Canadian Social History

Introduction

Immigration has always been a fundamental part of Canadian history and society. However, arguably immigration after World War II took on a different extent and character.

Historiography

Franca Iacovetta studied Italian immigrants – stressed family formation during baby boom years.

Mostly males, then women and children.

Theories

Prior to World War II. majority of immigration to Canada was from U.K. and U.S.A.

By the 1970s, a shift toward Asia. With immigrants from China and India.

Push and pull factors.

Controversies

Involvement of the government in shaping immigration post World War II.

Sources and methods

The baby boom of the 1950s

Many of the 1.8 million immigrants that arrived in Canada between 1946-1962, were of child-bearing age. Embraced values of home and family.

Events and incidents

Policies aimed at attracting professional positions.

Federal government embraced a “points system” in 1967, applicants were ranked to objective criteria concerning education, skills, and resources.

Caused a dramatic shift from Europe to Asia.

Sponsored immigration tended to bring in less skilled

Conclusion

Why did the character and extent of immigration change after World War II? Increase government involvement in shaping society. The need for immigration for economic growth. The agency of people, connecting families globally.

Introduction

The end of World War I signaled a return to the status quo in society. While many individuals returned from war disillusioned, the social structures remained largely intact. On the other hand, World War II proved to be a catalyst that ushered in a new and largely different era in Canadian society.

Historiography

Social historians interested in wartime experience as a lens through which to study the way societies react during times of stress. The demands of war strain the fabric of society, exposing ethnic, racial, class, and gender relations.

Doug Owram, Born at the Right Time – explores baby boom

Theories

So why was World War II such a catalyst for change?

Linking the war to the establishment of a social security system encouraged Canadians to believe that, while tremendous sacrifices were made, they were not made in vain.

Creation of a new role for government.

Controversies

Was post World War II society uniformly prosperous, conservative, and conformist?

Sources and methods

Different approaches to analyzing Canadian society post World War II – consumer, baby boom, immigrant.

Economic – wage rates.

Government involvement.

Events and incidents

Many Canadians concurred with the Prime Minister, Mackenzie King, that a “new world order” could be created from the ashes of World War II. The Prime Minister noted in a speech in 1942: “men who have fought in this war, and others who have borne its privations and suffering, will never be satisfied with a return to the conditions that prevailed before 1939.”

Expanding social security benefits, implementation of a national unemployment scheme and a family allowance program – creation of a “welfare state.”

1940 Unemployment Insurance Act passed

Conclusion

With change we see continuity, and with continuity we see change. The era is one of transition. The events that informed Canada post World War II had origins in the thirty years post World War I.

Introduction

Historical assessments of post-war Canada tend to conclude that the period from mid-1940s to early 1970s was one of economic progress and great prosperity. But who benefited from economic expansion?

Historiography

John Porter, The Vertical Mosaic, argues that Canada may have been a “mosaic” of different peoples whose diversity Canadians were proud to celebrate, but these same people were organized hierarchically, where race/ethnicity were closely interconnected.

Theories

Rising standard of living, increase wages, low unemployment rate – equated to the argument for economic prosperity.

Controversies

Increasing number of women joined the workforce. Taking employment that was segmented by gender, and paid less.

Race and ethnicity also factors in how others did not share the “great prosperity”. Unskilled Italian workers, south Asian agricultural workers.

The gap between the rich and poor remained the same.

Many of Canada’s poor were working poor.

Privileged social influence of two groups: men, and people of British heritage.

Sources and methods

Consumer culture

Agricultural work. Unskilled labour. The failed unionization of the mostly female workforce at Eaton in 1948.

Events and incidents

Quiet Revolution – increased role of the state.

Conclusion

Problem with defining economic analysis – the charting of economic prosperity. Doesn’t tell the whole story. Class, race, and gender tell a different story about post war Canada. Unskilled immigrant labour. Increase number of women joining the workforce, but in low paid unequal roles.

Leonard Marsh was the director of a social research programme at McGill University, when appointed director of the Committee on Post-War Reconstruction in 1941. In March 1943, the Report on Social Security in Canada was published with Marsh as its principal author.

Marsh argued that all Canadians “found work, remained healthy, and were properly fed, housed, and educated.” To achieve these goals it urged that the state take an active role in managing the economy and in providing minimum levels of social security.

John Maynard Keynes was a Cambridge economist whose writings provided a scientific analysis of economic cycles and showed how these economic cycles could be manipulated. The unemployed were not moral failures; rather, unemployment resulted from impersonal forces at work in the economy, forces that could be countered by state action.

Keynes argued for more government, rather than less. To inflate a depressed economy, Keynes argued that government needed to increase public investment.

Keynes’ ideas, although not embraced during the 193os, became widely accepted after the Second World War.