Riendeau A Roger E. Brief History of Canada

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF CANADA

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Leduc, Jean-Paul Mousseau, Alfred Pellan, and Jean-Paul Riopelle, were

advocating personal freedom and spiritual expression. In English Can-

ada, abstract expressionism was popularized by the 1950s in the work

of artists such as Harold Town, Jack Bush, William Ronald, and Alex-

andra Luke, while Alex Colville was setting a new standard for realist

painting. Highlighting the development of sculpture was the unveiling

in 1936 of Walter Allward’s magniﬁ cent Vimy Ridge memorial to Cana-

dian soldiers killed during World War I. Other sculptors who left their

mark by mid-century were Alfred Laliberté, Frances Loring, R. Tait

Mackenzie, and Florence Wyle.

A major stimulus to Canadian theatrical development was the founding

of the Dominion Drama Festival in 1932 under the auspices of Governor-

General Lord Bessborough. The Massey Commission recommendations

encouraged the opening of the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford in 1953.

Opposition from the Catholic Church, which objected to what it deemed

to be risqué productions, did not inhibit the success of playwrights such

as Gratien Gélinas and Félix Leclerc in Quebec. Playwright, poet, and

novelist Robert Choquette became one of the most proliﬁ c scriptwriters

for radio in the 1930s and 1940s as well as for television in the 1950s. The

growing popularity of ballet after World War II led to the establishment

of the Royal Winnipeg Ballet in 1949 and the National Ballet of Canada,

headquartered in Toronto, under the direction of Celia Franca, in 1951.

Symphony orchestras and ballet companies continued to be established as

cities reached a population size that could support them and as television

exposed more people to its wonders. By the 1930s, Sir Ernest Macmillan

had become Canada’s ﬁ rst internationally known conductor of symphonic

and choral music. Other musicians who achieved international recogni-

tion included Edward Johnson, Wilfrid Pelletier, and Healey Willan.

Canada was also producing scholars of international renown in the

humanities, social sciences, and the medical sciences. In 1921–22, a

University of Toronto medical research team, including Frederick Ban-

ting, Charles Best, J. B. Collip, and J. J. R. MacLeod, discovered insulin,

which proved to be effective as a life-saving treatment for diabetes.

Banting and MacLeod were awarded a Nobel Prize for this scientiﬁ c

breakthrough in 1923. Also at the University of Toronto, Harold Innis

became internationally renowned for pioneering communications stud-

ies in the 1940s, which in turn inspired Marshall McLuhan’s mass

media theories in the 1950s and 1960s. While Donald Creighton was

revising Canadian historiography with his Laurentian thesis in the

1930s and 1940s, Pierre Berton began to raise Canadian historical con-

sciousness with his popular writing in the 1950s. The founding of the

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National Library of Canada in 1953 would greatly contribute to pre-

serving and promoting the nation’s printed heritage.

Canadians were willing to devote more of their time and money to the

enjoyment of popular culture, particularly sports, music, and movies

(Morrow and Wamsly 2005). Even at the height of the Great Depres-

sion, hockey retained its popularity to the extent that Conn Smythe built

the magniﬁ cent Maple Leaf Gardens for his National Hockey League

team in Toronto in 1931. The rival Montreal Canadiens had built their

own impressive ediﬁ ce, the Forum, seven years earlier. The national

pastime was to follow the exploits of the Toronto Maple Leafs and the

Montreal Canadiens as they often battled each other and four American

teams for the coveted Stanley Cup. While the Maple Leafs enjoyed their

greatest success from 1945 to 1951 when they won ﬁ ve Stanley Cups in

seven years, the Canadiens thrived from 1953 to 1960 when, led by the

legendary Maurice “Rocket” Richard, they captured six Stanley Cups in

eight years, including an unmatched ﬁ ve consecutive wins from 1956 to

1960. Until 1952 Canada could count on its amateur champions (Allen

Cup winners) to win the world title, but that changed with the emer-

gence of the Soviet Union as a hockey power.

Although professional football teams competed for the Grey Cup in

an annual clash of East against West since the mid-1930s, the Canadian

Football League (CFL) formally came into existence in 1958. The

popularity of baseball was sufﬁ cient to sustain two teams in the Triple

A International League, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and the Montreal

Royals. In 1946, when major league baseball in the United States was

prepared to break the “color barrier” by allowing blacks to play, the

Brooklyn Dodgers sent Jackie Robinson to play for the Montreal Royals

in order to ease the process of integration. Robinson expressed grati-

tude for the accolades he received during his outstanding season play-

ing in Montreal, in contrast to the hostility that greeted him in the

major leagues the following year. In 1959 Canada won the ﬁ rst ofﬁ cial

world curling championship and remained a perennial winner until the

early 1970s.

