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Recent Trends in Canadian Business and Economic History*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2012

Glenn Porter
Glenn Porter
Affiliation:
Assistant Professor of Business History, Harvard University
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Extract

Canadian history has traditionally received relatively little study outside Canada itself, despite the fact that the Canadian past is a fascinating and rich story indeed, one which has generated an admirable body of historical literature. And, as those interested in the history of business and the historical interaction of business and society would expect, within Canadian historiography there has traditionally been relatively little emphasis on business history The publication of the present collection of essays has a twofold purpose – to increase, however modestly, non-Canadians' knowledge of Canadian history, and to extend the body of scholarly work devoted to Canadian business and economic history.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 47 , Issue 2: Canada , Summer 1973 , pp. 141 - 157
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1973

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References

1 Complaints about the lack of attention given to business history in Canada are common. See, for example, Alan Wilson, “Forgotten Men of Canadian History,” in Canadian Historical Association, Report, 1965, 71–86; Peter B. Waite, “The Edge of the Forest,” in Canadian Historical Association, Historical Papers 1969, 9; and Careless, J. M. S., “The Review Reviewed: Or Fifty Years with the Beaver Patrol,” Canadian Historical Review, LI (March, 1970), 67Google Scholar.

2 Mackintosh's essay of half a century ago is usually considered the pioneer statement of the staples thesis (“Economic Factors in Canadian History,” Canadian Historical Review, IV [March, 1923], 12–25Google Scholar), though Mackintosh was careful to state that his views had been influenced by the work of Frederick Jackson Turner and Guy S. Callender. Innis' voluminous and excellent studies brought the approach to full fruition. See, among many other possibilities, his Fur trade in Canada: An Introduction to Canadian Economic History (Toronto, 1930)Google Scholar; The Cod Fisheries: The History of an International Economy (Toronto, 1940)Google Scholar; and Essays in Canadian Economic History (Toronto, 1956)Google Scholar. Creighton's most influential book was The Commercial Empire of the St. Lawrence, 1760–1850 (Toronto, 1937)Google Scholar.

3 McDougall, , “Immigration into Canada, 1851–1920,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXVII (May, 1961), 173Google Scholar.

4 See Baldwin's, R. E. essay, “Patterns of Development in Newly Settled Regions,” Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies, XXIV (May, 1956), 161–179CrossRefGoogle Scholar. A good theoretical view of the model is also available in Watkins, M. H., “A Staple Theory of Economic Growth,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXIX (May, 1963), 141–158CrossRefGoogle Scholar, reprinted in Easterbrook, W. A. and Watkins, M. H., eds., Approaches to Canadian Economic History (Toronto, 1967), 49–73Google Scholar.

5 Englewood Cliffs, N.J., 1961. In North's version of the approach, cotton was the staple acting as the engine of U.S. economic growth between 1790 and 1860.

6 Often the entire set of policies is lumped together and described as the National Policy, though that term is also used to refer specifically to the policy of protective tariffs. Borrowing the distinction of John Dales, in this paper, “national policies” refers to the entire program, and “National Policy” only to tariffs. See Dales, , “Some Historical and Theoretical Comment on Canada's National Policies,” Queen's Quarterly, LXXI (Autumn, 1964), 297–316Google Scholar.

7 Buckley, , “The Role of Staple Industries in Canada's Economic Development,” Journal of Economic History, XVIII (December, 1958)Google Scholar. An important study whose evidence and conclusions tended to diminish somewhat the staples thesis was Fowke's, Vernon C.The National Policy and the Wheat Economy (Toronto, 1957)Google Scholar.

Two recent examples of scholarship that indicate the continuing strength of the staples model are Bertram, Gordon W., “Economic Growth and Canadian Industry, 1870–1915: The Staple Model and the Take-Off Hypothesis,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXXIX (May, 1963), 162–184Google Scholar, and Burley, Kevin H., ed., The Development of Canada's Staples, 1867–1939: A Documentary Collection (Toronto, 1971)Google Scholar. Burley argues (p. xiii) that “economic development in Canada between 1867 and 1939… is largely a story of the successive exploitation of the country's natural resources with the aid of capital and labour obtained in the main from external sources.”

