A note about the preceding sections: an Introduction and “Chapter One: The Evidence Against Us” have been published here; https://socialcanada.org. They provide the context for our foray into the good, the bad, and the ugly of the baby boom.
I begin here to insert my life into the story, and to trace the development of the welfare state during my childhood. The Canadian welfare state was mostly put into place during the early years of the baby boom and I am in the leading edge. I guess I might be a good test case for its role.
I start where I started – in Amherst Nova Scotia, in 1947, where a nurse hung a blue blanket from my mother’s hospital window so my dad’s mother would see from her window that it was a boy. She died soon after. My grandfather on that side had died a few years earlier as a result of an accident loading coal onto a wagon at the experimental farm. A big lump fell and gouged him. He kept working because he couldn’t afford to take the time off, or pay a doctor. No health insurance. No sick pay. He died of blood poisoning, now called sepsis.
On my mother’s side, my Granny lived to be 90, and she played card games with us. She lived in a big old house on the Bay of Fundy, in Advocate Harbour, the most beautiful place on earth. We spent a lot of time there. Granny had asthma and the fog over the bay almost every morning was not good for her, but she never complained. She would sometimes heat a pot of water and put a cup towel over her head so she could inhale the steam, scented with Vicks Vaporub.
My grandfather, Asher Knowlton, had the house built when they were married. He was a sea captain and spent much of his life sailing wooden schooners and barques from Nova Scotia down the Atlantic coast to the Caribbean. He took lumber and salted cod down, and brought back molasses and sugar (and rum). My mother remembered three times that his ship was declared lost at sea, only to be heard from a few weeks later, from one of the Caribbean islands where they were storm-stayed. I wonder sometimes if those storms might have been convenient.
I retain a great nostalgia for Advocate Harbour, where I spent lots of time in a loving environment with cousins and friends, walking in the woods, hiking to Cape d’Or to look for fool’s gold, fishing for trout or eels in the brooks, or cod or pollock on the boats, or digging clams or collecting dulse in the low tide period. I had a .22 rifle to shoot rabbits (never shot at one) and got to go a couple of times with my father and brother-in-law, for deer. They gave me a shotgun in case we saw a partridge. I did see a deer once, looking at me from a bush. My brother-in-law couldn’t see it so he handed me his rifle. But I took so long bringing it to my shoulder that the deer was gone. I breathed a sigh of relief. But I didn’t admit that. Wouldn’t be manly not to want to shoot animals. And they were of great value. A deer would be gutted, skinned, and hung up in a barn, likely beside half of a cow, and butchered over the winter. I helped with the skinning. The carcass would thaw around the periphery from time to time, but no one seemed to mind that unless there was an extended warm period. In that case, the meat would be butchered, wrapped in waxed paper and placed into buckets that were lowered into the well. Of course, a few roasts were given to extended family or close friends, part of social reciprocity.
On a trip there in the 70’s with my own young family, we bought a History of Advocate booklet prepared by the senior citizens organization and sold at a fair. The booklet mentioned that many of the place names in the area were French in origin, but that most of the French settlers had “moved away a long time ago.” – a passing reference to Great Britain’s expulsion of the Acadians from the Maritime Provinces in the 18th century.
Amherst was still a busy manufacturing town when I was born, producing airplane and railway parts, construction steel and clothing. It was also a railway hub. Some used to say of Amherst that its bright future was all behind it. With the expanding railway system, manufacturing was being displaced to Ontario.
But its past was interesting. Leon Trotsky spent a month there – not willingly – and wrote about it.[1] In 1917 he was on his way from New York back to Russia to join the revolutionary government. However, when the ship stopped in Halifax, he was arrested by British officials with Canadian police. From there he was taken to Amherst and spent a month in a prison camp for German prisoners of war, before the Russian revolutionary government sent for him. He wrote that a class difference existed even among the prisoners, between the officers and the soldiers and sailors. He felt an affinity with the latter, and after a couple of weeks, was barred by the administrators from making political speeches to them.
Going back even farther, Amherst prides itself as the home of four Fathers of Confederation -RB Dickey, Sir Charles Tupper, EB Chandler, and Jonathan McCully. No Mothers. There was little recognition of the role of the French in settlement, and many who remained had anglicized their names. Also no recognition that the indigenous people had been conquered and pushed onto reservations. The injustices of colonization had been buried by white historians and were not acknowledged in schools, churches, or on the streets. There was still a historic fort nearby – Fort Beausejour – which commemorated the British victory over the French.
