Reviews / Comptes Rendus

Document generated on 09/24/2021 7:47 p.m. Labour/Le Travailleur Reviews / Comptes Rendus Volume 56, 2005 URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/llt56rv01 See table of contents Publisher(s) Canadian Committee on Labour History ISSN 0700-3862 (print) 1911-4842 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article (2005). Reviews / Comptes Rendus. Labour/Le Travailleur, 56, 293–366. All rights reserved © Canadian Committee on Labour History, 2005 This document is protected by copyright law. Use of the services of Érudit (including reproduction) is subject to its terms and conditions, which can be viewed online. https://apropos.erudit.org/en/users/policy-on-use/ This article is disseminated and preserved by Érudit. Érudit is a non-profit inter-university consortium of the Université de Montréal, Université Laval, and the Université du Québec à Montréal. Its mission is to promote and disseminate research. https://www.erudit.org/en/ REVIEWS /COMPTES RENDUS Georges Campeau, From UI to EI: during the Great Depression that led first Waging War on the Welfare State, trans- to an abortive effort to introduce UI by the lated by Richard Howard (Vancouver: R.B. Bennett government in its dying UBC Press 2005) days, and the eventual introduction of a new UI bill by Mackenzie King’s admin- O RIGINALLY PUBLISHED by Les istration in 1940 after the Judicial Com- Éditions du Boréal in 2001, Georges mittee of the Privy Council in the UK had Campeau’s work ambitiously traces the decreed that the Bennett bill, which history of (un)employment insurance in lacked provincial consent, was ultra Canada from its inception to the present. vires. Campeau observes that the battle A legal scholar and activist lawyer who between left-wing forces, led by the fought many cases for the jobless who Communist Party of Canada, for were denied unemployment benefits, non-contributory unemployment insur- Campeau employs an approach that com- ance, and the right-wing supporters of UI bines political economy with discourse who demanded contributions from poten- analysis, and is generally successful in tial recipients, was just one part of a larger linking the two. It seems only appropriate war. The “unemployment insurance” for that the first full study of the UI system in which the left were struggling had little to Canada was done in French in Quebec, do with traditional capitalist notions of and then translated into English. UI is re- insurance in which rates were assessed on garded as a social right in Quebec to a the basis of risk, and benefits reflected the greater degree than elsewhere in Canada, contributions that individuals made. It and UI demonstrations demanding more was simply a name given to a wage re- consideration for Quebec workers have placement for the unemployed to be paid been frequent occurrences in Quebec. The from general revenues, that is a Bloc Québécois, which many Anglo- redistributive mechanism. Since, at the phones view as simply bent on keeping time, only the wealthy paid taxes, they the federal government out of all social would be forced collectively to repay programs in Quebec, has been the most workers for the greed of their individual militant defender in Parliament of a return members who had taken workers’ jobs to the Liberal-era UI program, though away. This would either place collective they want the program for Quebec to be capitalist pressures on individual busi- under Quebec jurisdiction. nesses not to dismiss workers, or would Beginning with the familiar ground of create a crisis in capitalism as the wealth unemployment insurance’s origins in of the rich was redistributed to the penni- Bismarckian Germany and its spread less via a state insurance program. Either throughout Europe, Campeau outlines the way, the capitalists would be deprived of debates within Canada both before and the reserve army of labour, so important to strike-breaking and maintaining low Table of Contents for Reviews, pp. 5-6. wages. 294 LABOUR/LE TRAVAIL By contrast, the right wanted to pre- importance of women’s groups in secur- serve capitalist property relations and the ing the gains of the 1950s and early 1960s, existing distribution of wealth among so- seems unaware of the key role played by cial classes. So it defended the more tradi- the women’s movement. tional, “actuarial” notion of insurance. In The story after 1971 is the story of neo- both the Bennett and King UI bills, that liberalism. The 1971 changes, though in- meant depriving seasonal workers and do- troduced at a time when unemployment mestic workers of the right to participate was beginning an initially slow rise, were in UI at all since the risk of their losing accompanied by government optimism their jobs was so high. It also meant tying that the economy would remain stable and benefits to contributions. Only about 40 there