Ford City, Ontario

The town was sparsely-populated and mostly farmland until the Walkerville Wagon Works partnered with Henry Ford (the namesake of the town) to build and import automobiles to Canada at a lower tariff rate by having the Ford Motor Company provide them with the incomplete automobiles and their parts, with Walkerville Wagon Works performing final assembly for domestic (Canadian) purchase.

[1] The community of Ford City first made national headlines on August 22, 1917, when hundreds of French Canadian parishioners mourning the death of their nationalist pastor, Fr.

On September 3, the Catholic Bishop of London, Michael Francis Fallon, sent the parishioners an ultimatum: accept the new priest or face the closure of the church.

The protesters, who were tipped off by a phone call of their pastor`s impending return, rang the church bells, and the grounds were soon occupied by more than 3000 parishioners.

When the riot finally settled down, nine men had been arrested, and nine people had been seriously injured, including two elderly women who fiercely resisted the policy on the front steps of the church rectory with broomsticks.

These events came to represent the culmination of the French-speaking community`s resistance to Bishop Fallon and his vocal support of the Ontario Government`s imposition of Regulation 17.