8 Published in Toronto in 1967 (second edition, 1970). Lithwick uses a Cobb-Douglas model, though he points out the importance of staples.

9 Easterbrook and Watkins, Approaches to Canadian Economic History, ix.

10 As Hugh G. J. Aitken noted in his introduction (p. xi) to the reprint of Gilbert Norman Tucker's Canadian Commercial Revolution, 1845–1851 (Toronto, 1964)Google Scholar, the recent questioning of the staples approach has related primarily to the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries.

Nigel Kent-Barber argued that staples are virtually an inescapable historical fact and therefore will play a leading role no matter what the methodology favored by a particular historian. He perhaps overstated the degree of acceptance of the staples approach by declaring that “la thèse a fait son chemin au point qu'il n'est plus ni thèse ni école: c'est la base totalement acceptée de l'histoire économique canadienne.” Kent-Barber, , “La Theorie du commerce principal chez MM. Creighton et Ouellet,” Revue d'histoire de I'Amérique française, XXII (December, 1968), 403Google Scholar.

11 Brown, and Cross, , “The Beginning of Year 51,” Canadian Historical Review, LI (March, 1970), 2Google Scholar.

12 Creighton, “The Decline and Fall of the Empire of the St. Lawrence,” in Canadian Historical Association, Historical Papers 1969, 14–25.

13 Dales, “Some Historical and Theoretical Comment,” 302. See also his Protective Tariff in Canadian Development (Toronto, 1966)Google Scholar.

14 Ibid., passim.

15 Aitken, , “Government and Business in Canada: An Interpretation,” Business History Review, XXXVIII (Spring, 1964), 4–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also his “Defensive Expansionism: The State and Economic Growth in Canada,” in Aitken, , ed., The State and Economic Growth (New York, 1959), 79–114Google Scholar.

16 Lithwick, Economic Growth in Canada, 4.

17 The literature on this emotional topic is enormous. See, among many possibilities, Johnson, Harry G., The Canadian Quandary (Toronto, 1963)Google Scholar; Macdonald, Ian, “Foreign Ownership: Villain or Scapegoat?,” in Russell, Peter, ed., Nationalism in Canada (Toronto, 1966), 178–190Google Scholar; Safarian, A. E., Foreign Ownership of Canadian Industry: A Study of Company Policies and Performance (Toronto, 1966)Google Scholar; Levitt, Kari, Silent Surrender: The American Economic Empire in Canada (New York, 1971)Google Scholar; and Aitken, Hugh G. J. et al. , The American Economic Impact on Canada (Durham, N.C., 1959)Google Scholar.

18 The overtones of Creighton's “Decline and Fall” paper suggest that recent historiography's rejection of the Laurentian thesis reflects a decline of confidence in Canadian unity and purpose.

19 See, for example, Acheson's, T. W. excellent paper, “The National Policy and the Industrialization of the Maritimes, 1880–1910,” Acadiensis, I (Spring, 1972), 3–28Google Scholar.

20 Ibid., and his “The Nature and Structure of York Commerce in the 1820's,” Canadian Historical Review, L (December, 1969), 406–428Google Scholar. For another example, see Stelter, G., “The Origins of a Company Town: Sudbury in the Nineteenth Century,” Laurentian University Review, III (February, 1971), 3–37Google Scholar.

21 McCalla, , “The Commercial Politics of the Toronto Board of Trade, 1850–1860,” Canadian Historical Review, L (March, 1969), 51–67CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ouellet, , Histoire de la Chambre de Commerce de Québec, 1809–1959 (Quebec, 1959)Google Scholar.

22 Green, , “Regional Aspects of Canada's Economic Growth, 1890–1929,“ Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXXIII (May, 1967), 232–245CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Regional Inequality, Structural Change, and Economic Growth in Canada, 1890–1956,” Economic Development and Cultural Change, XVII (July, 1969), 567–583Google Scholar.

