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The Canadian Bank of Commerce was first established on May 15, 1867 in Toronto, Ontario. Through amalgamations with regional banks, it grew to include branches across the country. With additional acquisitions in the 1920's, the bank became one of the strongest branch networks in Canada with well over 700 locations by 1929.

In 1936 the Canadian Bank of Commerce was the first bank in Canada to establish a personal loans department. At first, the bank would only issue loans, for a maximum of $1,000, in the Toronto and Hamilton areas. After the success of this pilot project, loans were extended to Canadians across the country.

During the second world war, the Canadian Bank of Commerce, along with other banks across Canada, assisted the government with the implementation of Victory Loans and War Ration coupons. The Victory Loan campaigns raised around $12 billion for the war effort, with almost three million Canadians buying war loan bonds. With the war ration coupons, banks became responsible for the accounting of food ration coupons in March, 1943 and gasoline ration coupons in April, 1944. The federal government first introduced ration coupons in April, 1942 for gasoline (until Aug 1945) and for certain food products in June, 1942 as a way of insuring equitable distribution of these supplies because of an acute shortage during the war. (Sugar - June 1942-1947, tea - 1942-Sept 1944, coffee - 1942-Sept 1944, butter - Dec 1942 -June 1947, meat - May 1943-March 1947, preserves - Dec 1943-1947, and in some areas evaporated milk - Dec 1943-1947.) After the initial year, the government decided banks in Canada were in a better position to handle the accounting aspect of the ration coupons and the banks agreed, provided they were able to limit the amount of paperwork involved. Dealers such as jobbers and brokers, wholesalers, creamery and cheese factories, importers of tea and coffee, retailers whose normal monthly gross sales in food exceeded $5,000, as well as businesses which served meals including the rationed goods, such as hotels, restaurants, and hospitals, were required to conduct ration bank accounts. With the ration bank accounts, these dealers and food server businesses would deposit and withdraw ration stamps in the same manner as financial accounts. Each ration product required a separate account for these businesses. When ration supplies were needed, a business would simply write a cheque in the amount of the ration stamps required from their specific product ration account. In turn, when customers purchased a rationed product, they would hand the business the required number of stamps and they would then deposit them into the specific ration accounts for their next purchase from their suppliers (both the businesses and the public were still required to pay cash for their rationed products along with the ration stamps.)

After the war, the Canadian Bank of Commerce increased their holdings to include branches in newly created suburbs and in 1954, along with the rest of the banks in Canada, began to offer mortgages for newly constructed homes. Prior to this time, all banks were barred from the mortgage business since 1871, leaving life insurance companies to offer the majority of mortgages to the public.

On June 1st 1961, the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce was formed through the merger of The Canadian Bank of Commerce and the Imperial Bank of Canada. The merger occurred due to both banks growth in the resource industry. The Imperial Bank of Canada was unable to keep up with the increasing needs of its resource industry clients and in an attempt to meet these needs and to ward off a possible buyout by a foreign bank, a new, larger bank was formed by the merger.

The Sudbury Branch of the Bank of Commerce first opened on June 22, 1929. Located on the corner of Elm and Elgin in the former Sterling Bank of Canada building, this bank became the eighth to locate to Sudbury (The Sterling Bank of Canada 1905-1924, opened January 30, 1909 in Sudbury. This bank merged with the Standard Bank of Canada in 1924 and the Standard Bank of Canada merged with the Canadian Bank of Commerce in 1928). The Town of Sudbury Building Permits record a H.R. Sheldon for Sterling Bank applying for a building permit on July 1, 1918 for 151 Elm Street. The building material included 80,000 bricks, 1,100 yards plastering, 1,000 cubic feet stone work, and 2,900 cubic feet concrete. This branch served as the main office in Sudbury until a larger branch was opened at the corner of Cedar and Lisgar Streets. As the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce, the Elm and Elgin branch merged with the Cedar Street branch on October 24, 1997, leaving the Elm and Elgin Street location vacant.

The Wartime Prices and Trade Board is a former Canadian government agency, established on September 3, 1939, by the Mackenzie King government, under the authority of the War Measures Act, in the Department of Labour responsible for price controls and inflation control. The board was abolished in 1951, upon the lapse of the Continuation of Transitional Measures Act, 1947.

John Theberge (1940- ) was a professor and researcher in the Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo, from 1972 until his retirement in 2000. Theberge received his BSc from the University of Guelph, MSc from the University of Toronto, and PhD from the University of British Columbia. John Theberge's career focused on his wolf research, pioneering a technique using vocal patterns to identify wolves. John Theberge and his co-researcher and wife Mary Theberge became Canada's premier timber wolf research team, receiving international recognition for their field research. In 1993, Equinox magazine proclaimed John and Mary Theberge "Environmentalist of the Year". In 1998 they were presented with the Harkin Medal from Canadian Parks and Wilderness Services.

