Canada Packers, Inc. (now Maple Leaf Foods, Inc.) was a Toronto-based meat packing and processing company.
The company was formed out of a succession of mergers with predecessor companies. These include the William Davies Company, Ltd. (est. 1854), the Canadian Packing Company, Ltd. (est. 1868 as the George Matthews Company), Gunns Ltd. (est. 1876), and the Harris Abattoir Company, Ltd. (est. 1896). These firms merged in 1927 to form Canada Packers, Ltd., which became Canada Packers Inc. in 1980. In 1990 Canada Packers Inc. merged with British based Maple Leaf Mills, Ltd. to form Maple Leaf Foods, Inc.
George Grace was born January 15, 1917. He moved to Sudbury, Ontario from Toronto on December 15, 1939 and began work as a sports reporter for The Sudbury Star in 1942. After serving in World War II, Grace returned to reporting for The Sudbury Star. During the 1950's, Grace developed polio which left his right hand atrophied and forced him into a wheelchair for several years. With the help of his wife Isobel, his condition improved and he continued writing sports articles. Grace was eventually promoted to Executive Editor before retiring in 1980. Ten years later, Grace began a regular sports column entitled 'Looking Back' which ran for about a decade. His final article appeared in the paper December 31, 2000. George Grace passed away December 23, 2007 at the age of 90.
Michael Kelly was born in Sudbury Ontario in 1953 and attended Laurentian University from 1973 to 1978. He graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in History and then matriculated to the University of Toronto (1979-1985) for his Master of Arts in History. During this time, he was asked to write a chapter in an upcoming local Sudbury history book to help celebrate the one hundred anniversary of the founding of Sudbury. The book was divided up into decades and Michael Kelly was assigned 1900-1910. This chapter was later completed by Ashley Thompson and the book was published ten years after its intended publication date in 1993 entitled Sudbury Rail Town to Regional Capital.
Other books Kelly worked on while a student at Laurentian include Inventory and Guide to Historic Building in Sudbury, 1978.
From 1979 to 1985, Kelly traded commercial paper and foreign exchange securities as part of a corporate cash management team with INCO Limited. From 1985 to 1986 he was a regional economic development officer in Northern Ontario and from 1986-1989 he operated as a training consultant for various companies. From 1990 to the present, Kelly has worked as a professor at Cambrian College specializing in Human Relations, Ethics and Project Management.