Back to top
Silver Dart 100th Anniversary Act

BILL NO. 207

(as introduced)

2nd Session, 60th General Assembly
Nova Scotia
57 Elizabeth II, 2008



Private Member's Bill



Silver Dart 100th Anniversary Act



Keith Bain
Victoria-The Lakes



First Reading: November 5, 2008

Second Reading: November 18, 2008

Third Reading: November 20, 2008 (WITH COMMITTEE AMENDMENTS) (LINK TO BILL AS PASSED)

An Act to Celebrate the 100th Anniversary
of the First Powered Flight in the British Empire
by the Silver Dart in Nova Scotia

WHEREAS Nova Scotia is a province of many firsts;

AND WHEREAS the Aerial Experiment Association, formed in 1907, consisted of Alexander Graham Bell (chairman), Frederick W. "Casey" Baldwin (chief engineer), J. A. Douglas McCurdy (treasurer and assistant engineer), Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge (secretary) and Glenn H. Curtiss (director of experiments) and was financed by Mabel Bell;

AND WHEREAS the Association designed and built several airplanes, including the Silver Dart;

AND WHEREAS on February 23, 1909, the Silver Dart, piloted by Douglas McCurdy, flew from the ice-covered Bras d'Or Lake at Baddeck, in the County of Victoria in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia;

AND WHEREAS this flight was the first controlled powered flight of a heavier-than-air machine not only in Canada but in the British Empire;

AND WHEREAS the year 2009 is the one hundredth anniversary of this historic flight;

THEREFORE be it enacted by the Governor and Assembly as follows:

1 This Act may be cited as the Silver Dart 100th Anniversary Act.

2 Throughout the Province, the year 2009 shall be celebrated as the one hundredth anniversary of the first airplane flight in the British Empire by the Silver Dart in the Province.

3 This Act comes into force on such day as the Governor in Council orders and declares by proclamation.


This page and its contents published by the Office of the Legislative Counsel, Nova Scotia House of Assembly, and © 2008 Crown in right of Nova Scotia. Created December 2, 2008. Send comments to legc.office@novascotia.ca.