Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
And on the East, employers organizations in Ontario and Quebec offer similar
positions. R. Dandurand, a leading French Canadian Businessman, states:
When I think of them and of the inevitably slow process of reabsorbing into industry
those who are now unemployed, I feel more and more concerned that if our capitalist
system is to survive we shall have to establish a contributory unemployment system to
tide our people over periods of economic depression.
Similarly, the Montreal Board of Trade argues in Keynesian terms:
Taxation for the purpose of social services transfers purchasing power from the richer
to the poorer classes, raises the standard of living of the poor, increases their demand for
commodities and thereby tends towards industrial stability and prosperity. Furthermore,
in a period of economic depression, heavier government expenditures, whether paid by
taxes or by loans, are justified and necessary in order to fill the gap resulting from the
fear and inactivity which paralyze private enterprise. [Finkel
1979
: 139]
This series of quotations illustrates how the position of employers shifts over
time as a result of the scope of cross-provincial economic externalities, largely
motivated by the mobility of unskilled dependents across provinces. The fiscal
impact of skyrocketing relief expenditures threatened all provinces alike, not
just the ones particularly hurt by the Depression, and rendered the need to
establish preventive mechanisms, such as unemployment insurance, a national
priority for employers.
Finally, the beginning of the SecondWorldWar only added to these concerns
by creating yet another source of cross-regional externalities, ultimately push-
ing the Canadian government to seek constitutional reform even before the pub-
lication of the Rowell Siros Report. Concerns about the future demobilization
and socioeconomic integration of veterans, already salient after WWI, rendered
unemployment an even greater national problem (Campeau
2005
). Taken
together, all these factors gradually erased hesitations among the provinces
that either doubted or openly opposed the amendment. Unemployment itself
contributed to the replacement of M. Duplessis, Quebec's conservative premier,
by A. Godbout, a liberal who quickly switched positions in line with the major-
ity of labor unions and employers' organizations in Quebec. In turn, the level
of economic externalities and the War undermined Ontario's earlier concerns
for its fiscal position within the union. Finally, Alberta's premier, according to
Struthers (
1983
), faced strong pressures as he became, on the basis of Alberta's
specific regional economy, the only opponent to an amendment viewed as a
national need for the difficult days ahead. Along these lines, the Rowell-Siros
Report came at last to back up all the economic arguments in favor of Unem-
ployment Insurance, namely: administrative efficiency, interprovincial equity,
and especially the fact that all provinces were affected by the problem, i.e.,
unemployment “was no longer seen as the result of local conditions.” In July
1940 the Unemployment Insurance Act was approved.
A fully centralized program was finally at work. It was heavily based upon
Bennett's legislation, with three important qualifications (Dingledine 1981).
