In the United States, organized socialism is dead; in Canada socialism, though far from national power, is a significant political force. Why this striking difference in the fortunes of socialism in two very similar societies?

Any attempt to account for the difference must be grounded in a general comparative study of the English-Canadian and American societies. It will be shown that the relative strength of socialism in Canada is related to the relative strength of toryism, and to the different position and character of liberalism in the two countries.

In North America, Canada is unique. Yet there is a tendency in Canadian historical and political studies to explain Canadian phenomena not by contrasting them with American phenomena but by identifying them as variations on a basic North American theme. I grant that Canada and the United States are similar, and that the similarities should be pointed out. But the pan-North American approach, since it searches out and concentrates on similarities, cannot help us to understand Canadian uniqueness. When this approach is applied to the study of English-Canadian socialism, it discovers, first, that like the American variety it is weak, and second, that it is weak for much the same reasons. These discoveries perhaps explain why Canadian socialism is weak in comparison to European socialism; they do not explain why Canadian socialism is so much stronger than American socialism.

The Registered Retirement Savings Plan, adopted in 1957, afforded Canadian taxpayers a new deduction from assessable income under the individual income tax. Qualified participants in this program may reduce current tax liabilities by their contributions to personal retirement savings accounts. This tax-inducement scheme was somewhat unusual, and “representative” taxpayer response would therefore occur only after a time lapse for individual evaluation of program advantages. Sufficient time has now expired, however, to permit a study of program performance.

Taxpayer response should be judged by reference to program objectives. Parliamentary discussions indicate that the measure had two objectives. The first was to restore an element of fairness, or uniform treatment, to the taxation of retirement funds. The second was to reinforce the social policy of fostering retirement saving in the private sector. The particular construction of the retirement saving scheme and the consequent taxpaper response seem, however, to have led to a failure to achieve either objective.

Taxpayer participation in 1962 is analysed in this article. Registered retirement savings deductions in that year were declared on only 1.49 per cent of all taxable returns filed by individuals under 65 years of age. Few taxpayers, then, utilize this deduction, and those who do are concentrated in the higher income classes.