Table Of ContentTHE CHANGING CANADIAN STATE
A Study of the Cnanglng Conception
of the State as Revealed In Canadian Social
Legislation: 1867-1948
Mary Elisabeth Y/allace
Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements
ror the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the
Faculty of Political Science, Columbia University.
C o n t e n t s
Part 1 - The Post Confederation Era: 1867-1900
Chapter
I. Introduction.................. 1
II. The British North America A c t ..................... 11
III. Social Conditions and Social Reform............... 25
IV. Social and Political Theories..................... 84
Part 2 - The New Century: 1900-1939
V. Social and Political Developments: 1900-1925 . . . 102
VI. Old Age Pensions................................... 138
VII. The Hungry Thirties............................... 159
VIII. The Bennett New Deal............ 185
IX. The Rowell-Sirois Commission....................... 203
X. French Canada..................................... 225
Part 3 - Social Security: 1939-19*48
XI. Unemployment and Health Insurance................ 245
XII. Social and Political Theories: 1939-1945 ........... 272
XIII. Family Allowances................................. 299
XIV. The 1945 Dominion Proposals...................... 331
XV. Conclusion......................................... 350
Bibliography ........................................ 379
1
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
This is a study of one aspeot of Canadian political thought,
namely, the change in public opinion since Confederation concerning
the social welfare functions which the state should assume. There
has undoubtedly been a conspicuous absenoe of formal political
philosophy in the Dominion, where not a single outstanding theorist
has been produced. The social and political thought of English-
speaking Canada to a large extent springs from the two countries
which continue to exert most influence upon it, Great Britain and
the United States. Yet Canada can oite no parallel to such writers
as John Stuart Mill, T.H. Green and L.T. Hobhouse. Her statesmen
have been primarily men of action, and their speeches (with the
exception of the Confederation Debates and some of the writings
of Joseph Howe), may usually be searched in vain for the political
theorising which lends distinction to the work of men like Jefferson,
Hamilton, Madison and Calhoun. Canada’s most outstanding writer on
political affairs has probably been Goldwin Smith. But despite the
fact that in later years he came to describe himself as ”as much
1
a Canadian or American as an Englishman”, he remained to the end
very much of an English Oxonian, and in many ways was more at home
^ In a letter to Percy Bunting, December 19, 1880, printed in
A. Haultain, A Seleotion from Goldwin Smith’s Correspondence
(Toronto, 1913), p.95* Elsewhere he referred to himself as ”a
Canadian citizen”, although on at least one occasion he had com
mented to his Boswell, Haultain, that he ”never liked the country
or its people. ” A. Haultain, Goldwin Smith. His Life and Opinions
(Toronto, 1913), p.2*l4.
2
in the United States, after one short visit and two years' sojourn
at Cornell, than he ever came to feel in Canada, after living for
2
some forty years in Toronto.
The fact that Canada developed from a number of colonies
to an independent nation without undergoing a revolution, and that
the English-speaking sections of her people are prone to accept,
uncritioally, inherited British traditions, probably aocounts in
some measure for the lack of abstraot political thinking. The
paucity of external relations with other countries, until the
twentieth century, owing to the imperial connection, may also have
tended to retard the development of political thought. More debat
able is the question whether, at the time of the American Revolution,
the influx of conservative supporters of Great Britain (variously
honoured by Canadians as United Empire Loyalists and despised by
Americans as renegades), accounts in some degree for Canadians’
subsequent disinclination for new social and political ideas and
experiments. A more likely explanation is to be found in the
suggestion that the average Canadian’s distrust of political theory
”is simply the pioneer's incapacity and distaste for abstraot
3
thought.” If this be true one would hope that the limitation
might soon be outgrown.
2
The difference in his attitude is indicated by the fact that he
bequeathed most of a considerable fortune to Cornell University,
while his wife left to the oity of Toronto their home, with its
grounds, to be used as an art gallery. He indicated that this
was not because he cared for art, but because he thought, probably
rigbtly, that Toronto's greatest need was redemption from cultural
barbarity.
