Flying air bubbles, 300 mph snowmobiles, vertical cities: Montreal leaders from 1969 predict the year 2000

 Federal Industry Minister Jean-Luc Pepin dodged the gimmick-photo bullet by writing the forward, in which he announces that Canada will have 40 million by 2000 and will be "difficult to govern." He died in 1995 at the age of 71.














 A.C. De Lery of Canadian Asea Electric promised barbecue outdoors in winter and cleaner air with "breeder reactors stretching uranium supplies by more fissionable material that us the heat from the splitting of uranium atoms to convert water to steam, turning turbines to generate electricity."


 Alfred Hamel of Hamel Transport predicted self-driving trucks on special truck roads.


 Camille Lacroix of Matapedia Company "Canadian forests will once again be considered as one of the great natural resources of our country" and that forests will 'offer a revitalizing source of contact with nature."

 Mayor Jean Drapeau predicted, well, see here to find out.
 E.A. Martin of Uniroyal said that freer trade was on the horizon and that would lead to more international "political co-operation and stability."
 F.R. Kearns of Canadair promised 45 minute flights from Montreal to Tokyo by 2000. He saw moon bases and manned flights to Mars and supersonic and hyper-sonic aircraft that travel at "10 times the speed of sound."

 C. Norman Simpson of Acres Ltd failed to actually predict anything but noted "We have departed from dogmatic adherence to old social orders and are reaching out for a time when there will be complete freedom of spirit."
 Laurent Beaudoin Bombardier predicted snowmobiles "will have miniature jet engines and will run on an air cushion at speeds of up to 300 miles an hour."
 Fernand R. Bibeau of Shockbeton just predicted more wonderful things for cement and his company.
 Jean Marie Poitras Laurentian Insurance Bad weather insurance for vacationers and automatic insurance quotes over the phone.
 Jacques Carriere Sogena Inc. Cleopatra, Lady Godiva and the modern beauty queens will be replaced by a physiognomy inspired by interplanetary travel and the ideologies of an almost limitless universe.
 Pierre Desmarais II Pierre Desmarais Inc. said "far from menacing printed communications the invasion of the data machines, along with the increasing concern for aesthetic values, is a reassuring factor for the future."
 Raymond Vachon Dumont Express said "large consortiums" will take over from small moving companies.
 Wilbert E. Thibault Commercial Litho Plate "Full colour newspapers run off at breakneck speeds."
 John C. Parkin, Architect, said all would be "double everything that now exists in North America. For every expressway that now exists another must be built."

 N.R. "Buck" Crump of Canadian Pacific Promised self-driving cars and a dial-a-bus system in which a "small, automatically operated bus directed either to his front door or to a a nearby stop. The passenger would be notified of its arrival by a light on his phone." Crump also promised around-the-world flights in 80 minutes.
 Paul Vachon of Vachon Inc predicted "Chinese swallow nests, nail pudding, liqueur-soaked tarts, sweet tortillas and enchiladas"' and noted "all potentially harmful elements will be strictly controlled as a result of new legislation. Vitamins, hormones, steroids and other supplements will be added to certain foods."
 Robert Hendricks of Cominco Ltd predicted mining with laser beams, ultra sonic rays and nuclear energy.
 Dr. Roger Gaudry University of Montreal predicted lectures and notes will be "transmitted by television or another forms."
Roland Desoudry of Bromont Inc. just wrote a lot of platitudes about the ski hill.
Roland Giroux of Hydro Quebec predicted that in 2000 energy would be created by using the energy from the fusion of deuterium and tritium which is found abundantly in sea water." which would increase electricity abundantly.
 Taylor Kennedy and Leonardo Franceschini Canada Cement predicted that "hundreds of new cities will be born," in a "second Canada further north."

