The Canadian Society in/after the Second World War

Canada got out of the war a proud, triumphant nation with renewed standing in the world. It also emerged mourning and divided, permanently altered by the war’s unmatched endeavors and horrendous costs. The war strengthened the bonds among most Canadians despite what it exposed, such as high inflation, mandatory military service, deferral of many civil liberties, and broken promises to farmers and organized labor. The Government interceded in the Canadians’ lives, creating policies that would later develop into a fully-fledged system of social welfare. Each individual, despite which group they belonged to, entered the war with hopes and fears of how the war might change Canadian society, politics, and their own lives; some of the hopes/fears were met.

For starters, family, Fahrni (1998) investigates the position family holds in post-Second World War reformation trials in Montreal (Fahrni 187). The author takes us through the difficult re-establishment of relationships between male war veterans and their wives, parents, and children, despite the family being labeled as a catalyst for postwar healing. Evidently, the war had strained and somewhat broken relationships (Fahrni 189). A lot of husbands and young, unmarried men enlisted in the army and spent a good amount of time overseas. Due to their absence, the lives they got back to were not similar to the ones they had left behind. Many women faced allegations of adultery and, in some cases, bore children with other men, mainly attributed to loneliness, resulting in the intermediary of family agencies and the Dependents Allowance Board (Fahrni 191-92). Additionally, the spouses’ honor was gravely damaged, and they were at risk of losing their assets. Even if most of the husbands who had experienced unfaithfulness stayed with their wives, divorce rates increased. Furthermore, the number of newlyweds rose significantly, with around 45,000 war brides and 21,000 children moving to Canada, mainly from England (Fahrni 199). It proved to be an additional postwar marital issue, especially among the French Canadians who were not ecstatic about the children in the deranged households.

Many veterans met their children for the first time after a separation of many years, which made members of the Montreal Soldiers’ Wives League feel like the veterans’ children were lacking the upbringing and guidance of a father figure (Fahrni 202). Another concerning aspect was the father’s absence in children’s emotional and heterosexual growth, leading people to worry over daughters’ future adaptation to men and marriage, and sons getting over-dependent on their mothers. The awkward relations between veterans and children affected not only the two parties involved but also the veterans’ wives, leading to marital issues that sent some children to institutional or foster care (Fahrni 203). Similarly, strained marital relationships affected children’s opinions of their veteran fathers. Most Canadian veterans were sent out to war while still young and unmarried. As a result, their return felt more frustrating than enthusiastic after several years of mobility and absence, especially now that they were past their adolescent age (Fahrni 204). Increased conflicts between the veterans and their parents were evident due to the son’s resistance to parental supremacy and their independence. Furthermore, due to Montreal’s extreme housing shortage, most veterans were forced to move back into their parents’ overcrowded homes (Fahrni 205). Another way in which the war transformed was through the transfer of assigned pay and dependents’ allowances from mothers to new brides, which caused mothers to feel displaced and neglected, leading to more strained relationships.

Blake (2009) examines the family allowance occurrence from the idea’s debut in the House of Commons in 1929 to the program’s end as a global program under the Mulroney Government in 1992 (Blake 47). Even though consecutive federal governments stayed devoted to their fundamental principle of universality, bureaucracy, party politics, federal-provincial wrangling, and the altering priorities of citizens crumbled the rights-based strategy to social security and restored it with one based on necessity. In uncovering the development of one social security program from a national viewpoint, the book offers information on how Canada’s well-being state and social policy have been shifted.

