State Intervention and Assistance in Collective Bargaining: The Canadian Experience, 1943-1954

This essay is an attempt to describe the Canadian system of state interference since its general inception a decade ago, against a background of lesser interference affecting a section of the economy over the forty preceding years. While the main purpose is that of general education, attention is directed at times to controversial matters that have been the direct concern of legislators, administrators, participants, and critics. Where such questions are raised, the reader will understand from the context that he is moving temporarily in the realm of opinion rather than among historical or proven facts.

The study divides naturally into two parts: the first eight chapters present the forms of state interference in collective bargaining and the conditions and circumstances to which this manner of interference has been the reaction; they also examine the methods used to determine the will of the people with respect to industrial relations. The last two chapters develop a summary statement of the effects of the legislation, and present some of the issues to which the various laws have given rise. An attempt has been made to describe administrative techniques where these concern the efficiency of the boards’ performance, and case material is presented at points in the text where the judgments conspicuously affect the trend and the quality of the legislation, Elaboration of these matters, however, is left largely to scholars of more competence. The two acts of the dominion government are presented in full in Appendices I and II and some additional cases in Appendix III.