The Quebec Government and Social Legislation during the 1930s: A Study in Political Self-destruction

The Quebec Government and Social Legislation during the 1930s: A Study in Political Self-destruction B. L. VIGOD According to Pierre Elliott Trudeau's highly influential essay, French-Canadian social thinkers of the inter-war period were so obsessed with "national" considerations that they ignored (among other things) Quebec's desperate need for progressive social legislation.I It is probably true that during the 1920s, few laymen or clergy cared to challenge the excessively conservative or negative interpretation which the Quebec Church and allied nationalist ideologues gave to Catholic social doctrine. But this was manifestly not the case during the Depression, especially following publication of the papal encyclical Quadragesimo Anno in 1931. A modernization of Rerum Novarum (1891), this document unequivocally declared the state responsible for protecting the economically weak members of an industrial society. No longer, observed Father JosephPapin Archambault, need Quebec clergy fear that in demanding various social reforms they would be "meddling in politics."2 Combined with evidence furnished by the Depression itself that the existing system was inadequate, Quadragesimo inspired immediate results. A provincial Royal Commission on Social Insurance, appointed by the Taschereau government in 1930, went far beyond its original limited mandate. Under the chairmanship of Edouard Montpetit, the Commission spent more than two years formulating dozens of recommendations: regulatory laws, a fundamental change in existing legislation governing state support for private charitable institutions, and, most significantly, such direct payment schemes as needy mothers' and family allowances, old age pensions and subsidized health insurance.3 Meanwhile, the JesuitJournal ofCanadian Studies Vol. 14, No. I (Printemps 1979 Spring) sponsored Semaine Sociale of 1932 devoted itself to the "social question", and in the spring of 1933 Father Archambault invited several priests to design a Programme de Restauration Sociale, which he then published under the auspices of his Ecole Sociale Populaire, The Programme does indeed contain many of the traditional and "corporatist " prescriptions maligned by Trudeau. But it also calls upon the state "d'assurer, par une meilleur repartition des richesses, le relevement des classes populaires" (Article 1), to protect workers against deprivation due to accident, sickness , old age and unemployment, to insure farmers against their occupational hazards such as fire, animal disease, crop failure and seizure of property (Article 8), to require salaries sufficient to support average sized families, to supplement the income of large families (Article 9), and to subsidize medical and hospital care for the poor (Article 11).4 In other words, a varied programme of income security. The foundation of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and the circulation of its Regina Manifesto persuaded Archambault that a further, more comprehensive statement was necessary to combat the influence of socialism in French Canada. Philosophically the goal was to distinguish between the abuses of capitalism, which the Church recognized and deplored, and the inherent evil of property, which it denied. More importantly, however, Archambault wanted to demonstrate that the capitalist system could be satisfactorily reformed on the basis of Catholic doctrine.5 He therefore organized a committee of expert laymen to produce and elaborate upon a second Programme de Restauration Sociale containing specific legislative proposals. Trudeau acknowledged only the first Programme, stressing its conservative motivation and rhetoric. There is no mention at all of the second document, even the excellent commentary on proposed social legislation written by Alfred Charpentier, the Catholic Union leader. Modelled upon but often surpassing Montpetit's recommendations, the second P.R.S. demanded a contributory social insurance scheme financed by the individual, his employer and the government, temporary but immediate application of the Federal Old Age Pen59 sion law in Quebec pending creation of a purely provincial system, a needy mothers' allowance, salaries sufficient to support average families, an experimental family allowance system, a law requiring companies to pay wages before dividends, a minimum wage for day-labour, slum clearance and various labour laws improving the bargaining strength of unions.6 Even before they were published , several of these proposals were carried to the leadership convention of the provincial Conservative Party in Sherbrooke and became its official policy.7 In June of 1934,the Action Liberale Nationale adopted the Programme virtually intact as the manifesto for its rebellion against Taschereau Liberalism. In other...