Benoit Beauregard Quebec Poultry inc predicted that microwave ovens will replace other cooking methods and "the chicken will be untouched by human hands It will be plucked by ultra-sounds and boned mechanically." Chicken would largely replace beef.
 Willliam E. Soles Anglo Canada Pulp and Paper Wood usage will increase fourfold, which will require proper maintenance of forests.
 Jean-Guy Dionne Dionne Spinning clearly hired his slickest writer to pen a future that didn't involve offshoring of the needle trade to cheap Asian sweatshops. "With the kaleidoscopic varieties in man-made fibers that blossom like brilliant orchid from the industry's laboratories, downtime will surely be an academic concept." He also predicted "fibers that will cool the body for tropical travelling."
 Lucien Arcand Victoriaville Furniture predicted futuristic furniture with "push button devices for drawers, slide-doors, partitions,""rubber or plastic inflatable seats an armchairs, tables and writing desks concealed under the floor board, raised at a push button command. Build-in tape libraries, lamps and TV-stereo combinations." But he conceded "furniture styles will not change drastically for all people because many of the buildings presently constructed do not lend themselves to revolutionary designs in furniture."
 G. Ross Herrington Corby Distilleries "We are now three-score and ten years through the 20th century and we are experiencing a curious phenomenon - the 'permissive age." If today's manners and mores are 'permissive," what then of the year 2000? The youth of today will be oldsters then. And what of the youth then? "What, on the surface, seems rebellious today, may well be accepted thirty years hence as perfectly moral behavior.""The lingering concept of alcoholic beverage in Canada as somehow illicit and sinful - although pleasurable - will surely have disappeared." The work week will be shortened and the average salary cheque increased immeasurably. There will be more leisure activities. Theaters, baseball and football stadia, hockey matches, trade shows, expositions and other public performances will provide many occasions for enjoying beverages in reasonable, socially -acceptable ways. It will be commonplace to take cocktails or a bottle of wine along on a picnic - without any suggestion of impropriety or daring."
 Paul Chapdelaine St Laurent Cement "The cement industry will regroup its facilities and concentrate operations in new, fully-automated factories. The extensive use of television, cameras and screens will facilitate the control of all facets of productions."
A Olaff Wolfe Microsystems International "micro-circuitry will shape an entirely new kind of world for us, which is difficult to visualize even though it's only thirty years away."
 R.P. Mills Magnetics International Ltd. "Magnarail installations are envisioned between major cities with speeds of 300 miles per hour. in these applications, ferrite bricks laid in upper and lower levels of suspended steel channels would provide the force to support the load of freight or passenger vehicles." He said "ferrite permanent magnets will "speed crop growth by as much as 25%." because "Seed germinates faster in a strong magnetic force field; the growth rate is accelerated and root systems can be directionally controlled for more efficient plant feeding and cultivating."

