How needle trade disappeared - a timeline

   Everybody seemed unhappy about the needletrade. Sure there were jobs and money but unions complained that the workers were exploited, the owners were mad for various reasons. Of course the whole thing was pretty much wiped out with the adoption of NAFTA.
   I once interviewed a poor kid from Cote des Neiges named Alan Zeman (aka Zenman) who said he was one of the first to import clothing from China, which made him a self-made millionaire by the age of 20. He has since gone on to be one of Hong Kong's wealthiest citizens. Here are a few links that could give some idea of how this once thriving industry shrunk to nothing.

1.   April 1936, GB Gordon, boss of Dominion Textiles closes Sherbrooke rayon mill, denies the closure was a threat to government against Japanese imports.
2. August 1964 japan agrees to voluntary reduction of textile exports to Canada
3. 1971 - Import quotas were slapped onto imported shirts 1.2 million would be allowed in.
4. 1976 Voluntary quotas are proposed ,some ridicule the idea.
5. March 1977 US threatens trade war after Canada renews limits on imports
6. September 1984 Canada Textile Association says that 37 percent of Canadian clothing sales are imports. And warns it could rise.
7. 1985 foreign countries oppose textile quotas but Canadian textile industry wants it.
8. 1985 Canadian shirt imports from Bangladesh rise from 12,000 in 1983 to 800,000 in 1985.
9. 1986 Canadian homemade clothing slipped to 57% of all clothing sold in Canada from 69 five years earlier.