This book provides the first full account of a major social and political movement of the interwar years in Canada: the campaign for "Maritime Rights" which erupted in the Atlantic provinces after World War I. Ernest R. Forbes traces the history of the movement from its origins in the decline in relative status and influence of the Maritimes that accompanied the rise of the West and the growing dominance of the Central Canadian metropolises.
This book provides the first full account of a major social and political movement of the interwar years in Canada: the campaign for "Maritime Rights" which erupted in the Atlantic provinces after World War I. Ernest R. Forbes traces the history of the movement from its origins in the decline in relative status and influence of the Maritimes that accompanied the rise of the West and the growing dominance of the Central Canadian metropolises. Maritimers saw their political influence reduced, the underpinnings of their economy - especially in the critical areas of tariffs, freight rates, and subsidies - whittled away, and Canada defined in terms that seemed to exclude them. Adopting a strategy characteristic of the progressive movements of the period, they attempted through organization and agitation to restore their position. Farmers, fishermen, manufacturers, and organized labour articulated their demands through the provincial press, boards of trade, union locals, educational conferences, and mass delegations to Ottawa. Professor Forbes challenges traditional assumptions in his emphasis upon a vigorous Maritime progressivism that transcended party affiliations. All the political parties tried to use the protest movement, but none had created it, nor had it a specific founder or leader. The agitiation was in fact a spontaneous expression of the economic and social frustrations of the Maritime people. Although their efforts were largely defeated by the conflicting interests of stronger regions, and by the King government's adoitness in defusing protest through a policy of study and delay, the author believes that the aroused Maritimers had succeeded in establishing their difficulties in the public's mind as a national problem.
When Newfoundland entered the Canadian Confederation in 1949, it was hoped it would promote greater unity between the Maritime provinces, as Term 29 of the Newfoundland Act explicitly linked the region's economic and political fortunes. On the surface, the union seemed like an unprecedented opportunity to resurrect the regional spirit of the Maritime Rights movement of the 1920s, which advocated a cooperative approach to addressing regional underdevelopment. However, Newfoundland's arrival did little at first to bring about a comprehensive Atlantic Canadian regionalism. Inventing Atlantic Canada is the first book to analyse the reaction of the Maritime provinces to Newfoundland's entry into Confederation. Drawing on editorials, government documents, and political papers, Corey Slumkoski examines how each Maritime province used the addition of a new provincial cousin to fight underdevelopment. Slumkoski also details the rise of regional cooperation characterized by the Atlantic Revolution of the mid-1950s, when Maritime leaders began to realize that by acting in isolation their situations would only worsen.
A clear, concise portrait of one of the most dramatic moments in the history of working-class life and class relations generally in Canada - the upsurge of working-class protest at the end of the First World War.
During his successful campaign to become Conservative Party leader in the spring of 2004, Stephen Harper said of the Maritime provinces, "We will see the day when the region is not the place where you visit your grandparents, but instead more often than not the place where you visit your grandchildren." In Visiting Grandchildren, esteemed policy analyst and scholar Donald J. Savoie explores how Canadian economic policies have served to exclude the Maritime provinces from the wealth enjoyed in many other parts of the country, especially southern Ontario, and calls for a radical new approach in how Canadian governments determine policies that affect the different regions. Savoie advocates a 'ratchet effect' for national economic policies, whereby regions take turns at high growth, with the slow-growth region of one period becoming the high-growth region of the next, with none moving from slow-growth to decline. He demonstrates how this pattern has been effective in countries undergoing long-term regional convergence and how it would recognize that what is good for the Maritimes is good for Canada no less than what is good for Ontario is good for Canada. Visiting Grandchildren looks to history, accidents of geography, and to the workings of national political and administrative institutions to explain the relative underdevelopment of the Maritime provinces. Savoie argues that the region must strive to redefine its relationship with the national government and with other regions, that it must ask fundamental questions of itself about its own responsibility for its present underdevelopment, develop a cooperative mindset, and embrace the market, if it is to prosper in the twenty-first century. Savoie's work serves as the blueprint for a new way of envisioning the Maritime region.
A vivid and long overdue account of one of the great untold Canadian military stories: Sydney's importance as a major convoy port, a base in the hunt for German submarines, and an industrial centre producing critically important coal and steel.
Canadian Confederation has long been assessed as a political moment that created a new national entity. This book breaks new ground by arguing that Confederation was an imperial event that generated new questions and ideas about the future of global political order.
The first big book on one of the most overlooked episodes in Canadian history, and the origin of today's greatest national debate, Let the Eastern Bastards Freeze in the Dark relives the 1918 attempt by 3 premiers to wrest control of their natural resources away from Ottawa--and end their role as second-class provinces. The oil sands. Global warming. The National Energy Program. Though these seem like modern Canadian subjects, Mary Janigan reveals them to be a legacy of longstanding regional rivalry. Something of a "Third Solitude" since entering Confederation, the West has long been overshadowed by Canada's other great national debate. But as the conflict over natural resources and their effect on climate change heats up, 150 years of antipathy are coming to a head. Janigan takes readers back to a pivotal moment in 1918, when Canada's western premiers descended on Ottawa determined to control their own future--and as Margaret MacMillan did in Paris 1919, she deftly illustrates how the results reverberate to this day.
No matter where they live, Canadians expect and receive equal benefits from their government when it comes to old age pensions, consular services when travelling abroad, and airline safety. Canadians also expect the same quality of education, medical care, and social benefits anywhere in the country. But when government services come from provinces and not Ottawa, differences in the quality of services can be enormous. Canada's provinces have equal responsibilities but very unequal means to pay for those responsibilities. Equal citizenship for all Canadians is an idea that has a long and distinguished pedigree in Canadian life. When differences between the provinces grew dramatically in the early twentieth century, politicians crafted a response that sought to equalize services across the country. They called these measures "equalization," and the idea was deemed so fundamental that it was embodied in the 1982 Canadian constitution. But Canada has changed. The centre of wealth has been shifting from Ontario toward the resource-rich provinces. The wealth gap between provinces has grown -- and with it disparities in taxes and services available to citizens. Regionalism and neoconservative ideas have undermined support for equal citizenship. In this compelling new book, Richard Starr traces the history of this idea. He tracks how it has been undermined and attacked, and proposes how it can be reframed in a twenty-first century context to attract the support of most Canadians.