Like my grandfather, (and me for a summer) my dad had also worked at the experimental farm, and then at Robb Engineering, which fabricated steel for bridges and buildings, and “in the woods” (cutting lumber) when he got laid off in winter. He eventually got to be a foreman at the steel works factory, then head foreman. His wages were enough to support the family of six. The Family Allowance (called the Baby Bonus) helped out with a monthly cheque. We had a house, a used car, rented a cottage from family or friends for a couple of weeks in the summer, made little camping trips to nearby places.
Still, we lived on a very tight budget. When I was about to graduate high school, my parents took me to Mansour’s clothing store to buy me a sport coat and pants for the event, and for going off to college (where I never wore them). My dad asked Norm Mansour if he could “have a little time” to pay off the bill. Norm replied “Ernie, your name is as good as the Bank of Nova Scotia.” Of course, if it wasn’t good, Norm would have known. Small towns didn’t offer a lot of privacy in those days.
Despite my father being blue collar, despite our tight budget, we were solidly middle class in Amherst. There were a few company managers and professionals, who owned bigger homes and bigger cars, but they could not really distance themselves from the rest of us. Their kids went to the public schools. The wealthy weren’t many, and they needed workers to make their products and buy their services. Our standard of living was shared by the majority of the town’s population. I don’t think the middle class would be so easily identifiable now.
I remember what might have been a working-class attitude – that you shouldn’t hold your head too high. If you did you were said to be looking down your nose at others. Being tall, this pushed me to develop a bit of an eyes-lowered slouch, which I still have. You were also not supposed to look at yourself in a mirror, as that would suggest that you were conceited. Modesty was admired.
We were a big hockey town, and the Amherst Ramblers played in a Maritime league. They had some great seasons, even making it to the national championship competition. We got to see a few local games, but mostly listened to them on the radio.
Another of the town’s favorite spectator sports was wrestling. We were on a circuit of professional wrestlers, and I got to see some of them, including the famous champion, Whipper Billy Watson. A contemporary of my older brother, Rocky Johnson (born Wade Bowles), also became a famous wrestler, although he moved to Toronto and then the US early on. His son carried on the sport before becoming an even more famous actor – Dwayne (The Rock) Johnson.
In 1989, when Amherst celebrated its 100th birthday since being incorporated (it was actually established in 1764), the Amherst Daily News ran a series of articles which had been published a century earlier. One article was a year-end report on municipal income assistance. The name and address of each recipient was published along with a detailed account of how much money they had received. No privacy when you’re poor. Another 100th anniversary story in the newspaper was a count of the number of houses in Amherst. Earlier the population had reached 14,000, but in 1989 was down to 9500. However, the number of houses had doubled since the earlier days. The trend to homes occupied by smaller, nuclear families, was clear.
Our house was a small two-story with four small bedrooms and one bathroom. My parents had been renting it in the 1940’s when it went up for auction. They were panicking as they had only been able to borrow $750. Luckily, that was the amount that it sold for.
It was well-located on a quiet street near the school. We walked to school on our own after the first day. The teachers knew us. A doctor and his family lived across the street in a large house that included his medical office. He vaccinated us. But he charged for other services, so most of our illnesses and injuries were dealt with at home. We were fortunate to get the polio vaccine soon enough to avoid the disease. My cousin who lived on a farm several miles from the town, didn’t get it in time and contracted the disease. He was very sick for a long time and still wears a leg brace.
From the earliest days of our childhood, in our homes, our neighbourhoods, our sports leagues, our playgrounds, our stores, we learned and internalized labels for others, be they African Canadian, Indigenous, French, German, Chinese, Japanese, Italian, Newfoundlander, Roman Catholic, homosexual, physically or mentally handicapped. Nowadays we are admonished not to use these names, even to acknowledge the injustice of them. We use woke codes like “n-word.” In those days we freely identified difference through pejorative labels. There were many labels. All of the reasons for being different were coded and imprinted into our daily life. We sort of knew that you didn’t call those people those names to their faces unless you wanted a fight. But that was who they were in the town, in casual conversation, and especially in jokes. Much of our culture of humour revolved around those different from the mainstream, with their different accents, their misunderstandings of English, or their behaviour patterns exaggerated.
