Canadian Industries Limited, also known as C-I-L, is a Canadian

chemical A chemical substance is a form of matter having constant chemical composition and characteristic properties. Some references add that chemical substance cannot be separated into its constituent elements by physical separation methods, i.e., w ...

s manufacturer. Products include paints,

fertilizer A fertilizer (American English) or fertiliser (British English; see spelling differences) is any material of natural or synthetic origin that is applied to soil or to plant tissues to supply plant nutrients. Fertilizers may be distinct from ...

s and pesticides, and explosives. It was formed in 1910 by the merger of five Canadian explosives companies. It was until recently a subsidiary of Imperial Chemical Industries until ICI was purchased by

AkzoNobel Akzo Nobel N.V., stylized as AkzoNobel, is a Dutch multinational company which creates paints and performance coatings for both industry and consumers worldwide. Headquartered in Amsterdam, the company has activities in more than 80 countries ...

History

Hamilton Powder Company

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, a new dynamite factory was opened in

McMasterville, Quebec McMasterville is a municipality in southwestern Quebec, Canada on the Richelieu River in La Vallée-du-Richelieu Regional County Municipality. The population as of the 2016 Canadian Census was 5,695. It is within the Administrative Region of Mont ...

. 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 ( ) is a city on the east coast of Vancouver Island, in British Columbia, Canada. As of the 2021 census, it had a population of 99,863, and it is known as "The Harbour City." The city was previously known as the "Hub City," which was ...

. 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 into Canada and operated a battery of two of the new weapons during the Riel Rebellion.

Canadian Explosives Company

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 during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, which led to the building of a new factory in the newly christened

Nobel, Ontario Nobel is a village on the shores of Parry Sound, Ontario, Canada. It is in the Municipality of McDougall in the District of Parry Sound. The community is named after Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite. This village is the administrative ...

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.

Canadian Explosives Limited

During the 1920s they diversified into paint and varnish, coated fabrics and plastics and changed their name in 1927 to Canadian Explosives Ltd. (CEL). In 1928 they re-opened the Nobel plants and acquired the Dominion Cartridge Company. In 1929 CEL merged with the Canadian Salt Co. Ltd. (CSXX), Grasselli Chemical Co. Ltd. (Grasselli), and Mond Nickel Co. (MNX) and changed their name to Canadian Industries Ltd.

World War II

With the approach of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, the company formed a subsidiary in September 1939 called Defence Industries Limited. Cartridge plants were opened on Park Avenue in Brownsburg, Quebec with government funding and the technical assistance of the

Dominion Cartridge Company The term ''Dominion'' is used to refer to one of several self-governing nations of the British Empire. "Dominion status" was first accorded to Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa, and the Irish Free State at the 1926 ...

. A cannon shell factory (and the entire nearby town itself) was built at Ajax, Ontario (nicknamed "Dilville"). They opened new plants on the site formerly used by British Cordite in Nobel. The Nobel site employed 4,300 people at its peak, and the company as a whole employed 33,000. On 3 May 1944, a CIL sulfuric acid plant in

Sudbury, Ontario Sudbury, officially the City of Greater Sudbury is the largest city in Northern Ontario by population, with a population of 166,004 at the 2021 Canadian Census. By land area, it is the largest in Ontario and the fifth largest in Canada. It is a ...

was certified as unionized by

Mine-Mill The International Union of Mine, Mill and Smelter Workers (IUMMSW) was a labor union representing miners and workers in related occupations in the United States and Canada. The union played an important role in the protection of workers and in d ...

Local 598. Because so many working-age men were fighting overseas in the armed forces, these plants employed large numbers of women. At the Ajax DIL plant about 7,000 women filled more than 40 million shells.

Post war

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 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, a ...

for use in jet engine development. In 1913 the predecessor of CXL had established a dynamite plant on James Island, B.C. off the coast of Vancouver Island and near the town of Sidney, B.C. The plant was later reacquired by CIL and produced explosives until its closure in 1972.

Re-organization

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) to end its joint interests with Imperial Chemical Industries Limited (ICI). Until 2010, C-I-L operated as part of Imperial Chemical Industries. In 2010 ICI was bought by

, a Dutch chemical company. Then in 2014, AkzoNobel's North American

architectural coatings Architectural coatings or paints are paints and other coatings used to paint the exteriors and interiors of buildings, often calleexterior wall coatingsor external masonry coatings. Clear varnishes and lacquers are generally excluded. Such pr ...

division was acquired by PPG Industries and has operated as PPG Architectural Coatings Canada since. The CIL brand is sold in major Canadian retailers

Home Depot The Home Depot, Inc., is an American multinational home improvement retail corporation that sells tools, construction products, appliances, and services, including fuel and transportation rentals. Home Depot is the largest home improvement r ...

, Canadian Tire,

Walmart Walmart Inc. (; formerly Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.) is an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets (also called supercenters), discount department stores, and grocery stores from the United States, headquarter ...

and Rona/

Réno-Dépôt Réno-Dépôt (known as Reno-Depot outside of Quebec) is a Canadian chain of home supply stores owned by Lowe's. Primarily operating in Quebec, Réno-Dépôt is a warehouse-styled format with a focus on discounted renovation and household hardware ...

. In 1976 Industries Valcartier Inc. bought out CIL's commercial cartridge production. This granted them the rights to CIL's popular Dominion, Imperial and Canuck commercial ammunition brands. Another of their manufacturing facilities, the Millhaven Fibres plant, was formerly located in Millhaven, west of

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located on the north-eastern end of Lake Ontario, at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River (south end of the Rideau Canal). The city is midway between To ...

. The C-I-L lawn and garden chemical brand was owned by Sure-Gro Inc. of Brantford, Ontario, Canada. Their other brands included Nature Mix, Green Earth, Wilson and Alaskan Ice Melter. Sure-Gro was acquired by Premier Tech of Rivière-du-Loup, Québec, Canada in 2010 for about $13.5 million.

References

Canadian Industries Limited

External links

Company Website
{{Authority control Manufacturing companies of Canada Paint manufacturers Canadian subsidiaries of foreign companies Canadian companies established in 1910 Manufacturing companies established in 1910