials involved in construction would have released pollution into both the air and the land surrounding the site, while also possibly affecting any nearby water sources at the same time. As the Foundry expanded, it took up more and more land, thus totally reconfiguring the environment on which it was constructed and reshaping that environment's ecology and ecosystems all at once. It was the operations of the Foundry itself, though, that would have had the biggest impact on a day-to-day basis. Operating a factory which relied on the use of heavy machinery for most of the day for the majority of the week would have taken its toll, especially given the exhaust and other emissions from the machines to be released into the atmosphere. Heavy foot traffic and the increased human presence in the area would have compounded these issues further. Some of the biggest impacts of aircraft production upon the environment in the long term occurred after the war was over, when there was no longer any need for mass production of airplanes and those that already existed had become redundant and, thus, worthless. Many planes were decommissioned and salvaged for parts after the war, however these same planes that had flown into battle often showed the ‘wear and tear’ of it, and as the technology of the time advanced ever more quickly, both the parts and the planes became useless and obsolete, leaving thousands of planes and mountains of parts that no one had any use for and no one wanted to rot (23). Thousands were incinerated over the next few years, adding to burning emissions already heavily affecting the atmosphere, while others were stored until they too met this fate or were dumped or abandoned; this was the unfortunate reality for many wartime products that existed in surplus at the end of the war and which the government had no use for, in spite of the post-war dearth of supplies (24). While perhaps not the worst or longest lasting of the impacts leveled on environments in Canada, the effects of Can Car's war work still took a toll on the surrounding environment in more ways than one.
The picture and short film above showcase the Canadian Car & Foundry in its heyday during the war, and again a few decades later in 1972. Between the video filmed during the war and the photograph taken in 1972, it is plain to see that the Can Car facilities expanded quite a bit over the course of the conflict: buildings were added, existing facilities were expanded, and machines to help with the streamlining of production were implemented. And while production and expansion at Can Car slowed down after the war ended, it still remained functional as a facility and production center. The Foundry is largely remembered in Canadian history for its contributions to the war effort, and has been immortalized as one of the biggest aircraft production factories during the Second World War as a national heritage site by the province of Ontario. At the same time that it served the war effort, its other longest lasting legacy is the one it left on the environment. The construction that went into its expansion, the byproducts its production facilities and machines created, and how product surplus and waste was dealt with in the aftermath of the war all left their marks on not only its province, but also throughout the rest of Canada for years after the war had ended.
21. National Film Board of Canada. “Rosies of the North”. 1999. 46 min. Rosies of the North by Kelly Saxberg - NFB.
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