Post-War Economic Development and Policy in Canada

Extract

The period from 1946 to date has been one of the great periods of Canadian development. There are only two earlier ones which are comparable. The first was the great expansion from just before the turn of the century to 1913 in which the Prairies were settled and developed. The second was the boom of 1925 to 1929 which, though short, was impressive while it lasted. It is true that, in addition to these two earlier periods of marked growth, the two world wars have provided strong impetus to industrialization but for obvious reasons they were not characterized by capital development.

During the eight years from 1946 to 1953 the population of Canada has been increasing at an average rate of 2¼ per cent per annum and new investment in fixed capital (not including maintenance and repairs) has been equivalent to more than 20 per cent of the gross national product. Recently, these rates of expansion have been higher, population increasing at over 2½ per cent per annum and capital investment representing over 23 per cent of the gross national product. These are high rates of growth by any standard of comparison. The investment programme of recent years has represented about the same proportion of the gross national product as did that of 1925–9, but the present expansion is more significant both because it has lasted a good deal longer and because it has been more broadly based. Even in the twenties it was still correct to think of the Canadian economy as dominated by wheat. Today, however, though wheat is still of great importance, other basic industries have developed strikingly, including pulp and paper, lumber, the traditional base metals, aluminum, the new metals, oil and iron. So far as population growth is concerned, the post-war increase has been more rapid than that of the twenties in part because we have not been losing nearly so heavily in emigration to the United States. From the middle of 1945 until the end of 1953 the natural increase in Canada's population has been about 2.1 million people and immigration has been about a million—a combined increase of 3.1 million. Over this same period, emigration has been around 500,000 and the net population gain has thus been 2.6 million, or over 20 per cent.