Canadians began looking beyond the war as the nation got ready for the return to peace, since the five years of war showed them what an activist state could achieve. The Governor General charged up their hopefulness by declaring that social security and human well-being were to become the key postwar goals of Canada’s domestic policy (Blake 47). After that, the Government announced its intention to start a family allowance program. The Department of Finance in Ottawa introduced allowances for children of enlisted soldiers to help the veterans’ families resulting from the outbreak of hostilities in 1939 (Blake 50). By 1 January 1943, allowances covered up to six dependent children, which was a shift from the former allowance that covered two children. $12 each for the first two children, $10 for the third cold, and $8 each for the fourth, fifth, and sixth children. These allowances aided in the government assuming responsibility for the maintenance of families belonging to the Armed forces, eradicating the mother’s need to appeal to charity agencies like the Canadian Patriotic Fund (Blake 51). Furthermore, Towers believed that family allowances deserved a higher focus than old age pensions since money spent on their health and education was more likely to be a productive national investment. The Marsh Report demonstrated how thoughts surrounding social welfare had changed since the Great Depression, resulting in the claim that non-working citizens or those who had not saved while under employment could not be supported by the state (Blake 54). Consequently, during the 1943 summer, the King Cabinet was also battling with establishing a new labor initiative to handle the increasing unhappiness among dissatisfied employees and struggling to manage the government’s wage stabilization initiative that had been implemented as a method to control inflation (Blake 62). Additionally, senior government bureaucrats struggled to solve the crisis of the King, committing his government to fundamental social and economic change after the war with labor by connecting it to payments through social security.

Another group that was affected by the postwar period was women. According to Pierson (1986), Canada had around 900,000 registered unemployed workers of approximately 3.8 million when World War II began (Pierson 23). After two years, the unemployed people greatly met the elevated demands for laborers formed by military recruitment and wartime production, leading to the reserve of probable female workers who had not yet been drawn into employment. Labor Minister Humphrey Mitchell commanded the registration of all women aged between twenty and twenty-four, excluding members of religious orders, prison inmates, hospital patients, and women currently in insurable employment. However, grave labor shortages developed in the summer of 1943 in the sections of labor dependent on women since women employees were leaving low-paid service jobs for higher-paying employment in war industries (Pierson 27). Additionally, immediately after the declaration of war, women formed female organizations that dealt with voluntary war work without waiting for help from the federal government. Between 1943 and 1945, the Women’s Institutes of Canada raised over half a million dollars, made garments for the Red Cross and others, welcomed veterans, and helped foreign war brides feel at home (Pierson 39). Aside from that, they voluntarily contributed to monitoring inflation by appointing committees to monitor the movement of prices and the availability of goods. Unfortunately, despite the women’s huge voluntary contribution to Canada’s war effort, they had to struggle to make their voices heard.

As demonstrated by Stephen (2007), government officials strived to balance equality for post-war women, capturing a spirit of optimism (Stephen 125). Through the federal government’s Veterans Charter, gender equality rights for women were guaranteed for the first time. Women who had served in any of the special women’s military services were granted equal access to land grants, training and education, financial aid, rehabilitation credits, and services (Stephen 125). Due to a lot of layoffs, the Women’s Division established a coordinated program under the Pre-Employment Training Survey (PTS). The program’s focus was on providing vocational training opportunities such as hairdressing, dressmaking, stenography, hotel and restaurant service, and retail sales, among many more (Stephen 131). Years of sacrifice were identified, and women earned the right to full citizenship. Liberal paternalism put a restricted rights disclosure that avoided disturbing the bedrock of domesticity, whereby maternal claims were based and argued for the need for paid employment for women.

As discussed in Unit 10, the DuPont magazine July/August 1960, demonstrated new ideas for the Industry’s product lines through the designer and the company. The DuPont Company yearned for better things for a better living by creating new products after the war. Similarly, the Wartime Home-Maker magazine, specifically made for women, strived to enable women to conduct shopping in their own home district while still devoting themselves to war charities and activities (John 1). Since trade personnel were eliminated from the battlefront, they spent their time supplying soldiers with necessary commodities like clothing and pins, towels, and needles. The textile trade manufactured material worth sixty million dollars specifically for the Canadian Army, Navy, and Air Force, and, in addition, supplied a few slow-ups, which were the consumer demands of Canadian civilians (John 2). As a result of wartime regulations, new and delightful fashions made their appearance throughout Canada, such as narrow belts, less fullness in skirts, and simple sleeves. Other changes include larger shopping bags and marketing baskets. New ways of washing gloves were also implemented, like washing leather gloves on their hands in cool Lux suds (John 2). Industrial support also grew during the war, whereby there were collaborations between corset firms and medical heads.

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