Canadians increasingly distinguished themselves in the world of

popular entertainment. Don Messer began to play his “down home”

Maritime ﬁ ddle music on radio in the 1930s and continued to host his

“Jubilee” television program in the 1950s. Musicians such as Percy Faith

and Guy Lombardo also emerged in Canada during the 1930s, but their

worldwide popularity prompted them to depart for the United States.

Lombardo and his band the Royal Canadians, with their rendition of

“Auld Lang Syne,” which had its origins in the Scottish communities of

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Ontario, became synonymous with American New Year’s Eve celebra-

tions. Other Canadian-born entertainers who left to pursue a successful

career in the United States include Marie Dressler, Deanna Durbin,

Glenn Ford, Lorne Greene, Walter Huston, Ruby Keeler, Art Linkletter,

Gisèle Mackenzie, Raymond Massey (brother of Vincent Massey), Les-

lie Neilsen, Mary Pickford, and Mort Sahl.

The Canadian ﬁ lm industry received a considerable boost in 1939

with the creation of the National Film Board, which went on to produce

documentaries that earned an international reputation. The advent of

television after 1950 tended to blur the lines between Canadian and

American culture to an even greater extent than radio and the movies

had already done. Since the vast majority of Canadians lived close to

the American border cities, they readily received American television

programs. The launching of commercial television broadcasting by the

CBC in 1952 was an effort to offset this Americanization of Canadian

culture, in addition to providing opportunities for Canadian talent to

develop.

To encourage the development of the arts, humanities, and social

sciences through systematic public support, the Massey Commission

recommended the creation of the Canada Council, which was ﬁ nally

inaugurated by Parliament in 1957. An endowment fund of $100 mil-

lion was established, half of which would be used to aid university-

building programs and the other half to provide scholarships and

grants-in-aid of cultural activities. Universities urgently needed federal

assistance in the wake of increasing enrollment from 35,000 in 1942 to

58,000 in 1951. Furthermore, it was projected that, as the children of

the postwar baby boom hit university age, enrollment would double by

1965 and triple by 1975. Premier Duplessis, of course, was the only

provincial leader to reject federal grants because he viewed the funding

program as a threat to Quebec’s autonomy and to French-Canadian

culture.

By 1960, Canadians had much about which to feel optimistic. The

memories of the perilous depression and war era were virtually obliter-

ated by the unprecedented national prosperity and international recog-

nition that the nation was enjoying. Canadians were not yet aware that

the baby boom was drawing to a close, that the national unity of the

previous decade and a half was about to be jeopardized by resurgent

regionalism, that they were about to experience profound social changes,

and that they would be frustrated in the political wilderness of minority

government. Indeed, the new decade would give many Canadians rea-

son to look back nostalgically at the postwar boom years.

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THE SEARCH FOR

NATIONAL UNITY

(1958–1972)

anadians embarked upon their centennial decade conﬁ dent that a

distinct national identity was taking shape and that the economic

and political stability of the postwar era would persist. Although they

would have much cause to celebrate the achievements of their nation’s

ﬁ rst century in 1967, Canadians would also feel the disappointment

and sense of uncertainty that accompany unfulﬁ lled hopes and ambi-

tions. John Diefenbaker’s glowing vision of national expansion through

the development of a new northern frontier proved to be more rhetoric

than substance. Lester Pearson was hampered by the brokerage politics

of minority government and federal-provincial struggles to control

the expanding welfare state. National enthusiasm was rekindled with

the rise of Trudeaumania and the promise of a “just society” within a

bilingual Canada. But Pierre Trudeau, too, was challenged by a fed-

eral system strained by conﬂ icting regional interests that potentially

threatened national unity. In particular, the resurgence of nationalism

highlighted by the so-called Quiet Revolution heralded to the rest of

Canada that Quebec was not only a province unlike the others but also

that its accommodation within the existing structure of Confederation

was in doubt.

The Elusive Political Consensus

Following their landslide victory in 1958, the Conservatives under

John Diefenbaker struggled to fulﬁ ll their lofty election promise: “A

new vision! A new hope! A new soul for Canada.” The major achieve-

ments of the Diefenbaker administration included an ambitious “roads

to resources” program that improved access to certain northern areas;

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324

a revitalization of western agriculture through increased subsidies and

huge grain sales to eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, and communist

China; increased old-age pensions and other aid for the needy; the

enactment of a Canadian Bill of Rights in 1960; and the granting of the

federal franchise to Canada’s Native peoples.

