Oakville resident Jean-Louis Brenninkmeijer dreams big for Little Canada

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Since 2011, Jean-Louis Brenninkmeijer has been dreaming big about a little project. Now, despite the endless delays we have seen and experienced in 2020, he looks ahead to launching Little Canada, an exhibit of Canada in miniature size. 

Born in the United Kingdom, Brenninkmeijer has lived all over Europe, including Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Belgium. He was working in Brussels before business called him to Canada in 1999. But what was supposed to be a two-year stay ended up as a permanent relocation to Canada, and Brenninkmeijer and his family soon established roots in Oakville, Ontario. 

“We arrived in Canada and fell in love with the country, its diversity, culture and climate,” says Brenninkmeijer, who now has four boys with his wife. “We’ve all become Canadian.”

Brenninkmeijer recalled a school project each of his sons completed in the fourth grade. The assignment was to research a province in Canada and learn about its history, culture and landscape. Like many parents can attest to, Brenninkmeijer says, he and his wife became heavily involved. When he realized they had learned more from this one project than they did in their years living in Canada, Brenninkmeijer says he was inspired to share this type of education with others. 

“I thought, if I could use this project to convey information you wouldn’t necessarily learn in a history book, that would be a wonderful,” he says. 

On a 2011 trip to Hamburg, Germany, Brenninkmeijer visited Miniatur Wunderland, the largest model railway and miniature airport attraction in the world, which he says was another source of inspiration for him. Upon returning to Canada, he was determined to bring his fledgling idea to life. 

Brenninkmeijer started emailing different model railway clubs across the Greater Toronto Area in an effort to find a business partner for this endeavour. He soon found David MacLean, a civil engineer and then-president of the Toronto Model Railway Club in Liberty Village. For 18 months they met at Moxie’s in Mississauga’s Square One to develop the project’s initial stages before they decided it was time to start building in December 2013. 

At the very beginning, Brenninkmeijer and MacLean ventured out to hardware stores like Home Depot to buy plywood, table saws and other materials to begin the hands-on labour themselves. Over time, the team has grown to a 50-person project. About 35 people are responsible for the hands-on building, while the rest of the team makes up other departments, like Marketing, Operations and Finance. 

“If you compared what Dave and I did to what’s done today, it’s all computer designed and laser-cut put together in a matter of minutes,” Brenninkmeijer says. “There’s an outstanding amount of work that guests don’t see.” 

Brenninkmeijer says it takes about nine to 12 months to build one city, or what they call in the exhibit, a “destination.” Intricate electrical work lays below the surface of what visitors will see in the exhibit. Each part has electric wires underneath to power hair-thin LED lights in buildings and light posts as well as mobilize miniatures cars on the Highway of Heroes and TTC streetcars in Little Toronto.  

To garner an accurate picture of what each destination should look like, the Little Canada team visited the real-life places, including Ottawa and Niagara. Back in 2014, the team started building in a Mississauga warehouse, but in August of 2019, they secured a 20-year lease at a permanent location in the heart of downtown Toronto. Located at 10 Dundas St. E, across from Yonge & Dundas Square, the 14,000 sqft. space provides a spacious, visitor-friendly venue and offers the exhibit enough room to grow in the coming years. 

Although the Little Canada opening was delayed in July 2020 due to COVID-19, the team hopes to open to the public in the spring or summer of 2021, depending on provincial restrictions. 

The exhibit will open with its first five destinations: Niagara, the Golden Horseshoe, Toronto, Ottawa and Québec. Over time, Brenninkmeijer says they will add the rest of Canada to the installation, including the North, Montreal, the East Coast, the Prairies, the Rockies and the West Coast. 

Little Canada has been funded by Brenninkmeijer himself as well as by private investments. In total, they have more than 180 investments, which helps to fund the creation of the exhibit. Each destination costs approximately $1 million to build.  

“Through a deliberate system, we came up with a priority list of what we wanted to include in each exhibit. We used our imagination and experience. It was not easy,” Brenninkmeijer says. “Bearing in mind that most people don’t have the opportunity to visit [every city or province], we want to show visitors what Canada truly is.”