The purpose of this paper is to examine some of the main problems involved in collective bargaining legislation and to indicate how they have been dealt with in Canada. The study is confined mainly to provincial legislation, since the Dominion Industrial Disputes Investigation Act deals with conciliation machinery, and not collective bargaining, and the validity of the Dominion Trade Union Act has been strongly impugned by the courts. The discussion will be -confined to five main headings: (1) the right to organize; (2) the right to bargain collectively; (3) the bargaining unit and the bargaining agency; (4) the extent of the duty to bargain; (5) administration.

The Right to Organize. The first main problem is the question of the right to organize. I use the term “right” advisedly, for lack of a better. The developed liberalism of modern times does not seek to define the rights of citizens in terms of strict indefeasibility. Everyone, at common law, has always been free to organize or join a trade union, so long as its purposes did not violate the criminal law. Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan declare that it shall be lawful for employees to organize and join a trade union; Ontario substitutes the term “collective bargaining agency” for “trade union,” the former term, by definition, excluding company unions “dominated, coerced or improperly influenced by the employer.” The rest of the provinces recognize the right of both employers and employees to organize for any lawful purpose. In connection with this latter group, if the word “lawful” means not criminal—then it is superfluous; if it means lawful, as not being in restraint of trade, the declaration is of little value, since most trade unions have objects, such as strikes, pickets, etc. which are in restraint of trade.

The construction industry is the main durable consumer goods industry in Canada. Among the producer goods industries it ranked fourth in 1929 and fifth in 1938. Construction activity is marked by fluctuations which are greater than those of any other sphere of economic activity in this country. In other words, the construction cycle, itself an important factor in determining the shape of the trade cycle, shows when reproduced on a comparative basis, a considerably greater distance between the upper and lower turning points than the trade cycle. Estimates prepared by the Dominion Bureau of Statistics show that the volume of construction in this country declines to one-third or one-fourth of its volume in prosperous times. These estimates cover only part of the construction field. An attempt is therefore made in this paper to estimate the gross value of all construction activity in Canada. If the resulting estimate is correct, the Construction Census only accounts for 55 per cent of the total.

It is not easy to establish a set of working standards with which to appraise the efficiency of Canadian business in the war economy. The industrial revolution through which this country has been passing for three years has changed the pattern of our economy to such an extent that profit, the conventional yardstick of efficiency, ceases to be significant.

The rules of the game have been rewritten and are still under revision. Free private enterprise is hardly free, nor is it altogether private. Most of the business done today is on government account and under government control. Government is engaged in the largest business enterprise in Canada's history. It owns $865,000,000 of the new plant that has been created for war production, or about 80-5 per cent of the nation's total new productive capacity. Its 1943-4 war budget of $4,490,000,000 exceeds the 1939 national income.

Government is the nation's greatest order-placer, employer, and producer. Canada's war production is estimated to reach a new peak of $3,600,000,000 in 1943. This figure represents a 75 per cent increase over the total net value of Canada's manufactured products, mining output, and construction projects in 1938, the last full year of peace.

The pre-war pattern of the Canadian business system has become so interwoven with government business, government controls over wages, man-power, raw materials, tools, power, and prices, that it presents a difficult analytical problem. None of the factors involved is constant, and the pattern will undoubtedly continue to be one of transition.

During the past year, agricultural man-power in Canada has assumed a new importance. With a growing recognition that food is a vital weapon of war and the realization that the farm working force has been seriously depleted during the past three and a half years, the problems of farm labour have been forced into the foreground.

It was natural perhaps, during the first years of war, when munitions, aeroplanes, army vehicles, and ships were in such great demand; when men were needed in large numbers for the armed forces; and when surpluses of many essential farm products existed, that farm production should be considered of secondary importance. Today, the situation has changed. The relative importance of food has sharply increased. Not only have the surpluses of bacon, dairy, and poultry products disappeared, but the requirements of the Allied Nations for these and other provisions have greatly expanded. To contribute her share in supplying essential foods and fibres to the Allied Nations and to meet home requirements, Canada must have adequate farm man-power.

It is proposed in this paper to deal with the subject of agricutural man-power largely from an economic point of view. In making this limitation, it is realized that the economic considerations cannot be divorced arbitrarily from other ever-present social factors. These latter factors cannot be ignored, and will have to be considered, at least indirectly, in several parts of the discussion. The main economic aspects of agricultural man-power covered here might be briefly indicated. In the first place, the nature of the present farm man-power problem will be outlined. The extent and character of the existing farm working force will be analysed and the sources of additional labour discussed. The mobilization of this man-power through measures introduced by the federal and provincial governments will be reviewed. Finally, some problems for the immediate and long-run future will be raised and discussed.

The great increase in the construction of index numbers of economic data, particularly of prices, since the turn of the century, has increased our knowledge of the mechanism of the economic system. One of the earliest uses of index numbers of prices was to measure the long time movements of the general price level. Later, index numbers of prices were used a great deal in studying the movements of the business cycle. Within more recent years they have been used to study changes in the relative positions of different types of economic activity.

The world-wide depression of the 1930's stimulated the use of index numbers of prices in indicating the relatively unfavourable position of agriculture. As a result of the widespread use and study of index numbers of prices in this period, the “Parity Prices for Agriculture” slogan was born. The acceptance by the Government of the United States of the parity principle, based on price ratios, as a basic government agricultural policy has had a profound influence on the thinking of the farmers of Canada. Within recent years the distressing position of agriculture in the Canadian economy has resulted in a widespread demand by the farmers for parity prices for agriculture.

Recent research on national income in Canada and the United States has enabled estimates to be made of the total national income and break-downs of some of its more important parts. In Canada three agencies have computed these estimates, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, the Bank of Nova Scotia, and a special committee for the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations. The yearly levels of national income as computed by these three agencies do not agree exactly, as one might expect due to somewhat different methods of calculation, but the general trends correspond fairly well.

This paper is an attempt to relate briefly the impact of the Canadian war organization on local governments in Canada; most of the experience and fact are derived from the Province of Ontario although they apply in large measure to the municipalities throughout Canada. In the course of the paper some criticisms will be made, not for the sake of being critical, but in the hope that they may influence coming developments.

In view of the confusion that seems to exist concerning the functions of municipal government, the division of constitutional powers in Canada is relevant and may be reviewed briefly. The British North America Act formally establishes only two divisions of government—the Dominion and the provinces. The provinces, under section 92, sub-section 8, are given exclusive power over “municipal institutions in the Province.” Certain other matters of local importance such as licences, charities, hospitals, and asylums, are also given to the provinces. These specific items along with the allocation generally of “all matters of a merely local or private nature” have been taken as indicating that the traditional social services in the first instance are a provincial responsibility although in fact they have been shared with the local government from the beginning. It is thus clear from the British North America Act that municipal institutions are under the province and are legally the creation of the province. Naturally, the experience has not been the same in all provinces and some have gone further than others in the development of local government. But one thing is clear: the provinces are familiar with the municipal governments which they have created; they have worked with them, they have argued with them, and they understand them. They appreciate that they are, to use the words of the sixteenth-century poet, “a proud and yet a wretched thing.”