Diefenbaker’s northern vision also entailed a different approach to

world affairs than that of his Liberal predecessors (Granatstein 1986).

Like his political hero, Sir John A. Macdonald, Diefenbaker was genu-

inely devoted to the British connection and was greatly disturbed by the

increasing continental integration between Canada and the United

States. Therefore, he was actively involved in Commonwealth affairs,

particularly as a crusader for racial equality. Diefenbaker actively sup-

ported the effort of African and Asian members to block South Africa’s

application to join the Commonwealth unless the new republic aban-

doned its racist policy of apartheid. Mounting opposition to this insti-

tutionalized segregation of blacks and whites forced South Africa to

withdraw from the Commonwealth in 1961. Diefenbaker was less suc-

cessful in his attempt to reduce Canadian dependence on American

capital and commerce by rebuilding trade and diplomatic links with

Britain and the Commonwealth. In essence, he hoped to return to a

bygone era that could not be revived for two reasons. First, Canada was

too deeply committed to the expanding American market whereas

Britain’s economy, the slowest growing in the industrialized world, had

become too small to absorb a signiﬁ cant amount of Canadian staple or

manufacturing exports. Second, Britain was already moving toward

entry into the European Common Market, which would leave little

latitude for freer trade agreements with Canada.

Diefenbaker’s popularity deteriorated along with the Canadian econ-

omy as the prolonged postwar boom came to an inevitable end. His

government came under heaviest criticism for failing to implement

policies that could prevent the national unemployment rate from

exceeding 11 percent in 1961, the highest level since the Great Depres-

sion, or that could prevent the devaluation of the Canadian dollar to

92.5 cents in relation to the American dollar. The ﬁ scal restraints

imposed by economic recession effectively limited the Diefenbaker

administration from launching policies that would allow the fulﬁ llment

of its “northern vision.”

Diefenbaker’s vision of “One Canada” also came under serious ques-

tioning, particularly in Quebec. Although Georges Vanier was appointed

governor-general in 1959, French Canadians complained about the

relatively few cabinet ministers from Quebec despite the large contin-

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gent of Conservative MPs from that province. His impassioned cham-

pioning of the British connection and of “unhyphenated” Canadianism

further alienated French Canadians along with the growing non-Anglo-

Saxon immigrant population. Under Diefenbaker’s leadership, the Con-

servatives generated strong support in rural and small-town areas,

particularly in the Prairie and Maritime Provinces, while alienating the

eastern business interests that had been the backbone of the party.

Growing disillusionment with the Conservatives gave the opposition

parties a chance to recover from their dismal results in the 1958 elec-

tion. The Liberals were gaining strength in the urban areas of Ontario

and Quebec, particularly among the growing ethnic population, which

found Pearson’s notion of the Canadian cultural mosaic more appeal-

ing. In 1961 the CCF Party formed an alliance with the Canadian

Labour Congress. Under the leadership of T. C. Douglas, this merger of

traditional socialism and organized labor became known as the New

Democratic Party (NDP). Although the platform of the NDP was less

socialist than that of the CCF, it continued to advocate government

planning and control of economic development, further extension of

social security measures, and support for the union movement.

In the federal election of June 1962, Conservative strength was sub-

stantially reduced as a result of a Liberal resurgence and the election of

26 Créditistes, as the Quebec wing of Social Credit was known.

Although Social Credit had never been more than a fringe group in

Quebec, Réal Caouette successfully used his weekly television appear-

ances to lure enough rural and small-town voters to support his Crédit-

istes as a protest against the established Conservatives and Liberals.

While it remained in power with Social Credit support, the Conserva-

tive minority government was fearful that decisive measures to deal with

the slumping national economy or the emerging continental defense

issue in the aftermath of the Cuban missile crisis might lead to its defeat

in Parliament. Indeed, Diefenbaker’s reluctance to fulﬁ ll commitments

to NATO and NORAD to install nuclear armaments in antiaircraft mis-

siles on Canadian soil ultimately led to his government’s defeat on a

general motion of nonconﬁ dence in February 1963. In the consequent

election two months later, the fall of the Conservatives was completed

as the Liberals endeavored to make a minority government work.

Unlike Diefenbaker, Pearson had the advantage of governing during

a period of renewed economic prosperity. Nevertheless, Canadians

were divided over many controversial issues that challenged his consid-

erable negotiating skills cultivated during his illustrious career in dip-

lomatic service. The design for a new Canadian ﬂ ag, consisting of a

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single red maple leaf in the center with a red border at either end on a

white background, triggered a lengthy and emotionally charged debate.