 Guy Corbeil, Corbeil Ltd."The time-honoured craft of shoe-making is in the process of becoming much more automated."
 Laurent Langevin, Louis-Philippe Duval Sno-Jet Inc. Snowmobiles will "rise in what appears to be headed for great popularity during the next decades."
 Kenneth P. Lavery P.S. Ross and Partners "Of all human institutions, the business corporation will change the most. To be left on the wrong side of the knowledge gap is akin to being beached on a dry shore from which the ocean has receded.""There is room in Canada for a fourfold increased in professions trained in the arts, sciences and technology. In such a policy will be found the origins of future economic expansion." A management consulting firm...will be part of the Knowledge industry, a conceptual conglomerate without boundaries."
 Peter Kilburn Greenshields Inc.Hopefully there will e a much freer flow of people, goods and ideas from continent to continent." Canada will witness extensive development in the Great North and therefor remain, on balance, an importer rather than an exporter of capital." Computers will "eliminate the time-consuming paperwork which for years has plagued the investment community."
 Charles B. Neappole The Canadian Stock Exchange"This venerable institution will no longer bustle with the Floor's daily activity, when, as a matter of fact, local stock exchange will be obsolete except for the horse and buggy type of investment in small local industry, if there are any of those left.""We might find ourselves with two or three gigantic, entirely computerized processing units with one say in Bermuda, for all of Eastern America and Europe, East and Wet, another in Honolulu for the Pacific users and maybe ea third in Mauritius. All these would, of course, have three or four back up units as a preventive measure in case of major disaster but even now from a purely technological standpoint one world wide exchange is not only possible but feasible."
 The Berlitz School of Languages "Berlitz will play an increasingly significant role for Canadians as well as others."
 B.A. Benneteau Quebec Telephone If scientists could find a way to use laser beams to transmit sounds and pictures, the cost per communications channel wold plummet. ?As yet no one has devised an efficient method of putting messages onto a laser beam that takes full advantage of its tremendously high frequencies. Researchers are not at all sure they can master laser technology by the year 2000. Most people would however be surprised if they didn't." Man will have facilities capable of producing whatever type of communications he wants he will have the option of sending text, or speaking, or seeing, or perhaps communication in all three ways at once with people sitting hundreds of miles away of halfway around the globe. Facsimile transmission will enable him to sign a contract via the telephone; with the picture phone he'll be able to show his products in colour to a prospective customer in a distant city. he'll avoid all but the essential business trips."
 John E. Brent IBM"Unlike any generation before us, we have the technology which permits us to choose the kind of future we want to have. Determining the quality of the society we will have in three decades from now is one of the most crucial questions we face. The responsibility is awesome, for the decisions we make will affect not only the lives of our own children but the lives of our children's children. We have to choose now. in making our choice, the computer can be one of the most valuable predictive and planning tools available to us."
 I. R. Ransen Mondev Corp. Giant neighbourhoods will rise vertically from common multi-level bases or plazas. There will be a minimum need to travel from one self-sufficient neighbourhood to another and whatever transportation of people and materials is necessarily will take place through pneumatic systems.
   Each neighborhood complex will be autonomous. The lower levels will contain the energy producing facilities plus storage and reuse of waste facilities and bases for long distance transport. Subsequent levels will include manufacturing industries and commercial and local transport facilities.
   Above these levels will spread great plazas from which the living neighborhoods will rise. Each neighbourhood will include single and multi-family homes together with schools, churches, shops, hotels, cinemas and other forms of entertainment. The surrounding plazas will offer parks, playgrounds, stadia, golf course and the necessary facilities of a healthy outdoor life.
  Some and some will be eliminated by conceiving an industrial complex using common or related power sources so that all human and material waste is reused and whatever possible the waste form one industry will become the raw materials of another.
  The elimination of surface street,s the integration of industry and the concentration of whole neighborhoods in giant buildings will create a need for new building material. We can visualize a new plastic-type material offering the lightness and strength needed for higher buildings with less eight and  permitting modular systems construction.
   There will be new concepts of ownership and finance and new systems of land use; the public and private sectors will have to combine efforts and the role of the developer will become paramount."
 Dr. H. Rocke Robertson McGill Univerity "Formal lectures in most courses will be few and far between." The student will have great freedom in selecting his own programme and will make his choice according ot the main problem or area of interest which he, at the outset, decide to pursue.  The realizations that the inequalities in the world are primarily due to inequalities in educational opportunity will lead universities to increasingly concerted efforts to assist the developing counties in educating their people. "
 Dr. William G. Schenider National Resarech Council Biochemistry will play a leading part in the world of the future. The possibility of genetic engineering holds enormous potential for improvement of agricultural crops and animals. Studies on cell biochemistry will lead to the control or culture of cancer and to safe effective methods of population control.
 J.W. McGiffin Canada Steamship Lines Ltd. By 2000 automation may well have replaced mental labour in the sense that mental labour means the effort required to think in terms of details. Details will be handled by computers. Though, as far as industry's concerned, will be a reciprocal arrangement between man and machine."
 C. Ritchie Montreal Engineering Nuclear technology will be universally applied, not only in huge power stations but also in smaller plants space vehicles and perhaps private cars and uses. By the year 2000 a massive and costly onslaught will be required to save the developing countries from mass starvation while the technically developed  countries must be saved form a slow death by poisoning.