My Dad was a little league baseball coach and very popular among the kids. He made sure that every child had a chance to play, and was encouraged, regardless of their color, background or ability. Where he worked, there was a black guy who loaded trucks. Dad would talk about him, about Ted, often relaying a joking conversation they had enjoyed.
When I was in high school I got involved in a storefront YMCA that opened in the town. I became a kind of volunteer assistant to the one employee Wilf, who had been recruited from the Halifax Y. One day I invited Wilf home for lunch. My parents were out, but they came in just as we were cleaning up. They were very friendly and polite to Wilf. Later I asked Dad if he liked Wilf, and he said, “Well, he’s quite the (n-word).” I said, “What do you mean Dad? You and Ted are friends.” He said “Yes, but you don’t invite them into your house.”
When my brother announced to my mother that he was going to marry his girlfriend, who was Catholic, Mom said “Well, I guess it’s better than marrying a (n-word).” The differences and the attitudes and the labels were embedded in their lives and culture too. And in their parents…
One of the streets in Amherst was sometimes called the Mason Dixon Line, because it divided the town by colour, although less so as time went on. Integrated schools and children’s sports helped a lot, but didn’t get rid of discrimination. Black people went to their own church. The churches were the moral compasses for pretty much everyone, and they perpetuated distinction.
My cousin owned a tire sales business, a one-man operation selling mostly retread tires to truckers. I remember a conversation between my cousin and a customer, about a local rape trial. Seems there was a law that sex with a minor was considered statutory rape, even, as the trucker said “ if she squats on it.” According to him, when the defense attorney asked the doctor if the rape had hurt the girl in any way the doctor replied, “No, done ‘er a world a’ good.” Of course, I can’t be sure that the doctor actually said that, but it does reflect a prevailing attitude.
We saw the great transition in music – from Eddie Arnold and Pat Boone, to Elvis, Carl Perkins, Buddy Holly and of course, the Beatles. And television, watching Ed Sullivan and The Little Rascals, and Bonanza, mixed with local or regional programming. We also watched the Bunkhouse boys from Moncton and Don Messer’s Jubilee from Charlottetown. My mother and her friends would cluck with disapproval when the Bookta Dancers’ skirts whirled high.
When we got a bit older we moved on to “The Times They are a’Changing”, and “Talkin ‘Bout my Generation”, with the famous line “I hope I die before I get old.” Our parents received little respect and no gratitude.
Elementary and secondary schools were expanding rapidly in number and size, and gradually being taken over financially from local councils by provincial governments. I was in Class 7G one year, indicating that there were at least seven Grade 7’s that year.
In high school, our Civics class would occasionally welcome our school guidance counsellor. He would talk to us about our options for the future. He devoted no time to discuss university programs and professional career paths except to tell us how to apply for scholarships and fellowships. Most of us paid little attention as it was clear that only top students would get scholarships, and almost no one else could afford to go. He did explain apprenticeships for trades, and he showed us how to fill out application forms for the RCMP, regular armed forces, employment at a bank. The military was a major vehicle for social mobility for boys especially – people who could not get to university because of cost, could join and learn a trade. Girls could go to “Commercial,” a class run by the Catholic church, and learn to be typists or secretaries.
As I was an Army Cadet and involved in the Student Militia (summer job), and had acceptable marks (B-range) I was encouraged by the adult officers to try the ROTP selection process for university officer training. I made it through. I was told by one of the recruiters that I might have to take an engineering course, even though I wanted to be an architect. In fact, I knew very little about these professions, except that engineers designed bridges (where the steel from my father’s workplace went) and I didn’t want to do that.
Halfway through grade twelve, my Phys Ed teacher told me that the federal government had just announced physical education scholarships, and suggested I apply. Since I was captain of the school basketball team and I had helped him set up some weight training equipment he was willing to support my application. I applied, got the scholarship and because of different provincial definitions of junior and senior matriculation, I was accepted into second year Phys Ed at UNB in Fredericton. I also was awarded a Paul William Alexander bursary from the YMCA. I decided to go that route. Bad Decision. I will come back to it with more detail, but I flunked out. Fortunately the next year, federal student loans were introduced and salvaged my hopes for higher education. Otherwise I would have been on my way to Ontario to look for a job on an automobile assembly line.