Whereas supporters viewed the new design as an assertion of Canadian

nationalism, critics, notably monarchists and war veterans, remained

ﬁ ercely attached to the Union Jack or the Red Ensign. After the Liberals

invoked closure to end the great debate, Parliament approved the new

ﬂ ag, which was ofﬁ cially ﬂ own for the ﬁ rst time on February 15, 1965.

Equally controversial was the integration of the armed forces—army,

navy, and air force—initially proposed in 1964 but not ofﬁ cially com-

pleted until four years later. Traditionalists argued that the govern-

ment’s preoccupation with efﬁ ciency and mobility undermined national

military strength and dishonored the glorious achievements and sacri-

ﬁ ces of Canadian servicemen and women.

Inﬂ uenced by the United States’s War on Poverty and by the need to

maintain the political support of the NDP, the Pearson administration

introduced social legislation in 1965–66 that constituted the ﬁ nal

building blocks of the welfare state in Canada. The Canada Pension

Plan (1965) together with the Guaranteed Income Supplement (1966)

offered a comprehensive program of retirement beneﬁ ts, disability

allowances, and survivors’ beneﬁ ts, the qualiﬁ cation for which was to

be reduced to 65 years of age within ﬁ ve years. The effect of these com-

plimentary legislative enactments was to establish a social minimum for

the aged at an adequate living standard rather than at a bare subsistence

level as was previously the case. The Canada Assistance Plan (1966)

consolidated a wide range of federal-provincial programs, including

mothers’ allowances, blind and disabled persons’ beneﬁ ts, child welfare

beneﬁ ts, and assistance for the working poor into a comprehensive

program that would meet ﬁ nancial need regardless of cause. After the

CCF government in Saskatchewan again pioneered in the health ﬁ eld

by introducing North America’s ﬁ rst universal medical insurance plan

(often called “medicare”) in 1962, the Pearson administration intro-

duced the Medical Care Act (1966). The federal government agreed to

pay half of any provincially administered medical-care insurance plan

that provided universal coverage for a comprehensive range of general

practitioner and specialist services. By 1971 all provinces had agreed to

participate in the plan (Guest 1997).

The federal government was also called upon to address the rapid

expansion of the universities in the wake of the postwar baby boom. As

expected, university enrollment doubled from 1951 to 1963 and was

projected to more than double again in the following decade, particu-

larly in view of the rising number of women applying to universities

327

and the growing popularity of part-time study. By the early 1960s,

women comprised little more than one-quarter of total university

enrollment, while part-time students (nearly half of whom were

women) made up about one-ﬁ fth. Over the next two decades, gender

balance would be achieved and part-time enrollment would grow by

more than sixfold. Accordingly, provincial governments abandoned

their initial strategy to meet these increases by expanding existing insti-

tutions, with the result that more funds were needed to build several

new universities and community colleges. In response, the federal gov-

ernment replaced its program of direct grants to the universities, initi-

ated in 1951, with a shared-cost contribution to the provinces in 1966.

Total government spending on universities increased sevenfold during

the 1960s.

The extension of the welfare state further upset the balance between

federal and provincial responsibilities, thereby straining the century-

old constitutional framework. The economic disparities among the

provinces were too great to allow them to decide their own programs

and to ﬁ nd the money for them. Only the federal government had the

resources and capacity to ensure national minimums in health, educa-

tion, and welfare. The federal government maintained that it should

have wider powers in these ﬁ elds hitherto reserved for the provinces.

The provinces for their part argued that they needed a larger share of

the tax revenue to administer their responsibilities, although all except

Quebec were willing to allow the federal government to act as the coor-

dinator of social policy in the national interest. Cooperation between

Ottawa and the provinces was indispensable if the dichotomy between

jurisdiction and resources was to be reconciled.

Accordingly, Prime Minister Pearson emerged as a leading propo-

nent of the concept of cooperative federalism, achieved mainly through

federal-provincial conferences. For example, annual federal-provincial

conferences in the early 1960s worked out compromises that replaced

tax rentals by a tax collection agreement based on proportional sharing

of yields, accompanied by equalization payments to the less prosperous

provinces in order to bring their income closer to the national average.

This arrangement would continue to be a source of federal-provincial

tension, resulting in several modiﬁ cations over the next three decades.

Pearson’s concept of cooperative federalism also included implement-

ing “shared costs” programs with an “opting out” formula to allow

more provincial autonomy to provide social services. Quebec took

advantage of this opportunity to establish its own pension plan in 1965.

Indeed, securing unanimous consent of 11 different governments on

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every major issue tended to result in imperfect compromises, which

further complicated federal-provincial relations.

