Canada provides an interesting illustration of how far a system of government in practice may depart from the provisions of a legally valid constitution. Although in 1867 the British North America Act created a relatively centralized form of government, today, through changes wrought by geography, convention, and judicial decision, Canada's machinery of government is essentially federal in its operation. In other words, Canada has developed an “unwritten” constitution which goes far toward ensuring the independence of provincial governments in the exercise of exclusive powers. In one or two important respects, however, we find the federal character of Canadian government still somewhat in doubt. And it is by examining whether the existing system satisfies the essential requirements of federalism that the post-war developments in federal-provincial relations may be fruitfully analysed; by examining, that is to say, the extent to which these developments represent a movement towards or away from federalism.

Since World War II, Canada's constitutional system has been affected by three important changes: (1) federal-provincial financial arrangements have been radically revised; (2) the Supreme Court of Canada has been charged with the final interpretation of the constitution; and (3) the method of amending the constitution has been changed. It remains to record these developments in greater detail, and then to discuss their implications.

Our present social sciences, with their concepts of “culture” and “personality,” have made us vividly aware of the interrelatedness of the particular aspects of human behaviour in societies. It comes no longer as a surprise that religion and economic expansiveness are interconnected.

In his famous study, The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, Max Weber developed the idea that ascetic Protestantism in some way prepared the way for the calculating spirit of modern, rational capitalism. Here an ideal factor was regarded as an independent variable in history. Although the main thesis has found fairly general acceptance, important criticisms have been levelled at particular points of Weber's essay. While Weber demonstrated the affinity between such ideas as the religiously coloured “calling” and “innerworldly asceticism,” and the more utilitarian and secular economic ideas of later times (Franklin), he did not carefully analyse the precise nature of the influence of the earlier ideas. For that purpose, a detailed study of the economic structure of early modern Europe would have been necessary, and, at least within The Protestant Ethic, Weber abstained from such a study.

Potentially, the most complete and accurate information concerning any broad class of law-violators is obtainable from statistics on inmates of penitentiaries. This is true because the longer term of the penitentiary convict makes possible a correspondingly more intensive study of his characteristics than can be made for the offender concerning whom we have only the information provided by the police, the courts, or the municipal jails.

The research upon which this report is based grew out of an interest in evaluating, at least partially, the extent to which one major recommendation of the so-called “Archambault Report” has been implemented. The pertinent recommendation stressed “the need for formulating definite policies in regard to the compilation of statistics and definite principles of gathering such statistics which would be observed by all authorities throughout Canada.” More concretely, it recommended (p. 174) that “there should be a close cooperation between the [Department of Justice, Penitentiaries Branch] … and the [Dominion] Bureau of Statistics, with a view to formulating definite policies….” The major statistical section (forming the Appendix) of the Annual Report of the Commissioners of Penitentiaries, is a direct result of the foregoing recommendation.

This study of urban building and real estate activity in Canada is concerned primarily with housing. It is part of a broader project stimulated by Silberling's thesis that among the various components of durable capital formation in the United States only investment in housing and in transportation have acted as prime movers determining the general level of economic activity. This paper falls into two parts, the first dealing with the nature of building and real estate cycles in selected cities in Canada, and the second relating these fluctuations to the growth and movement of population. Basic tables and brief notes on sources are included in an appendix.

The top section of Chart 1 is an index of urban building activity in Canada from 1866 to 1946. This index reflects four and a half major cycles in the eighty years since the Dominion was established. The cycles are similar in many respects to those found by American students. This Canadian index, like those used to illustrate the long cycles in American building, is based on building permits issued in major cities, and has been adjusted to eliminate the influence of changes in the cost of construction. Table I compares upper and lower turning points in the index with those reflected in Mr. J. R. Riggleman's index of deflated values of urban building permits per capita in the United States.

This Article is an attempt to reopen the question of the role of government in the economic life of Upper Canada before 1840. It stems from certain problems encountered in connection with a history of the Welland Canal Company, and material relating to the Welland Canal and to the career of William Hamilton Merritt, its promoter, will be used to illustrate the argument. The central problem to which we shall address ourselves is, quite simply: what difference did the political and social state of Upper Canada in this period make to the way in which the Welland Canal Company was founded and managed?

The general outlines of Upper Canada's political organization and social structure will already be familiar to most readers. Other historians have dealt more than adequately with such matters as the origin of the dominant élite which we know as the Family Compact, the slow development of the idea of responsible or parliamentary government, and the aims, grievances, and methods of the colonial reformers. It is to be regretted that our knowledge of Upper Canada's economic development in this period is less detailed, but the main features are clear enough for present purposes.

The few attempts that have been made to analyse the interaction of economic, political, and social factors in the history of Upper Canada, particularly in connection with the rebellion of 1837, suggest the fruitfulness of such an approach. The present essay is to be taken as a case-study in this type of analysis.

Although, as Professor Norman Ward pointed out in The Canadian House of Commons: Representation, statistical studies of the personnel of Parliament are not entirely satisfactory, they are none the less valuable to the political scientist for they help him to a better understanding of legislative bodies. The nature of a parliament is partly determined by the characteristics of its members. Thus the British House of Commons, with its membership broadly distributed in many occupations and its many trade union members, has a collective approach to contemporary problems of government different from that of the American Congress dominated by lawyers; and a legislative body with a large proportion of Roman Catholics will handle legislation on divorce in a manner quite different from that of a parliament composed almost entirely of Protestants.

The present study does not consider whether the various segments of the Canadian population are represented in proportion to their size in the nation, nor question the quality of Canadian representation. It is simply an attempt to discover some of the measurable characteristics of members of the House of Commons elected June 27, 1949. An effort has been made to indicate trends by comparing the results of this study with the conclusions reached by Lionel Laing in his article on the characteristics of members of the twentieth Parliament. The major source of data has been The Canadian Parliamentary Guide. Although the information is not complete in all biographical sketches of members, the absence of only a few items does not seriously alter the final statistical picture. No attempt has been made to include information on members elected in by-elections since June, 1949.