Some reflections
How can you love a town and a fishing village that welcomed you, nurtured you, protected you, helped launch your career, and in the process also prepared you for a racist, bigoted, misogynist society? The discrimination and naming were so ingrained into the culture, that I had a number of revelations in later years, at different pivotal points – realizing that I was part of an oppressive society. Realizing that my own actions, my unconsidered assumptions, my jokes, my protective attitudes and vague fears, were part of that. And thankfully, realizing that I could divest myself of veils of prejudice. I do think these attitudes are based in a primordial fear of the stranger, the unknown person or group who may pose a threat. They are then developed into cultural self-protective mechanisms. Perhaps a kind of tribalism. Our brains and our cultural patterns did not evolve as quickly as our society.
But the school system got me into university. The church, and particularly Sunday School, hammered in the Golden Rule. The volunteer-organized sports leagues taught me team play, the community organization that set up the YMCA, and the dances in church halls, all supported my development. And unbeknownst to me, the nation was organizing the social infrastructure needed for the further education, health care, employment supports and legislative guardrails for 8 million of us to survive our frenzied adolescence and to stumble, still idealistic, into adulthood.
The Building of the Welfare State
The community where I grew up was dominated by traditions of the British Isles. There was often someone practicing their bagpipes early in the morning or late afternoon. Painful. The descendants of British, Scottish, Welsh and Irish settlers, of British empire loyalists who arrived during and after the American Revolution, formed a comfortable majority. These were augmented by the offspring of British “Home Children” sent to the colonies especially during famines. These orphans and children of impoverished families were sent between the late 19th century up to the post-war period. Many of them were put to work on farms and treated as slaves. Something like 100,000 of them were sent to Canada and I believe that there are close to five million descendants in the country[2] now. I might be one of them.
In fact, a national organization, the Canadian Welfare Council, was formed in 1919 to help develop child protection services for those and other vulnerable children, to foster the development of professional social services, and to advise governments on the social concerns of the day.[3] That Council would come to play a big role in my life. People familiar with it, even when the name was changed to the Canadian Council on Social Development, just referred to it as “the Council” so I will continue to do so.
Originally led by Charlotte Whitton, and during the war years by George Davidson (who left to become Canada’s first deputy minister of welfare), the Council brought a national focus on social issues. It was the national voice of a wide variety of local service providers, including churches, child welfare agencies, municipal social assistance providers, maternal and child health organizations, social workers, community funds such as the Community Chest and Red Feather agencies (which would become the United Way system) and many others.
Working in concert with governments, it had a large board of governors representing the social and health professions and the elites of business, labour, women’s organizations and local governments. It was an effective advocate and catalyst for social and political consensus on the need for a national role in social protection and public services. (Whitton was an unusual feminist, as she is said to have sent the female workers home if they arrived at work with the seams on their stockings crooked. Another story is that she had the mirror in the women’s washroom painted black so they would not waste time working on their make-up.) She also was not always in agreement with others in the Council – board, staff, members, policy experts and advocates. For example, she was not a proponent of family allowances. But the fact that many national programs were hotly contested even among the traditional constituents of social policy – labour, women, churches, professions, anti-poverty groups, etc – was a reflection of Canadian reality. Consensus is still elusive.
I should clarify that the national welfare state did not necessarily invent social programs. Many existed in earlier years, supported by churches, nonprofit organizations, local governments, and provinces. What the welfare state did was to improve them, apply standards and legislate conditions which defined a legal right of access rather than charity, and fund them, partially or wholly, through federal or federal-provincial taxation. With time, many benefits were transmitted directly through the tax system, including the systematic redistribution of income by progressive taxation and income-related benefits. The federal government took on additional tax powers during the war to manage the financial burden, and consolidated those powers in 1948, administering both federal and provincial income and corporate taxes. (Except for Quebec, which established its own corporate tax in 1947, and income tax in 1954.) It was thus prepared financially to take on a stronger role, and to incorporate the social health of the nation into the big picture of federal policy .
The idea of a national welfare state originated in Europe, notably under Bismarck in Germany in the late 1800’s, and was carried into North America by the British. It placed the state as the manager of the overall welfare of the public, in the context of a capitalist society. At the time, industry was growing and becoming more powerful. The guilds that protected some workers in regional economies were ineffective in the face of mass production and national-scale industry. Workers took on great risks in the early industrial period. Work was brutal and often dangerous and took a toll. So accident and disability insurance were necessary to keep workers on the job, and to help industry avoid liability. These also served to gather political support for the nation-state and a national industrial economy.