The Tovell family of Toronto, in particular Harold Murchison Tovell (1887-1947), Ruth Massey Tovell (1889-1961) and their son Vincent Massey Tovell (b. 1922), was active in art circles in Toronto for several decades following the First World War. Harold Tovell and Ruth Massey married in 1910 and in 1913-1914 travelled in Europe, visiting the major art galleries. Returning to Toronto, they lived on the eastern edge of the city in Dentonia Park, the Massey estate, until 1936 when they moved to the city centre. The Tovells built a collection of works by Canadian and European artists. In France in 1926 they met French painter Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968) through their friend American author and artist Walter Pach (1883-1958). In 1928 they purchased a painting by Duchamp’s older half-brother Jacques Villon (1875-1963) at an exhibition in New York. They met Jacques and Gaby Villon in Paris in 1930 and corresponded with them until the 1960s. The Villons befriended Vincent who visited them in France in the years before the Second World War. From 1941 to 1947, the Tovells lived near Port Hope, Ontario. After her husband’s death, Mrs Tovell returned to live in Toronto. Harold and Ruth Tovell had three other sons: Walter (b. 1916), a geologist and Director of the Royal Ontario Museum 1972-1975, Freeman (b. 1918), diplomat and historian, and Harold (1919-2002), a physician. They bequeathed many of their artworks to the Royal Ontario Museum, the National Gallery of Canada and the Art Gallery of Ontario.

In 1986, Uniroyal Chemical Company was formed as a subsidiary of Avery Inc. Then, in 1989, Uniroyal Chemical Company Investors Holding bought Uniroyal Chemical Company from Avery and became Uniroyal Chemical Corporation. In 1996, Uniroyal Chemical Corporation went public and merged with Crompton & Knowles. In 1996, Uniroyal Chemical Corporation went public and merged with Crompton & Knowles. In 1999, Crompton & Knowles merged with Witco to form Crompton Corporation. In 2005, Crompton acquired Great Lakes Chemical Company, Inc., of West Lafayette, Indiana, to form Chemtura Corporation.

The University of British Columbia's Faculty of Law opened in September 1945. Prior to this, law students in British Columbia articled for three years and attended lectures given by the legal profession at the Vancouver Law School (V.L.S.) operated by the Law Society of British Columbia. After lengthy discussions a joint Law Society/UBC committee was struck in July 1945 to submit recommendations and plans for the establishment of a Faculty of Law. The University's Board of Governors and Senate approved the committee's recommendations late in August. The faculty's original staff consisted of George F. Curtis (professor and dean), Frederick Read and Alfred Watts. The Faculty was housed in converted army huts on campus and would remain there until 1952. Student enrollment increased significantly following World War II. By the early 1950s the Faculty had outgrown its accommodations and Dean Curtis began plans for a permanent Faculty of Law Building. Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent opened the new building in 1952. Curtis was succeeded in 1971 as Dean by Albert J. McClean. The Faculty continued to grow throughout the seventies, again raising the need for a larger building. In 1975 the existing building was remodelled and a new addition constructed. This new structure was completed in 1976 and named the George F. Curtis Building. In 1985 Chinese Legal Studies was added to the East Asian programme through a
joint U.B.C./Peking University exchange of legal scholars and graduate students. That same year also saw the establishment of a Cooperative Project in Law and Computers with IBM Canada.

Florence Vale, Canadian artist, was born on April 18, 1909 in llford, Essex, England and died on July 23, 2003 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Her family immigrated to Toronto two years after her birth, where she grew up with an interest in music. She married artist Albert Franck on June 8, 1929, and together they bought a house on Hazelton Avenue in Toronto which became a centre for artists, writers, musicians, and critics. Florence Vale was the mother of two children, Trudy (who died as an infant) and Anneke.
Florence Vale began to paint with her husband’s paints and brushes in the late 1940’s with no previous artistic training – only what she had learned under the influence of her husband and the artists who visited her home. Her art was influenced by Surrealism, Cubism, Expressionism, and the works of Paul Klee. After her husband’s death in 1973, Florence Vale continued to express her artistic ability with oil paints, collages, and ink, also including her own poetry in some of her works. Many of her works, most prominently after the death of her husband, were erotic, while still viewed by critics as keeping a whimsical, innocent tone. Her art appeared in exhibitions throughout Ontario, with exhibitions also in Quebec and New York, U.S.A. She was associated with the Gadatsy Gallery, Toronto.