Our Lives: Canada After 1945 – FINKEL (CSS)

FINKEL, Alvin. Our Lives: Canada After 1945. Toronto: James Lorimer Company Ltd., 1997. 422p. Resenha de: MacFARLANE, John. Canadian Social Studies, v.35, n.4, 2001.

Our Lives will greatly interest general readers as well as the academic community. The latter will appreciate footnoted references to many recent works of social and economic history. Students will benefit from the well-written presentation, thorough index and footnotes, extensive photographs (about four in each of the fifteen chapters) and the occasional statistical chart. Chapters are well organized and supported by introductory and concluding summaries. There is, however, no bibliography. The book is divided into three chronological sections. The first, covering the years from 1945 to 1963, is titled In the Shadow of the Giant and introduces the theme of American influence on Canada which dominates the book. The second section discusses the search for identities from 1963 to 1980, and the final section brings the reader to 1996, focusing on neo-conservative times. Throughout, the author details the evolution of the Canadian economy and its impact on society, paying particular attention to labor, women, Native Canadians and immigrant groups. Political events, the provinces and foreign affairs are also addressed in each section.

Finkel questions the image of Canada that emerges in the standard post-war text book, Canada Since 1945: Power, Politics and Provincialism … where almost uniform prosperity is brought into being by a dynamic capitalism and a wise federal bureaucracy presided over by a progressive Liberal party with intelligent leaders (p. 5). Finkel convincingly demonstrates that prosperity and opportunities to prosper were unequally shared. The tax system consistently favored the ‘well-off citizens’ (p. 143) and corporate welfare bums; the social reforms of the immediate post-war period were limited, and more due to NDP pressure (provided by provincial premiers, public support as indicated in polling results or conditional support to Liberal minority governments) than to the Liberal party (which has consistently shed its progressive campaign rhetoric when elected with comfortable majorities). The author is also convincing when discussing the strong influence of the United States on the Canadian economy (an increasingly negative influence as the consequences of the Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA are felt).

Finkel’s arguments that Canada has not played an important role in the world since 1945, however, are not as well supported. He dismisses Canadian military and foreign policy as an echo of the Americans, failing to provide the reader with an adequate sense of the objectives Ottawa has pursued on the international stage. Canada’s role in United Nations peacekeeping missions is written off as an attempt to provide only the image… of [an] independent and peace-minded nation (p. 121). Canadian participation in the Korean War (covered in two pages while the Vietnam conflict receives nine pages) is presented not as support for the United Nations but rather for the interests of the United States. The same interpretation is repeated concerning the Gulf War. Finkel ignores international cooperation, including collective security and development assistance (which is referred to briefly in a few sentences condemning tied aid) which has been an important objective of Canadians since 1945.

Despite the weak foreign policy sections, Finkel provides a very good summary of political events. His balanced account of the complex evolution of francophone Quebec nationalism, often mistreated by anglophone historians, is particularly well done. Alvin Finkel’s excellent work should certainly be considered by all teachers of post-war Canada as a class text – although some classes will appreciate it more than others.

John MacFarlane – Champlain College. Lennoxville, Quebec.

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