The UK had old age pensions and national insurance for health and unemployment in place in the early 1900’s. The Beveridge Report of 1942 brought a design for UK labour market programs and universal, tax-supported health care.
In North America, the launch of the welfare state is usually accredited to US President Franklyn D Roosevelt and the New Deal. It was introduced in 1933, and a second version in 1938, and was generated by the suffering and labour unrest of the Depression. The first New Deal focused on public works and underpinning the banks. The second extended job creation projects and added programs to support the elderly, the poor, and conditions of work. Workers gained a right to organize unions while a labour standards act reduced child labour, established a national minimum wage and a 40-hour work week.
Canadians were proud that their country had independently declared war in 1939, rather than being included automatically as we were in 1914, when our foreign policy was under British jurisdiction. The 1931 Statute of Westminster had turned that power over to us. The creation of our own armed forces, our massive shipbuilding, aircraft and munitions manufacturing, our role in the emancipation of Europe, and our participation in the formation of the UN, all contributed to national identity. The year I was born, 1947, Canadians became citizens of Canada, rather than British subjects. We were ready for an active nation-state, if unsure how it should evolve through fractious federal-provincial governance.
The Canadian (Conservative) Prime Minister RB Bennet proposed a New Deal in 1935. Like the US program, it would have established unemployment insurance and health insurance, as well as improving the existing old age pension. But he lost the election and the proposals were forgotten until the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations (Rowell-Sirois Commission) was established in 1937 and reported in 1940.
The (Canadian Welfare) Council made sixteen separate submissions to the Commission, on different social problems and proposed resolutions. The Commission report reflected some of these submissions. It recommended that the federal government maintain and increase its taxation power, take over unemployment insurance and pensions, as well as make equalization payments and other direct transfers to the provinces, recognizing that health, education and welfare responsibilities were growing rapidly with the effects of the depression. The recommendations were not rejected, but onnly the unemployment insurance recommendation was immediately implemented.
In 1943, The Report on Social Security for Canada[4] (the Leonard Marsh report) was written for a Parliamentary committee. It described a social security system that emphasized full employment and social insurance for income along with public health insurance, with all but medical care and workers’ compensation administered by the federal government. Although it was not taken up by the government, Makenzie King introduced one measure, family allowances, going into an election in 1944. In 1945 the federal government proposed a watered-down but similar social security plan (the Green Book proposals). It was met with opposition by the provinces, and dropped. But King had introduced the Unemployment Insurance Act in 1941 and added Family Allowances in 1945. National Housing Act Amendments in 1948 expanded the federal role in affordable housing for veterans. The implementation of equalization payments was intended to permit provinces to deliver reasonably comparable programs at reasonably comparable tax levels, and had the effect of strengthening the provincial role in negotiating new programs.
The policies proposed by the three reports (Rowell-Sirois, Marsh, and Green Book) were gradually implemented over time, with the federal government enticing one or more provinces to sign on to a new program, after which the others followed suit over subsequent years. The constitutional “spending power” – the power of the federal government to spend money anywhere, even in areas of provincial jurisdiction, was a critical factor in enticing provinces to move toward national comparability and portability of access from one province to another. That also supported labour mobility and a right to work anywhere in the country.
When I worked in the social services area in the 70’s, progress was referred to as incrementalism. This was a term used by Louis St Laurent during his stint as Prime Minister (1948-57). He supported expansion of social programs and an active role of the federal government, but always insisted on working cooperatively with provincial governments. Although reference to the nation state having a responsibility was frequent, it was always accompanied by a qualifying reference to the need for Canadians to be self-reliant. A continuing reluctance to give money to people who weren’t employed. A principle put in place at the time was that the “welfare poor” should receive less money than the lowest-paid worker. It endured over the years.
Throughout the post-war period, the Council was able to bring together government and non-profit organizations, academics and experts, through conferences, focussed meetings, and local workshops, to consider next steps and develop proposals. For example, when unemployment began to rise in the mid-fifties, they were able to convince the federal government to help the provinces to fund unemployment assistance for those unable to find work when their unemployment insurance benefits ran out.