23 In addition to his essay in this collection, see Acheson's, “The Social Origins of Canadian Industrialism: A Study in the Structure of Entrepreneurship 1880–1910,” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 1971)Google Scholar and his contribution in Macmillan, ed., Canadian Business History, 144–174.

24 Gerald Tulchinsky's piece on the Montreal business community and J. M. S. Careless' paper on the business community of Victoria, British Columbia, are especially noteworthy.

25 Three useful recent bibliographic essays on French Canadian economic history are: Faucher, Albert, “L'histoire économique de la province de Québec jusqu'a la fin du XIXe siècle,” in Dumont, Fernand and Martin, Yves, eds., Situation de la recherche sur le Canada français (Quebec, 1962)Google Scholar; Nish, Cameron, “Bibliographie sur l'histoire économique du Canada français: Textes manuscrits et imprimés,” Actualité économique, XL (June, 1964), 200–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Mandrou, Robert, “L'Historiographie canadienne-française: Bilan et perspectives,” Canadian Historical Review, LI (March, 1970), 5–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26 Séguin, , “L'Agriculture et la vie économique des Canadiens, 1760–1850,” (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Montreal, 1948)Google Scholar; Frégault, , Canadian Society in the French Regime (Ottawa, 1958)Google Scholar.

27 Michel Brunet is probably the leading exponent of the “social decapitation” view. See his La Présence Anglaise et les Canadiens (Montreal, 1958)Google Scholar, Les Canadiens Après la Conquête (1759–1775) (Montreal, 1969)Google Scholar, and “The British Conquest: Canadian Social Scientists and the Fall of the Canadiens,” Canadian Historical Review, XL (June, 1959), 93–106Google Scholar.

28 See also Ouellet, , “Le Nationalisme canadienne-française: De ses origines a l'insurrection de 1837,” Canadian Historical Review, XLV (December, 1964), 277–290Google Scholar, and Ramsay Cook, “Some French-Canadian Interpretations of the British Conquest,” in the Canadian Historical Association, Report, 1966, 70–83.

29 Hamelin declared (Economie et société, 30), “Le drame de la colonisation française c'est de n'avoir pu former une bourgeoisie canadienne-française assise sur l'exploitation rationelle des resources naturelles du pays.”

30 See Falardeau, Jean-Charles, “L'Origine et l'ascension des hommes d'affaires dans la société canadienne-française,” Recherches sociographiques, VI (January-April, 1965), 3346Google Scholar; Taylor, Norman W., “French Canadians as Industrial Entrepreneurs,” Journal of Political Economy, LXVIII (February, 1960), 37–52CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Taylor's, “L'industriel canadien-français et son milieu,” Recherches sociographiques, II (April-June, 1961), 123–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

31 For a look at the historiographical conflicts, see Nish, Cameron, ed., The French Canadians, 1759–1766: Conquered? Half-Conquered? Liberated? (Toronto, 1967)Google Scholar. Among the treatments of Quebec in the period after 1850, see Roby, Yves and Hamelin, Jean, Histoire économique du Québec, 1851–1896 (Montreal, 1971)Google Scholar, and Angers, Francois-Albert, “L'évolution économique du Canada et du Québec depuis la confédération,” Revue d'histoire de I'Amérique française, XXI (1969), 637–655Google Scholar.

32 Rich, , The History of the Hudson's Bay Company, 2 vols. (London, 1959)Google Scholar, also published in 3 vols. (New York, 1961). Rich also wrote Montreal and the Fur Trade (Montreal, 1966)Google Scholar and The Fur Trade and the Northwest to 1867 (Toronto, 1967)Google Scholar.