would be no rush of UI-seekers. That per cent of the labour force was covered optimism quickly evaporated, and the by the 1940 bill. Interestingly, Campeau Tory federal campaign of 1972 featured misses completely the gendered character an attack on UI recipients that had racist of these bills, and does not include Ruth and anti-foreigner overtones, even Pierson’s important work on the issue in though the campaign was led by the sup- his bibliography. Campeau does, at other posed “Red Tory,” Robert Stanfield. times, deal with gender issues related to What began as minor cuts in the program UI but in a spotty manner. here, there, and everywhere, became a During the Cold War, the reduced in- mighty sword in the 1990s which ended fluence of the left, and especially the with fewer Canadian unemployed per- Communists, removed any notion of sons being eligible for insurance payouts non-contributory UI from public debate. than had been eligible when the program But the underlying struggle between “ac- was first introduced in 1940. tuarial” and “social” approaches to UI Campeau does make note of the social continued, with business groups demand- movements that fought the emasculation ing a tightening of the program along lines of the UI legislation at various turns, par- of risk assessment, and trade unions and ticularly in French Canada. But he does so women’s groups calling for the program in a rather cursory way, providing greater to embrace all workers subject to job loss, coverage of the continuing clashes in dis- and with adequate payouts to all of the un- course between the right-wing and employed, regardless of what benefits left-wing versions of EI. From the they had paid into the plan. The post-war Mulroney government onwards, the ‘ac- liberal consensus, in which workers were tuaries’ not only took over control once to receive sufficient benefits from the again of the UI agenda, but introduced state (or “social wages”) to make social- new wrinkles that robbed workers’ contri- ism and militancy uninteresting to them, butions and made the insurance program did result in gradual, if uneven, reforms of mainly a cash cow for governments that the UI program to include more workers. were decreasing corporate taxes during a Fishers and others whose self-employ- time of recession, thereby pushing up lev- ment was largely illusory gradually came els of government debt enough to create under UI. So did growing numbers of ‘deficit hysteria’. Contributions were women workers, thanks to concerted cam- raised while rules for eligibility were paigns by women’s groups as well as la- made tougher. This produced huge sur- bour against such practices as the denial plus revenues in the EI account, which of UI to pregnant women or women with governments transferred to general reve- small children. In 1971, the program was nue. Here was the opposite of the 1930’s extended to all but a small group in the la- non-contributory UI: instead of general bour force, benefits were raised, and ma- revenues paying for UI for workers, work- ternity benefits were introduced. Again, ers’ incomes would make up for shortages however, Campeau, who recognizes the in general revenues. REVIEWS 295 Campeau’s detailed account is con- ing pressure on families and communities cise, thorough, and easy to follow. Its to fill a gap created by diminishing pro- weakness lies in a failure to disaggregate vincial health budgets. Tensions are the unemployed. There is little sense here growing as governments redirect services of the racialized character of either unem- towards acute care patients, and away ployment or the treatment of individuals from supporting the elderly and the dis- by the Un/Employment Insurance Com- abled. In effect, an increasing number of mission. Gender is taken seriously at us are being conscripted into providing times, ignored at others. Fortunately, Ann care for relatives and friends, without be- Porter’s Gendered States: Women, Unem- ing given the opportunity to debate the ployment Insurance, and the Political pros and cons of this shift in policy. The Economy of the Welfare State in Canada, authors in this volume alert us to the fact 1945-1997 (Toronto 2003) complements that few Canadians have the necessary Campeau’s From UI to EI. Porter rarely supports in place to fulfill this role with- concedes the existence of social class, but out sacrificing their own health and her book, read together with Campeau’s long-term financial security. As well, it more class-based reading, provides the should come as no surprise that much of reader with an excellent survey of the the writing in this collection examines the events and influences that have shaped to- effects on women, who hold most of the day’s EI system. paid jobs in this sector and are over-repre- sented in the ranks of unpaid caregivers.

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