FAMILY ALLOWANCES IN CANADA

This book deals with the social, political, constitutional, moral, and economic developments which led to the implementation of a system of family allowances in Canada in July of 1945.  The book focuses on when the idea first became identified in Canada; family allowances in relation to other social security measures of the time; the constitutional, moral, and financial obstacles to their implementation; the affect of family allowance legislation upon political parties; the reaction of the provinces to this legislation; and the timing of the legislation.  Family allowances went through three stages in Canada:  recommendations, official and unofficial, and subsequent public discussion; parliamentary debate and legislative enactment in August 1944; and the establishment of the administrative machinery leading to their implementation in July 1945.

Notwithstanding his vicissitudes on the subject of family allowance, Mackenzie King and his government rightly took credit for the implementation of family allowances in Canada in 1945.  This important piece of social legislation had a profound effect on the Liberal Party’s electability after a very able but underappreciated wartime stewardship.  Although the Beveridge and Marsh reports had some influence on the Federal Government in this area, the greatest influence can be attributed to Lord Keynes and the Finance Department in Ottawa, both of which advocated for a system of family allowances as part of a post-war package of social security.  The economic brain trust was fearful of a post-war recession, and family allowances proved to be a classic Keynesian pump-priming initiative.

Family allowances became part of the conservative social welfare state in Canada, and their significance on contemporary Canada cannot be underestimated.  They proved to be an effective weapon in the war on poverty in Canada and they effectively and permanently changed the role of government in the economy.

Chapter One deals with the foreign and Canadian origins of family allowances.  The idea of family allowances had been studied and experimented with in Europe, Australia and New Zealand, for some time before it received serious consideration in Canada.  The idea received a flurry of attention in 1929, but it was not until the release of the Beveridge and Marsh Reports in the winter and spring of 1942-43, that anything approaching widespread acceptance took place.

Chapter Two compares the relationship between family allowances, as an essential part of a system of social security, and mothers’ allowances, as a traditional form of social assistance or relief.  Chapter Three involves a discussion of the formidable moral, constitutional, and financial obstacles to their implementation.  Chapter Four provides the immediate wartime setting for the decision to establish a system of family allowances in Canada.  Chapter Five deals with the revival of the Liberal Party organization in the autumn of 1943 following a number of sharp electoral reverses, and the adoption of a new Party program which included family allowances.  Chapter Six focuses on the public and parliamentary debate over family allowances in the summer of 1944.  Chapter Seven is devoted to the setting up of the infrastructure to administer the family allowances legislation and to the work of the administrative staff during the first year in which the legislation was in operation.  And Chapter Eight deals with the important relationship between family allowances and the general election of 1945.