33 Provincial and regional historical journals have devoted in recent years a very substantial amount of space to the topic. Among other recent monographs and articles, the following should be noted: Lent, D. Geneva, West of the Mountains: James Sinclair and the Hudson's Bay Company (Seattle, 1963)Google Scholar; Davies, K. G., ed., Letters from Hudson Bay, 1703–40 (London, 1965)Google Scholar; Campbell, Marjorie Wilkins, McGillicray, Lord of the Northwest (Toronto, 1962)Google Scholar; Aspects of the Fur Trade: Selected Papers of the 1965 North American Fur Trade Conference (St. Paul, Minn., 1967)Google Scholar; Woodcock, George, The Hudson's Bay Company (Toronto, 1971)Google Scholar; and Crean, J. F., “Hats and the Fur Trade,” Canadian Historical Review, XXVIII (August, 1962), 373–386Google Scholar.

34 Glazebrook, , History of Transportation in Canada, 2 vols. (Toronto, 1964), I, xiiGoogle Scholar. See also Glazebrook, “Confederation and Transportation,” Revista de Historica de América (1968), 41–51.

35 Canadian National Railways I. Sixty Years of Trial and error (1836–1896) and II. Towards the Inevitable, 1896–1922 (Toronto, 1960, 1962)Google Scholar.

36 See Andreassen, John C. L., “Canadian National Railway Records,” Business History Review, XXXIX (Spring, 1965), 115–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

37 Regehr, T. D., “The Canadian Northern Railway: The West's Own Product,” Canadian Historical Review, LI (June, 1970), 177–187CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 The Due book was published in Toronto in 1966. In addition to Professor Roy's article in this collection, see also her “Regulating the British Columbia Electric Railway: The First Public Utilities Commission in British Columba,” BC Studies (Fall, 1971), 3–20, and her contribution in David S. Macmillan, ed., Canadian Business History: Selected Studies.

39 Berton's two volumes on the CPR (The National Dream and The Last Spike) were published in Toronto in 1970 and 1971 respectively. A one-volume version has recently been issued in the United States under the title The Impossible Railway: The Building of the Canadian Pacific (New York, 1972)Google Scholar. Mcdougall's book was Canadian Pacific: A Brief History (Montreal, 1968)Google Scholar.

40 Published in Toronto, a reissue of the 1923 edition.

41 Fogel, , The Union Pacific Railroad: A Case in Premature Enterprise (Baltimore, 1960)Google Scholar and Railroads and American Economic Growth: Essays in Econometric History (Baltimore, 1964)Google Scholar; Fishlow, , American Railroads and the Transformation of the Ante-Bellum Economy (Cambridge, Mass., 1965)Google Scholar.

42 See George's important article, “Rates of Return in Railway Investment and Implications for Government Subsidization of the Canadian Pacific Railroad: Some Preliminary Results,” Canadian Journal of Economics, I (November, 1968), 740–762Google Scholar. Mercer's, Lloyd J. “Taxpayers or Investors: Who Paid for the Land-Grant Railroads?” Business History Review, XLVI (Autumn, 1972), 279–294CrossRefGoogle Scholar, estimates the contribution of subsidies to the investment in the Canadian Pacific system.

Following Fogel's lead, George defined the private rate of return as the ratio of operating profits (gross earnings less working expenses) in a given year to the cost of investment up to and including that year. The CPR was initially unprofitable in the sense that the private rate of return was below the opportunity cost of capital (or the “normal” rate of return on alternative investments).

43 Lorne Mcdougall, on an impressionistic basis, agreed, terming it “desperately premature.” Mcdougall, Canadian Pacific, 1.

44 Kilbourn, , Pipeline: Transcanada and the Great Debate — A History of Business and Politics (Toronto, 1970)Google Scholar.

45 Aitken's ideas also were seconded by Margaret Prang in her article, “The Origins of Public Broadcasting in Canada,” Canadian Historical Review, XLVI (March, 1965)Google Scholar.