 W.J.R. Paton Atlantic Sugar The sugar refining process will be improved by the increased use of computers ultra sonic and nuclear radiation.
 Anton Johl B.K. Johl Inc. Shorter working hours, release from routine tasks that can be done quicker and more efficiently by machines, mounting opportunities to use creative talent and an infinitely more pleasant environment. The era of the cubicle may be fading out Architects seem to have discovered the advantage of he wide open spaces concept. Molded fiberglass may succeed the present day upholstered seats. man made fibers may supplant wool in the sound deadening deprecating that not only covers the floor but also goes up the walls. The executive office will probably look more like a private salon in an exclusive club.
 H.G. Hallward Argo Construction"The concrete bubble idea may take enormous proportions in the near future.  Assembly plants will create prefabricate element that make a typical 21st Century building with astonishing speed, the buildings skeleton is fitted with modular units completed wired and equipped with plumbing and appliances.
 Robert F. Kelley Jeffrey Manufacturing Ten foot wide conveyors extending over 10 miles moving at 2000 feet per minute. "There will be little economic room for the small volume producers in a big volume market.""newer and yet undreamed of metal alloys and plastics will further revolutionize most known designs of machinery and equipment."
 Robert M. Schmon Quebec North Shore Paper"very substantial progress directed to great production of higher quality paper per dollar of investment. disposable clothing, linens, dishes, containers are here now but will be in use on a much greater scale." Increasing literacy should maintain a large demand for paper products."
Andre Piche Reynolds Aluminium"molten metal will be directed virtually unattended through the various cold rolling annealing and finishing operations at more than double the present speeds. The white collar will outnumber the blue collar worker." auto cleavable pouches will be in great demand for vegetables fruits and meat.' The use of aluminum for the majority of automobile components will offer a solution to the disposal problem, eliminating that much decried blight on most North American highways, the car graveyard."
 W.W. Oughtred An asbestos plant will be a couple of linked computer and a handful of men. There will certainly be a large market for asbestos assuming that ore reserves are of the same character and that basic product markets such as building products and friction materials remain.
 Eugene Laflamme South Shore Designs Instant meals will prevail, sometime taking the form of a limited assortment of pills while succulent dinners by candlelight become a costly hobby for the connoisseurs and the gourmet." The viewing and communications room will become the most important room as children sit there to play, tune in to college and university lecture or to point the tape of the most controversial paper presented on a topical subject. The man in the house will sit there to check up on the family budget, screening his bank accounts and his bills in various department stores and restaurants. Mother and daughter will delight in at-home window shopping glimpsing at the most recent displays of both the supermarket and the latest fashions. The entire family can enjoy at the most convenient hour, a replay of its favourite program or movie.
 Donald Kouri R.J. Reynolds Foods "A supermarket where all the products are automatically vended. Purchase of food products by a combination of the telephone and the closed-circuit television. Home shopping will eliminate the tedious time consuming trips to the supermarket. The ultimate package would be placed in boiling water, removed after a few seconds, opened and the package then served as a plate for the product inside. After the meal the package and utensils would be thrown out."
 Alberto Cefis Domco Industries Floor covering spread to patio, wall, ceiling sofa, everywhere.
 J. Marien Cote, Griffin Enterprises The year round all over vehicle or individual air bubble which would permit everyone to fly over any obstacle and to hop about according to his needs or whims.""Man will seek to occupy himself more fruitfully, seeking hobbies and interest more varied and of greater intellectual and physical value."
 Gabriel Buisson Laurentian Chemicals"return the forest to tits role of purifier and beautifier to its function as a place of leisure and sports for with all the innumerable fibers and additives additives organic chemistry has produced we can now satisfactorily reproduce all the forest products from wall paneling to paper using these synthetic fibers and all the family of plastics and polymers."
 Adrien Baillargeon Express Ltd. The moving industry may take an entire unit, complete with all the contents from one multiple housing complicate and deliver it to another group of residences some distance away - floor, walls, roof and all."
 Rubin B. Zimmerman Zimmcor (aluminum) Canadian cities will consist of a large number of integrated structures to to 100 storeys high grouping under one roof office space, shopping facilities, green area and residential units. " thanks to "highly improved aluminum curtail walls."
 R.L. Riker Combustion Engineer Superheater Ltd. Magnetohydrodynamic generators, thermoelectric generators, thermionic converter and fusions reactions will become commonplace to convert chemical energy to electrical energy as power generators of the future.
H.P. Paterno Avco Financial Services People will take care of all their bills, rents and school expenses insurance , heating payments at an Avco financial supermarket
A. E. Horsburgh Farr Company"clean air outside as well as inside living, working and recreational quarters. Scientists say there is no alternative, Either we clean up the air around this globe or we'll e snuffed out."
Dr Roger Veilleux Henri Vallieres Inc. Furniture will remain the same but "the most radical changes are the ones that have taken place at the furniture manufacturers' plant. There, the craftsman has been replaced by assembly line workers- except perhaps in the case of costly, custom-deigned furniture. "
Papineau Gerin-Lajoie, Leblanc Edwards architects. Orbital Architecture "plastics sound, light and air curtains materials to be invented will form the new vocabulary of XXIst Century Builders. We must create an Orbital Architecture extra terrestrial inter planetary where transport and communication will link all Beings of our planet of other planets rapidly efficiently in yet unknown ways.

Lars Olsson SF Products Canada Ltd. The processing of vast quantities of wood - a 60% increase over present consumption - is going to create a vast waste disposal problem. "kraft pulp mills give off their distinctive and offensive odor. Further developments will remove what is left of offending mercaptans and the content will be reduce to be undetectable to the human nose."