Canadian Industries Limited
Encyclopedia
Canadian Industries Limited, also known as C-I-L is a Canadian chemicals manufacturer. Products include paint
Paint
Paint is any liquid, liquefiable, or mastic composition which after application to a substrate in a thin layer is converted to an opaque solid film. One may also consider the digital mimicry thereof...

s, fertilizer
Fertilizer
Fertilizer is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. A recent assessment found that about 40 to 60% of crop yields are attributable to commercial fertilizer use...

s and pesticide
Pesticide
Pesticides are substances or mixture of substances intended for preventing, destroying, repelling or mitigating any pest.A pesticide may be a chemical unicycle, biological agent , antimicrobial, disinfectant or device used against any pest...

s, and explosives. It was formed in 1910 by the merger of five Canadian explosives companies. It is currently a subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries
Imperial Chemical Industries
Imperial Chemical Industries was a British chemical company, taken over by AkzoNobel, a Dutch conglomerate, one of the largest chemical producers in the world. In its heyday, ICI was the largest manufacturing company in the British Empire, and commonly regarded as a "bellwether of the British...

.

The oldest direct ancestor of what would become CIL originally started in 1862, then known as the Hamilton Powder Company. They were created to buy the assets of the former Canada Powder Company, which had formed in 1852. Their major product was black powder, used for blasting. In 1878 the company was purchased by Dr. Thomas C. Brainerd, a U.S. businessman in the black powder industry. In order to provide the massive amounts of explosives needed to build the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

, a new dynamite
Dynamite
Dynamite is an explosive material based on nitroglycerin, initially using diatomaceous earth , or another absorbent substance such as powdered shells, clay, sawdust, or wood pulp. Dynamites using organic materials such as sawdust are less stable and such use has been generally discontinued...

 factory was opened in McMasterville, Quebec
McMasterville, Quebec
McMasterville is a municipality in southwestern Quebec, Canada on the Richelieu River in the Regional County Municipality of La Vallée-du-Richelieu. The population as of the Canada 2006 Census was 5,234. It is within the Administrative Region of Montérégie....

. Other black powder plants were acquired in Quebec and the Maritimes and, in 1890, the company opened the first explosives plant in the far west, near Nanaimo, British Columbia
Nanaimo, British Columbia
Nanaimo is a city on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, Canada. It has been dubbed the "Bathtub Racing Capital of the World" and "Harbour City". Nanaimo is also sometimes referred to as the "Hub City" because of its central location on Vancouver Island and due to the layout of the downtown...

. Another major ancestor was the Dominion Cartridge Company, started at Brownsburg, Quebec (just west of Montreal) in 1886 by Captain A. L. ("Gat") Howard, who introduced the Gatling gun
Gatling gun
The Gatling gun is one of the best known early rapid-fire weapons and a forerunner of the modern machine gun. It is well known for its use by the Union forces during the American Civil War in the 1860s, which was the first time it was employed in combat...

 into Canada and operated a battery of two of the new weapons during the Riel Rebellion
North-West Rebellion
The North-West Rebellion of 1885 was a brief and unsuccessful uprising by the Métis people of the District of Saskatchewan under Louis Riel against the Dominion of Canada...

.

In 1910 Hamilton Powder and Dominion Cartridge merged with the Acadia Powder Company, Ontario Powder Company, Standard Explosives Company, Western Explosives Company and Victoria Chemical Company to form the Canadian Explosives Company (CXL). This was a major supplier to the Canadian Expeditionary Force
Canadian Expeditionary Force
The Canadian Expeditionary Force was the designation of the field force created by Canada for service overseas in the First World War. Units of the C.E.F. were divided into field formation in France, where they were organized first into separate divisions and later joined together into a single...

 during World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...

, which led to the building of a new factory in the newly christened Nobel, Ontario
Nobel, Ontario
Nobel is a village located on the shores of Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Municipality of McDougall in the District of Parry Sound. The community is named after Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite....

 in 1914. CXL also operated another plant across the highway on behalf of British Cordite Limited. All of the Nobel plants closed after the war in 1922, when secondary markets were not forthcoming. Then all was lost in a huge fire in 1923.

During the 1920s they diversified into paint and varnish, coated fabrics and plastics, and in 1927 they changed their name to Canadian Industries Limited. Later that year they re-opened the Nobel plants. With the approach of World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, the company formed a subsidiary, Defence Industries Limited, and opened new plants on the site formerly used by British Cordite. The Nobel site employed 4,300 people at its peak, and the company as a whole 33,000.

A great post-war building program geared C-I-L to meet peacetime needs for explosives, paints, agricultural and industrial chemicals, plastics, sporting ammunition and man-made textile fabrics. The Nobel plants were once again closed, and this time sold off to Orenda Aerospace
Orenda Aerospace
Orenda Engines was a Canadian aircraft engine manufacturer and parts supplier. As part of the earlier Avro Canada conglomerate, which became Hawker Siddeley Canada, they produced a number of military jet engines from the 1950s through the 1970s, and were Canada's primary engine supplier and repair...

 for use in jet engine
Jet engine
A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet to generate thrust by jet propulsion and in accordance with Newton's laws of motion. This broad definition of jet engines includes turbojets, turbofans, rockets, ramjets, pulse jets...

 development.

In 1913 the predecessor of CXL had established a dynamite plant on James Island
James Island
James Island may refer to:*James Island , a World Heritage island in The Gambia*James Island , an island in Haro Strait off Sidney, BC near Vancouver Island*James Island , another name for Santiago Island...

, B.C. off the coast of Vancouver Island and near the town of Sydney, B.C. The plant was later acquired by CIL and produced explosives until its closure in 1972.

In 1954 C-I-L was divided into two separate companies in accordance with the ruling of a U.S. court which had ordered E. I. du Pont de Nemours (today's DuPont
DuPont
E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company , commonly referred to as DuPont, is an American chemical company that was founded in July 1802 as a gunpowder mill by Eleuthère Irénée du Pont. DuPont was the world's third largest chemical company based on market capitalization and ninth based on revenue in 2009...

) to end its joint interests with Imperial Chemical Industries
Imperial Chemical Industries
Imperial Chemical Industries was a British chemical company, taken over by AkzoNobel, a Dutch conglomerate, one of the largest chemical producers in the world. In its heyday, ICI was the largest manufacturing company in the British Empire, and commonly regarded as a "bellwether of the British...

 Limited (ICI). C-I-L operates as part of Imperial Chemical Industries to this day. Brands produced by C-I-L include ICI Paints, Dulux
Dulux
Dulux is an internationally available brand of paint. It is produced by AkzoNobel . The brand name Dulux has been used by both ICI and DuPont since 1931 and was one of the first alkyd-based paints.-History:...

 and Glidden Paints.

Another of their manufacturing facilities was formerly located in Millhaven west of Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario
Kingston, Ontario is a Canadian city located in Eastern Ontario where the St. Lawrence River flows out of Lake Ontario. Originally a First Nations settlement called "Katarowki," , growing European exploration in the 17th Century made it an important trading post...

.
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