Editing Telecommunications in Canada (section)

== History ==
{{See also|All Red Line|CNCP Telecommunications}}

[[File:All Red Line.jpg|thumb|200px|right|The [[All Red Line]] cable for the [[British Empire]]. Canada as an interconnection-point. c.a. 1903]]
The history of [[telegraphy]] in Canada dates back to the [[Province of Canada]].  While the first telegraph company was the Toronto, Hamilton and Niagara Electro-Magnetic Telegraph Company, founded in 1846, it was the [[Montreal Telegraph Company]], controlled by [[Hugh Allan]] and founded a year later, that dominated in Canada during the technology's early years.<ref name="canencyclo"/>

Following the 1852 [[Telegraph Act]], Canada's first permanent [[Transatlantic telegraph cable|transatlantic telegraph link]] was a submarine cable built in 1866 between [[History of Ireland (1801–1923)|Ireland]] and [[Newfoundland Colony|Newfoundland]].<ref name="CRTC"/> [[Telegram]]s were sent through networks built by [[Canadian Pacific Railway|Canadian Pacific]] and [[Canadian National]].

In 1868 Montreal Telegraph began facing competition from the newly established Dominion Telegraph Company.<ref name="canencyclo"/> 1880 saw the Great North Western Telegraph Company established to connect [[Ontario]] and [[Manitoba]] but within a year it was taken over by [[Western Union]], leading briefly to that company's control of almost all telegraphy in Canada.<ref name="canencyclo"/> In 1882, Canadian Pacific transmitted its first commercial telegram over telegraph lines they had erected alongside its tracks,<ref name="CPRail"/> breaking Western Union's monopoly. Great North Western Telegraph, facing bankruptcy, was taken over in 1915 by Canadian Northern.<ref name="canencyclo"/>

By the end of [[World War II]], Canadians communicated by telephone more than any other country.<ref>{{cite web|title=Canada Says Hello: The First Century of the Telephone|publisher=[[CBC.ca]]|date=2012-03-10|url=http://www.cbc.ca/archives/topic/canada-says-hello-the-first-century-of-the-telephone|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160222172555/http://www.cbc.ca/archives/topic/canada-says-hello-the-first-century-of-the-telephone|archive-date=2016-02-22}}</ref> In 1967 the CP and CN networks were merged to form [[CNCP Telecommunications]].

As of 1951, approximately 7000 messages were sent daily from the United States to Canada.<ref name="wutr1951"/>  An agreement with [[Western Union]] required that U.S. company to route messages in a specified ratio of 3:1, with three telegraphic messages transmitted to Canadian National for every message transmitted to Canadian Pacific.<ref name="wutr1951"/> The agreement was complicated by the fact that some Canadian destinations were served by only one of the two networks.<ref name="wutr1951"/>