It is worth noting that even though the Canadian system of government arguably provides more power to the federal government than in the USA, progress in implementing broad social programs was slow. The provinces jealously guarded their jurisdictions, and still do. Keith Banting, a prominent political scientist and my boss for a while when I taught part-time at Queens, pointed out that public opinion polls in Canada and the US in the post-war years showed remarkable similarity in attitudes toward an increased government role in health and social security. He attributed the fact that the US went toward an employer-based system while Canada leaned toward government and universal programs, to different institutions of government rather than attitudes[5]. We were really still a British colony, married to a French Quebec that was growing in power, and we were negotiating the federal-provincial form of our nation-state. (Seems like we are still doing that.) State governments in the US were more mature, and their sheer numbers undermined the potential for them to block or deter federal action. Why the US chose an employer-based system is probably based on a prevailing US attitude to keep government small and constrained. In both countries, the primary objective of welfare state policy was to support full employment.
The Role of Unions
The depression and war provided a big boost to union growth, with a shift from small craft unions to industrial models, especially in manufacturing, construction, and transportation. This was critical to the formation of the welfare state in both the US and Canada, but followed separate and diverging paths.
In the US[6], union organization took place quickly and unionization reached 35% of the labour force in 1945. From about 1955 it declined steadily, reaching 10% in 2024, covering 32% of the public sector and only 6% of private sector workers.
In Canada[7], union coverage grew from about 25% in 1945 to about 37% in 1981, before declining to under 30% in 2024, with 77% of public sector workers and about 15% of private sector workers. So Canadian unionization was slower but has lasted longer, primarily because of the broad public sector coverage.
During those times when unions were strong and their solidarity was evident, public policy focussed on workers’ and their families’ well-being. Their influence on welfare state policies was strong, if focused on a male-dominated workforce.
For the most part, jurisdiction of conditions of labour and collective bargaining has been jealously guarded by the provinces. They set the minimum wage, provide workers’ compensation, establish conditions of work such as the work week, minimum vacations and sick leave.
The Council as a national project
Going back to the formative days in the post-war period, the Council’s board of governors was a group of elites of Canadian society. Business leaders, labour leaders, politicians, religious and community leaders, municipal leaders, and the leaders of the expanding social and health professions, met to discuss the social challenges of the day. The Council building in Ottawa was built in the late 1950’s after a massive fundraising process, apparently led by EP Taylor, one of the richest business leaders in the country at the time.
When I took on the director role of the Council in 1980 and spent some time rummaging through the Council library, I found a large set of manual records wherein, I was told the goal was for every municipality, every local United Way, every incorporated business, and every labour union in the country to donate at least one dollar to the campaign. I’m not sure how close they got, but the list of one-dollar donations was many large pages long. The construction of the Council building and the construction of the welfare state might not have been perefectly parallel, but they were both thoroughly national.
The development of the United Nations and human rights legislation.
As early as 1941, the Allies led by Franklyn Roosevelt, began talking about reforming the existing League of Nations, which had been ineffective in preventing WW2. They wanted a generalized international organization that would intervene to protect national sovereignty, provide peacekeeping operations in conflict zones, promote and extend democracy, and provide an international forum for the development of human rights legislation. The UN was formed as a result of support from a 50-nation meeting in 1945.
In 1948, the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR) was passed, having been drafted by a committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt. It was comprehensive, if not enforceable. But it did provide model language that several governments including Canada, would adopt and legislate as domestic law. It covered various forms of discrimination (race, religion, culture, sex), property rights, rights to freedom of speech, dignity and life, and aspirational rights to economic, social and cultural protection.
The Council was indirectly but importantly involved in the development of the UDHR. John Humphrey, the Director of the UN’s Human Rights Division, and who wrote the first draft of the document, was aware of the Council’s work from his earlier teaching role in international and human rights law at McGill University. Moreover, much of the UDHR was derived from resolutions of the International Labour Organization (the ILO), which had existed since 1919. By coincidence, the ILO had been hosted at McGill from 1940 to 1948, having decamped from Geneva when Switzerland was surrounded by the German army. The Council participated in national consultations led by the federal government, and submitted several briefs on social security, workers’ rights, disability issues, and discrimination. Humphrey was considered a friend of the Council. McGill was also where Leonard Marsh was teaching when recruited to write his report. The university was a leader in the intellectual foundations of the Canadian welfare state and a major contributor to the work of the Council.