46 Willoughby, , The St. Lawrence Seaway: A Study in Politics and Diplomacy (Madison, Wis., 1961)Google Scholar.

47 Examples include: Ashley, C. A., The First Twenty-Five Years: A Study of Trans-Canada Air Lines (Toronto, 1963)Google Scholar; Hamilton, J. H., “The ‘All-Red Route,’ 1893–1953: A History of the Trans-Pacific Mail Service between British Columbia, Australia, and New Zealand,” British Columbia Historical Quarterly, XX (January-April, 1956), 1–126Google Scholar; Paint, H. M., “Sailing Days Down East,” Canadian Banker, LXVIII (Spring, 1961), 113–121Google Scholar, and Paint's, “Financing the Welland Canal,” Canadian Banker, LXVIII (Summer, 1961), 59–68Google Scholar; Pammett, Howard, “The Steamboat Era on the Trent-Otonabee Waterway, 1830–1950,” Ontario History, LVI (June, 1964), 67–103Google Scholar; Parker, John P., Sails of the Maritimes (Halifax, 1960)Google Scholar; and Manny, Louise, Ships of the Miramichi (St. John, 1960)Google Scholar.

48 Denison, , Canada's First Bank: A History of the Bank of Montreal, 2 vols. (Toronto, 1966, 1967)Google Scholar.

49 Canadian Banker, LXXIV (Spring, 1967)Google Scholar. The four essays mentioned were: Drummond, “Financial Institutions in Historical Perspectives,” 150–58; Neufeld, “Canadian Financial Intermediaries — A Century of Development,” 143–49; Hébert, “Les Banques en Canada en 1867,” 83–95; and Perry, “Origins of the Canadian Bankers' Association,” 96–114.

50 See, for example, Drummond, Ian M., “Canadian Life Insurance Companies and the Capital Market, 1890–1914,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXVIII (May, 1962), 204–224CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Vaughn, Carol Lawrie, “The Bank of Upper Canada in Politics, 1817–1840,” Ontario History, LX (December, 1968), 185–205Google Scholar; and Angers, Francois Albert, “Le Financement des emprunts provinciaux et la Banque du Canada,” Actualité économique, XXXVIII (January-March, 1963), 548–568CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

51 See also Neufeld's, Money and Banking in Canada: Historical Documents and Commentary (Toronto, 1964)Google Scholar.

52 Bertram, , “Historical Statistics on Growth and Structure in Manufacturing in Canada, 1870–1957,” in Henripen, J. and Asimkopulos, A. A., eds., Canadian Political Science Association Conference on Statistics: 1962 and 1963 Papers (Toronto, 1964)Google Scholar.

53 See Bertram, , “Economic Growth and Canadian Industry, 1870–1915: The Staple Model and the Take-Off Hypothesis,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXIX (May, 1963), 162–184Google Scholar.

54 Rosenbluth, , Concentration in Canadian Manufacturing Industries (Princeton, N.J., 1957)Google Scholar, and his “The Relationship between Foreign Control and Concentration in Canadian Industry,” Canadian Journal of Economics, III (February, 1970), 14–38Google Scholar. See also Caves, Richard E. and Holton, Richard H., The Canadian Economy: Prospect and Retrospect (Cambridge, Mass., 1959)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

55 Urquhart, M. C. and Buckley, K. A. H., eds., Historical Statistics of Canada (Toronto, 1965)Google Scholar.

56 Ottawa, 1967.

57 Buckley, Kenneth, Capital Formation in Canada, 1896–1930 (Toronto, 1955)Google Scholar; Chambers, Edward J., “Canadian Business Cycles since 1919: A Progress Report,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXIV (May, 1958), 166–189CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Firestone, O. J., Canada's Economic Development, 1867–1953 (London, 1958)Google Scholar.

58 Denison, , The Barley and the Stream: The Molson Story (Toronto, 1955)Google Scholar, and The People's Power: The History of Ontario Hydro (Toronto, 1960)Google Scholar.

59 Main, O. W., The Canadian Nickel Industry: A Study in Market Control and Public Policy (Toronto, 1955)Google Scholar, and Thompson, John F. and Beasley, Norman, For the Years to Come: A Story of International Nickel of Canada (New York, 1960)Google Scholar. See also Main's essay in Macmillan, ed., Canadian Business History.

60 Neufeld, , A Global Corporation: A History of the International Development of Massey-Ferguson Limited (Toronto, 1969)Google Scholar.

