Industry, often with encouragement from government, expanded to meet wartime needs. The Aluminum Company of Canada was able to increase its production of aluminum by building a hydroelectric development near the mouth of the Shipshaw River, north of Arvida, QuΘbec. In this photograph, Roger Lafrance surveys stacks of aluminum ingots awaiting shipment from Arvida.
While the government may have wished for uninterrupted industrial production, the work flow was disrupted on occasion. In the summer of 1941, employees at the huge plant stopped work. Angry workers shut off the furnaces causing enormous pots of molten metal to solidify. In the belief that the strike was led by an "enemy alien," the government sent four hundred troops to the scene to protect company property. The strike ended but no evidence of foreign agitators was found by a subsequent royal commission of inquiry.