Like almost everything else, human rights legislation developed piecemeal in Canada, with provinces legislating partial protections for workers or to prevent specific kinds of discrimination, in the 1940’s and 50’s. In the 60’s and 70’s, federal and provincial governments codified broader and more comprehensive coverage, adopting the language of the UDHR.
Conclusion
So, it turns out that as I was growing up, the social protection and the supports that helped me to gain a profession and social mobility, were being laid down almost in front of me as I moved along.
There have been points of inflection in our social history and the post-war period was one of them. Perhaps a Marxist mindset of a class struggle, with the rising power of labour unions, would fit the context. Or perhaps it was the influence of economist John Maynard Keynes[8] who described how governments can help to moderate economic cycles through anti-cyclical spending, such as unemployment insurance. Or perhaps Karl Polanyi[9] has a workable perspective, suggesting that social coalitions or time-limited consensus can influence the actions of wealth and power at specific junctures, while not being cohesive enough to dominate over time.
The national war effort, war economy, the social solidarity, and the expansion of central taxation for the emerging nation-state, provided the confluence of circumstances that supported the development of the welfare state. The coordinated actions of the social services sector, including those orchestrated by the Council, contributed to forming an elusive national consensus.
The economics and demographics were also coming into place to support the idea that the health, income security and general well-being of the population should be managed by the state, and not left to the family or community charity. Labour-saving technology enhanced the production of the average worker and also made middle class life easier and more pleasant. The economic prosperity of the post-war period, the optimism about the future, the shrinking role of the extended family, the shift toward urban life, and the need to provide for a huge baby boom – all supported the development of the welfare state.
And oh, by the way…
…Canada came out of the war with a debt of more than 150% of GDP. Although that debt remained and grew, the economy grew much faster, so that by the sixties it represented only 30 – 40% of GDP. The economy continued growing. Jobs were available. And people were optimistic about the future.
With the federal government’s powers thus increased by the tax and spending power, the national social policies which we take for granted today were gradually introduced: Old Age Security in 1951, help for the blind and disabled also in 1951, hospital insurance in 1958, the Canada Pension Plan in 1966, the Canada Assistance Plan (which provided federal cost-sharing of social assistance and social services) and Medicare countrywide in 1968. We will take a closer look at these programs in the next chapter.
The building process was good for the economy. Industry flourished with the sustained economic growth, despite new social programs, strong unions and high marginal income tax rates on top level incomes (about 70%) and an estate tax. The Centre for the Study of Living Standards[10] compares the period from 1947-73 and from 1973-2006. They report an average annual growth rate of GDP per capita in the earlier period of 2.55% versus 1.79% in the latter period, and an average annual growth in productivity of 3.74% versus 1.34% in the latter period. The welfare state supported economic growth. Funny that some politicians try to persuade us that lower taxes, weaker unions and precarious workers are good for the economy.
Like me, the baby boom were the benefactors of their parents, their communities, the economy and the new policies of those early years. Guess what happened when we began to make our own political and economic choices? Next chapter…
[1] My Life, by Leon Trotsky, https://web.archive.org/web/20150508001344/http://ns1758.ca/quote/trotsky1917.html
[2] https://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/immigration-records/home-children-1869-1930/Pages/home-children.aspx
[3] Most of the British Home Children sent to Canada were hosted by farm families, where they would be put to work. The boys tended to be employed for farm labour while the girls would perform domestic duties in the home, as well as help out in the fields. Some of these children were lucky enough to end up with loving families that treated them well and gave them affection. Many of them, unfortunately, would be treated very poorly. https://www.veterans.gc.ca/en/remembrance/people-and-stories/british-home-children?utm_source=chatgpt.com
[4] Written for the Federal Advisory Committee on Reconstruction
- [5] Degrees of Freedom: Canada and the United States in a Changing World. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997, Co-edited by Keith Banting, G. Hoberg and R. Simeon.
[6] Figures from US Bureau of Labour Statistics
[7] Figures from Statistics Canada
[8] The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, J.M Keynes, Patgrave Macmillan, 1936
[9] The Great Transformation by Karl Polanyi, Farrar & Rinehart, 1944. Polanyi speaks of the concept of the Double Movement, which refers to marketization and the push for social protection against that marketization.
[10] CSLS / Statistics Canada tabulations and tables: “The Relationship Between GDP and Productivity in Canada, 1947–2006” (tables and growth rates).
Social Canada Social 