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  • Social Fabric or Patchwork Quilt: The Development of Social Policy in Canada
  • L. Lynda Harling Stalker
Raymond B. Blake and Jeffrey A. Keshen , Social Fabric or Patchwork Quilt: The Development of Social Policy in Canada. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2006, 538pp.

The social system in Canada, such as health care and employment insurance, has become an identity marker for many citizens, and a point of heated discussion. Social Fabric or Patchwork Quiltexamines the evolution of social policy within Canada from Confederation to present day. Editors Raymond Blake and Jeffrey Keshen, both professors of history, set out to present "a range of issues that extend far beyond the actions of various levels of government to deliver programs. Here, [in this volume] we will consider how the social, political, and economic conditions helped shape the development of social policy" (9). The visual image they ask the reader to think about is whether or not Canadian [End Page 409]social policy is the cohesive social fabric that makes us "Canadian," or a patchwork quilt where, depending upon historical era and region, the appearance of our social policy is varied and pieced together.

The collection of previously published papers are organized into three sections: "The Beginning," "Triumph to Reform" and "New Realities in Social Security." Each section represents a different period of time in Canadian history up to the present day. With the space allotted for this review, it would be impossible for me to critique every paper included in the volume. There are some that stand out as especially thought-provoking. Karen Balcom's paper "Scandal and social policy: The ideal maternity home and the evolution of social policy in Nova Scotia, 1940–1951," is excellent in that it allows the reader to see the tensions between private and public interests, as well as who decides what is the public good. I also enjoyed getting to know the personalities involved in this case to see how biography and history do truly coincide. Co-editor Jeffrey A. Keshen's piece on the government's handling of WWII veterans ("A new beginning: The Veteran's Charter") does a good job of not only highlighting the political motivations for the Veteran's Charter and the programs that went along with it, but of contextualizing the social milieu surrounding them. The reader is shown how the war affected home and work life upon the return of the veterans, the prejudice the veterans faced at times, how higher education institutions were changed, and many other facets of daily life. In today's climate of heightened awareness of war, with Canada's involvement in Afghanistan, it is a very topical paper. Lastly, I would like to point out Keith Banting's contribution —"The social policy divide: The welfare state in Canada and the United States." While it may be slightly dated (originally published in 1997), Banting provides a grounded argument against the assumption that globalization caused Canada's social system to converge with the United States' social system. The paths that Canada and the US took within their respective social welfare systems is dictated by "domestic politics, and different countries respond to a changing world differently"—a reminder to "avoid determinist interpretations" in the light of global economies (p. 377).

The pieces selected for this volume are well-chosen and pertinent to the editors' purpose. They all demonstrate good scholarship of social policy in Canada. That being said, I do have a few criticisms, which are more aesthetic and editorial in nature than the arguments presented. First, whether or not this was in the control of the editors I cannot say, but the book's print is too small and the number of pages substantial. It seems like a minute point to make, but the physical appearance of the book made reading it a daunting task at times. Editorially, I found the ordering of papers in the middle section abrasive. After almost 300 pages of papers written in a qualitative manner, one is confronted with Joel A.C. Baum's heavily quantitative analysis of nursing homes in Ontario. Baum's piece is well-argued, but I found it came abruptly without preparing the [End Page 410...

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