As the 1900s dawned, Ontario boasted a population of two million, half of whom lived on the land. All that was about to change. In 1903, Henry Ford founded the Ford Motor Company and the next year arranged for vehicles to be manufactured in Windsor for the British Empire.

The same year, Fred LaRose threw his hammer at what he thought was a fox’s eyes and discovered the richest silver vein in the world, at Cobalt in northern Ontario.

Large-scale industry had come to Ontario. In 1906, the water power of Niagara Falls was harnessed with the launch of the Ontario Hydro-Electric Commission, which evolved into Ontario Hydro, which evolved into Ontario Power Generation, one of the world's largest power utilities.

Between 1911 and 1913, one million people immigrated to Canada, most settling in Ontario.