The lack of consensus on federalism stalled efforts to “repatriate” the

Canadian constitution. No one doubted that continued dependence on

the British Parliament to amend the British North America Act was an

affront to national sovereignty, but to ﬁ nd an amendment formula

agreeable to the federal government and all the provinces proved to be

a formidable challenge. In 1964 a federal-provincial conference appeared

to have reached agreement on an amending formula. The key provision

required unanimous consent for any changes to language rights and

provincial legislative authority, while other amendments might be car-

ried with the consent of two-thirds of the provinces representing at

least half the population. But after initially agreeing to the formula,

Premier Jean Lesage yielded to nationalist opposition in Quebec, which

insisted on a veto power over any change that the province disapproved

of and yet objected to any veto by other provinces over changes that

Quebec demanded.

Prime Minister Pearson decided that his government could not go

forward with repatriation of the constitution without unanimous con-

sent of all the provinces. He was particularly cautious to avoid any

action that would give further impetus to Quebec nationalism. Respond-

ing to the upsurge of nationalism in Quebec, Pearson established the

Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism in 1963 to

address French-Canadian demands for linguistic equality. Through a

series of reports over the next eight years, the commission would exert

a profound inﬂ uence on public response to ethnic relations in Canada

(Cook 2005).

Pearson also presided over and contributed to the lack of national

consensus regarding the nature and implications of Canada’s relation-

ship with the United States. The newly elected Liberal administration

honored previous continental defense commitments to the United

States by signing a new agreement with the United States to provide

nuclear warheads for Canada’s short-range defensive missiles and air-

craft. On the other hand, Pearson upset American ofﬁ cials with his

open criticism of their Vietnam War policy. Canadian nationalists

criticized Pearson for failing to counter American economic domina-

tion of Canadian industry, although they applauded his choice of Wal-

ter Gordon to serve as minister of ﬁ nance. His ﬁ rst budget in 1963

included tax measures to limit foreign ownership, but the threat of

American retaliation and strong opposition within the Liberal Party

forced Gordon to withdraw his proposal.

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While Canadians debated the beneﬁ ts and perils of American invest-

ment, the importance of increased trade with the United States was

unquestioned (Thompson and Randall 2002). In 1965 the Automotive

Products Agreement, known as the Auto Pact, allowed free exchange of

vehicles and parts among manufacturers, although not among retailers.

Inasmuch as the export of Canadian-made cars to the United States has

consistently exceeded American imports to Canada, even the most

ardent economic nationalists have conceded that this agreement has

been highly beneﬁ cial to the Canadian economy, particularly in south-

ern Ontario where most of the automobile industry is located.

The Pearson administration still sought to offset American inﬂ uence

over Canadian foreign policy and economic development through con-

tinued involvement in the larger international community (Hilmer and

Granatstein 1994). In the United Nations, Canada maintained its

peacekeeping role in the Sinai, Cyprus, and the Congo, but interna-

tional instability generally limited the inﬂ uence of middle powers after

the Suez Crisis of 1956. Commonwealth relations became increasingly

incoherent in the wake of military coups in Ghana, civil war in Nigeria,

and war between India and Pakistan. Canada found itself at the center

of another racial controversy when it demanded that Rhodesia (now

Zimbabwe) extend the franchise on a nondiscriminatory basis as a con-

dition for full Commonwealth membership. When Rhodesia rejected

these terms upon declaring its national independence in 1965, Canada

withdrew recognition, cancelled trade preferences, and embargoed

arms shipments. Canada’s relations with the Commonwealth during

this period were motivated largely by economic prospects. Britain was

Canada’s second-largest customer, and the hope was that the rest of the

Commonwealth could be brought under a system of trade preferences

to counterbalance American dominance in foreign trade and invest-

ment. Moreover, Canada was concerned about the adverse effects of

Britain’s decision to join the European Economic Community.

For all his skillful maneuvering on the divisive issues of the day, a

majority government eluded Pearson in the election of 1965. As Cana-

dians celebrated their centennial in 1967, highlighted by the spectacu-

lar “Expo 67” World’s Fair which attracted 50 million visitors to

Montreal, the face of national politics was in the process of transforma-

tion. In a convention that featured a heated debate over the concepts of

“one, united Canada” and “deux nations” (two nations), the Conserva-

tives replaced Diefenbaker with former Nova Scotia premier Robert

Stanﬁ eld. At the end of the year, Prime Minister Pearson announced his

intention to retire, and the Liberals chose the charismatic minister of

THE SEARCH FOR NATIONAL UNITY