61 Wilkins, Mira and Hill, Frank Ernest, American Business Abroad: Ford on Six Continents (Detroit, 1964)Google Scholar.

62 See, for example, Macpherson, Mary-Etta, Shopkeepers to a Nation: The Eatons (Toronto, 1963)Google Scholar, and Hanson, Eric J., Dynamic Decade: The Evolution and Effects of the Oil Industry in Alberta (Toronto, 1958)Google Scholar.

63 See, for example: McGregor, James G., Edmonton Trader: The Story of John A. McDougall (Toronto, 1963)Google Scholar; Acheson, T. W., “John Baldwin: Portrait of a Colonial Entrepreneur,” Ontario History, LXI (September, 1969), 153–166Google Scholar; Swainson, Donald, “Business and Politics: The Career of John Willoughby Crawford,” Ontario History, LXI (December, 1969), 225–236Google Scholar; J. M. S. Careless, “The Lowe Brothers, 1852–70: A Study of Business Relations on the North Pacific Coast,” BC Studies (Summer, 1969), 1–18; Armstrong, Frederick H., “George Jervis Cooper: Pioneer Merchant of London, Ontario,” Ontario History, LXIII (December, 1971), 217–232Google Scholar; and less substantial contributions such as Maclean's, HughMan of Steel: The Story of Sir Sandford Fleming (Toronto, 1969)Google Scholar, and Newman's, Peter C.Flame of Power: Intimate Profiles of Canada's Greatest Businessmen (Toronto, 1959)Google Scholar. Two recent autobiographical entries include: Frederick S. Mendel (founder of Intercontinental Packers), The Book and Life of a Little Man (Toronto, 1972)Google Scholar, and Nordegg, Martin (an entrepreneur in the Alberta coalfields), The Possibilities of Canada Are Truly Great: Memoirs, 1906–1924 (edited by Regehr, T. D., Toronto, 1971)Google Scholar.

64 A sampling of these includes the following (not mentioned previously): Hunter, W. D. G., “The Development of the Canadian Uranium Industry: An Experiment in Public Enterprise,” Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science, XXVIII (August, 1962), 329–352CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Keith Ralston, “Patterns of Trade and Investment on the Pacific Coast, 1867–1892: The Case of the British Columbia Salmon Canning Industry,” BC Studies (Winter, 1968–69), 37–45; Whitham, W. D., “Les investissements américains et les origines de l'industrie pétrolière canadienne,” Actualité économique, XLIV (January-March, 1969), 689–710CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Whitham, W. D., “L'Industrie canadienne des pâtes et papiers,” Actualité économique, XLV (July-September, 1969), 267–298CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Ross, D. S. G., “History of the Electrical Industry in Manitoba,” Historical and Scientific Society of Manitoba, Papers, series III, 20, 1963–1964, 49–70Google Scholar; and Phelps, Edward, “The Canada Oil Association — An Early Business Combination,” Western Ontario Historical Notes, XIX (September, 1963), 31–39Google Scholar.

65 See Archer, John Hall, “Business Records: The Canadian Scene,” American Archivist, XXXII (July, 1969), 251–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and Archer's piece in Macmillan, ed., Canadian Business History.

66 Especially noteworthy and laudable are: Gordon, Robert S., ed., Union List of Manuscripts in Canadian Repositories (Ottawa, 1968)Google Scholar; Wood, W. D., Kelly, L. A., and Kumer, P., comps., Canadian Graduate Theses, 1919–1967: An Annotated Bibliography Covering Economics, Business, and Industrial Relations (Kingston, 1970)Google Scholar; and the continuing appearance of the volumes in Brown, George W., ed., Dictionary of Canadian Biography (Toronto, 1966.)Google Scholar. See also Lovett, Robert W., American Economic and Business History Information Sources (Detroit, 1971)Google Scholar; Daniells, Lorna M., comp., Studies in Enterprise (Boston, 1957)Google Scholar and annual supplements in the Business History Review, 1959–1964; and Byers, Barbara B. et al. , Early Canadian Companies (Toronto, 1967)Google Scholar.