2 p.E. Corbett, "The Sooial Soiences in the Post- Y/ar World",
Canadian Historical Review, XXII (19^1), 118.
3
There is a marked difference between Canadian attitudes
toward social legislation and those of other members of the British
Commonwealth such as New Zealand and Australia, although the
socialism of the Pacific dominions has always been more empirical
than theoretioal. Conditions of geography, settlement and politics
have of course been different. Common aotion on any problem is
more easily achieved in unitary oountries with a homogeneous
population, like Great Britain and New Zealand. Canada is a
federal oountry because raoial and religious and sectional dif
ferences in 1867 made it impossible to achieve a unitary state.
These diversities have become no less marked during the past three
quarters of a century. When the British North America Aot was
drawn up sooial insurance was unheard of and provision for social
welfare was considered to be the responsibility of the individual,
not of the government. By 1901 when the Australian states came to
gether to form the Commonwealth, opinion concerning such matters
had undergone a marked alteration in many countries. This dif-
ference in outlook was indioated by the provision made in the
constitution of Australia for giving the Commonwealth jurisdiction
over invalid and old ago pensions, matters not assigned to any
level of government by the Canadian Fathers of Confederation for
the exoellent reason that they were not dreamed of in 1867. Much
of the pressure for social legislation in Australia and New Zealand
has come from labour organizations. Such support has also been
important in Canada, but here the labour movement has been small
and backward, in comparison with the other two dominions and with
if
Great Britain, and only within the last few years has it taken
direct political aotion. Canada’s family farm type of agriculture,
in contrast with the Australian sheep ranges, gave no impetus to
trade unionism, which was also retarded by the relatively late
date at which the industrial revolution occurred. While state
intervention in economic affairs has been oustomary in Canada, it
has not been an obvious necessity to the same extent as in Australia
where vast stretohes of desert have presented insuperable obstacles
to private enterprise.
Canadian views as to the type and extent of state aotion
which is desirable have also been largely influenced by the United
States' enthusiasm for free enterprise and its distrust of collec
tivism. In her neighbour to the south Canada has had an example of
great prosperity achieved in a land whioh is the leading modern
exponent of a free enterprise eoonomy, although American practice
has frequently departed from this theory.
If there has been little formal writing and politioal
speculation In Canada, that is not to say that there has been
little interest In publio affairs. What it does mean is that the
springs of political aotion and the sources of such portions of
party programmes as eventually find their way to the statute books
are not to be sought in treatises on political theory. They are
rather to be traoed through study of changing economic and social
conditions and of pressures from a wide variety of interest groups
representing agrioulture, manufacturing, labour and philanthropic
5
bodies. These influences are apparent in ourrent newspaper and
periodical articles, in the speeohes of politicians and in the pages
of Hansard. To such changing conditions, and to the interaction of
such widely varied pressures, governments, however reluctantly, after
a period of thought and discussion eventually respond. Thus by the
time a bill beoomes law it usually represents a considerable measure
of compromise between divergent views of wbat is desirable, and
neoessaiy limitations imposed by what is politically praotioable.
In studying such souroe material it is not easy to distinguish
between that whioh reflects public opinion and that which aspires
to mould it, for the two prooesses are commonly reciprocal. What
does emerge with some clarity is the remarkable change in values
during the eighty years under consideration. Not only the term
"social seourity", but the idea for whioh it stand3, were unthought
of in 1867. To-day expenditures for social welfare represent the
largest item in the combined budgets of federal, provincial and
municipal governments. The question is no longer whether such
activities fall properly within the sphere of government; they are
now generally accepted as among its most neoessaiy services.
