Canada, Practice of Public Relations in

Development of Public Relations in the Private Sector

Similarly, immigration was a key factor in the rise of private-sector public relations. The railroads, especially the Canadian Pacific (CPR), were important government partners in attempting to populate the West. This cooperation was motivated, however, more by political necessity than financial strategy: Promoting immigration helped curry government support for various railroad subsidies including large land grants. By the dawn of the 20th century, the CPR had turned its promotional efforts to tourism, using such techniques as press junkets, brochures, and in-house film production.

For its part, the Canadian National Railway (CNR) was a debt-ridden, half-completed system when the government nationalized it in the 1920s. To salvage the operation, the CNR president promoted his firm as a valuable service to Canadians by introducing traveling schools and medical teams to rural communities; the firm also launched a radio broadcasting network that eventually became the foundation for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.

Many of the early activities in the private sector centered on internal communication. For example, the Massey Manufacturing Co. of Toronto, a farm implements maker, established what has been recognized as the first true employee publication in North America, The Trip Hammer. It published monthly beginning in 1885.

Early public relations efforts can often be tied to industries threatened by regulation, if not outright [Page 112]nationalization. These industries developed public relations departments to foster supportive public opinion in the hope of stemming unwanted infringements on their freedom. As early as the mid-1800s, for example, Quebec brewers employed a form of public relations to counteract that province's introduction of local options on prohibition; the scenario repeated in 1917 against similar restrictive moves.

Other early adopters of public relations included utilities such as Bell Canada, which established a publicity department in 1914 shortly after ad hoc public relations helped derail proposals to nationalize telephone service. However, it has been suggested that the status of public relations at Bell ebbed once the crisis passed, a pattern that may have been true in other organizations as well.

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