Ontario March of Dimes takes its name from one of the best-known fundraising drives in history -- the March of Dimes to end polio.

The very mention of the word polio (or poliomyelitis) struck fear into the hearts of Canadians during the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s.

In the first half of the last century it ravaged North America, and children were most often its victims. The virus attacked the nervous system, and over the course of the epidemics, thousands of people died and tens of thousands more were left paralyzed or with disabilities.

The first appearance of the March of Dimes in Canada was in 1949, but the organization was incarnated in 1951 as the Canadian Foundation for Poliomyelitis.

Desperate to find a cure and protect their own children, mothers across Canada joined in the North America-wide fundraising effort, going door to door in their own neighbourhoods to collect dimes.

The sheer scope of the campaign led entertainer Eddie Cantor to suggest the name "March of Dimes", based on the song "Brother can you spare a dime?" produced during the Great Depression.

Receiving Treatment

By 1951 the Canadian Foundation for Poliomyelitis was established and granted use of the name “March of Dimes.”

Then came the historic day in 1955 when world headlines announced that the polio vaccine created by Dr. Jonas Salk had been proven effective in limited test trials.

As the world breathed a sigh of relief, laboratories rushed to manufacture the vaccine, including Connaught Laboratories (now sanofi pasteur) in Toronto, Canada.

Yet more battles were to come.

In the U.S., 79 children, who had received the vaccine from Cutter Laboratories in California, contracted polio. Within a week, the U.S. Surgeon General cancelled the entire vaccination program in the United States.

The Canadian government was under the same pressure to cancel its vaccination trials. The Prime Minister of the day, Rt. Hon. Louis St. Laurent, and many other public figures, did not want to risk continuing the inoculations. Paul Martin Sr., as Minister of Health and Welfare, faced possibly the most difficult decision in his life of public service.

Rt. Hon Paul Martin Sr.

Yet Martin risked his career as a Minister of the Crown, and went ahead with the program. It has been said he even threatened to resign his seat if Prime Minister Laurent and the federal Cabinet would not continue the vaccinations.

Martin Sr. cited his confidence in Connaught Labs as the main reason he continued, and Canada's vaccine proved safe and effective.   

With the threat of polio greatly diminished, the March of Dimes in Canada began funding centres for people who had already contracted the disease, and the early programs focused mostly on rehabilitation and job training.

By the early 1960s, the organization had grown, with its mandate shifting considerably to serve the broader needs of all adults with physical disabilities, and in Ontario the legal name was changed to the Rehabilitation Foundation for the Disabled.

Today, March of Dimes is dedicated to "creating a society inclusive of people with physical disabilities."

See our Milestones page for a more detailed look at our history.