Contrasts are often drawn between the laissez-faire or
"negative” state of the nineteenth century, and the "positive" or
social welfare state of the twentieth. Yet the olassioal English
doctrine of laissez-faire. interpreted as government abstention
from interference with individual or group aotion, while theoretical
ly honoured in North America, actually underwent a transmutation in
6
meaning whioh even advocates of the theory frequently ignored*
Canadian business men, while protesting their devotion to the
principles of laissez-faire, have never objected to the state’s
undertaking developmental activities in accordance with the wishes
of industry, and have frequently been clamorous in their insistence
that it should do so. The reason is of course to be found in the
conditions of the New World. All pioneer countries whose natural
resources are exploited in a period of rapid development, learn
inevitably to look to the government to supply services and capital
which are not available elsewhere. Canada was no exception to this
rule. Government intervention in economic affairs through the build
ing of railways and the imposition of high tariffs for the protection
of Industries with remarkably protraoted periods of infanoy, were
characteristic and taken as a matter of course within little more
than a decade after Confederation. Government Investment in roads
and canals was already heavy before 1867. The building of the
Intercolonial Railroad was part of the agreement written into the
British North Amerioa Act, and the commitment to build a trans-
Canada railway was among the conditions laid down at the time of
4
British Columbia’s entry Into Confederation in 1871. State inter
vention in the development of natural resources, the supplying of
public utilities, and the fostering of industries has been con
sidered so necessary as to be oommonplace ever sinoe.
Cf. the comment that ’’Canada Is probably the only country in the
world with two railways written into its Constitution.” League
for Sooial Reconstruction, Social Planning for Canada (Toronto, 1935)
p.42.
7
The history of government aotion with regard to social
welfare has been very different. Doctrines of non-intervention
were near the height of their popularity in the eighteen-sixties,
despite concrete departures from strict adherence to them such as
those instanced. There was widespread agreement with Paine’s
dictum that the best government is that which governs least. The
influenoe of this prevalent point of view is obvious in the British
North America Aot, as much in the provisions which it fails to make
as in those which it prescribes, with regard to social welfare.
This study does not attempt to give an account of the
mechanics of federalism. Dominion-provinoial relations have been
among the most contentious as well as most complicated of the
problems to be faced in the eighty years sinoe Confederation. An
effort has accordingly been made in this analysis to avoid, where
possible, embroilment in such disputes. On occasion this has not
been feasible, sinoe unfortunately for the progress of social legis
lation in Canada, it has too often been made the centre of a political
tug-of-war between the federal and provincial governments. By way of
helping to clarify the issues involved, as well as confining the study
within reasonable bounds, major emphasis is placed upon the social
legislation of the federal government. At the same time the develop
ment in the provinces of important social and political trends has
not been ignored. It is true that health and welfare services have
usually been considered the primary responsibility of the provinces,
with what justification there will be occasion to discuss. But in
8
actuality the dominion has never been altogether excluded from this
5
sphere, and as public pressure for "state” social legislation in
creased, changing attitudes toward the welfare functions of govern
ment may best be observed at the federal level. The earliest major
dominion social welfare measures were the veterans’ services of the
first great war, followed by the Old Age Pensions Act of 1927* The
depression of the nineteen-thirties subsequently made it neoessary
for the government to inaugurate some national provision for un
employment relief. Canada’s only social insurance measure, the
Unemployment Insurance Act, was passed in 1940. Its most reoent
important step toward social security was the Family Allowances
Act of 1944. Labour legislation, such as trade union regulation,
factory acts, and measures pertaining to hours of work and rates
of pay, is given little attention in this study, although it might
reasonably be inoluded under the heading of sooial legislation. In
general, hov/ever, judicial decision has declared it to fall under
provincial jurisdiction, and such measures form a complicated and
teohnioal subject which has recently been comprehensively discussed.
While it was not until the present century that the first
federal social legislation actually was passed, it is pertinent to
$
The ordinary person is not likely to oare very much what unit of
government provides services whioh he feels should be a public
responsibility. Concern for the constitutional niceties of juris
diction is usually reserved exclusively to practising politicians
and students of law and political science.
6
Cf. H.A. Logan, Trade Unions in Canada (Toronto, 1948).
