| Also known as | The Gordon Commission |
|---|---|
| Outcome | Final Report of the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects |
| Commissioners |
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| Inquiry period | 17 June 1955– November 1957 |
The Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects was initiated by the Louis St. Laurent government in order to develop recommendations regarding the Canadian economy. Chaired by Walter L. Gordon, its 1956 and 1957 reports were representative of a period of growing concern for Canadian nationalism and questioned the government's policy of allowing control of Canada's natural resources and other business enterprises to be sold to foreign interests.
When Gordon became Minister of Finance a decade later, he commissioned Mel Watkins to conduct a further investigation into foreign ownership of the Canadian economy, resulting in the "Watkins Report".
The Canada Development Corporation was created in 1971 as a result of both the Royal Commission's and the Watkins Report's recommendations.
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The Quiet Revolution was a period of intense socio-political and socio-cultural change in the Canadian province of Quebec that started after the election of 1960, characterized by the effective secularization of government, the creation of a state-run welfare state (état-providence), as well as realignment of politics into federalist and sovereigntist factions and the eventual election of a pro-sovereignty provincial government in the 1976 election. The Quiet Revolution typically refers to the efforts made by the Liberal government of Jean Lesage and sometimes Robert Bourassa, though given the profound effect of the changes, most provincial governments since the early 1960s have maintained an orientation based on core concepts developed and implemented in that era.
The Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement (CUSFTA), official name as the Free Trade Agreement between Canada and the United States of America, was a bilateral trade agreement reached by negotiators for Canada and the United States on October 4, 1987, and signed by the leaders of both countries on January 2, 1988. The agreement phased out a wide range of trade restrictions in stages, over a ten-year period, and resulted in a substantial increase in cross-border trade as an improvement to the last replaced trade deal. With the addition of Mexico in 1994, CUSFTA was superseded by the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The National Policy was a Canadian economic program introduced by John A. Macdonald's Conservative Party in 1876. After Macdonald led the Conservatives to victory in the 1878 Canadian federal election, he began implementing his policy in 1879. The protective policy had shown positive responses in the economy with new industries flourishing Canada's economy in the 1880s. John A. Macdonald combined three elements as a strategy for the post-Confederation economy. First, by calling for high tariffs on imported manufactured items to protect the manufacturing industry. Second, by calling for a massive expansion of physical infrastructure, such as roads and railroads. Finally, enabled and supported by the former two, by promoting population growth, particularly in western Canada. The building of the Canadian Pacific Railway, and the fostering of immigration to Western Canada. Macdonald campaigned on the policy in the 1878 election, and defeated the Liberal Party, which supported free trade. It lasted from 1879 until sometime in the early 1950s.
James Robert Laxer, also known as Jim Laxer, was a Canadian political economist, historian, public intellectual, and political activist who served as a professor at York University. Best known as co-founder of the Waffle, on whose behalf he ran for the leadership of the New Democratic Party in 1971, he is the author of more than two dozen books, mostly on Canadian political economy and history.
The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism was a Canadian royal commission established on 19 July 1963, by the government of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson to "inquire into and report upon the existing state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and to recommend what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races, taking into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that should be taken to safeguard that contribution".
Walter Lockhart Gordon was a Canadian accountant, businessman, politician, and writer.
The early 1990s recession describes the period of economic downturn affecting much of the Western world in the early 1990s. The impacts of the recession included the resignation of Canadian prime minister Brian Mulroney, reduction of active companies by 15% and unemployment up to nearly 20% in Finland, civil disturbances in the United Kingdom and the growth of discount stores in the United States and beyond. The recession contributed in part to the 1992 U.S. presidential election victory of Bill Clinton over incumbent president George H. W. Bush.
The League for Social Reconstruction (LSR) was a circle of Canadian socialists officially formed in 1932. The group advocated for social and economic reformation as well as political education. The formation of the LSR was provoked by events such as the Great Depression and the completion of World War One as well as increased industrialization and urbanization.. The league esteemed 'rational moralism' as the ideology that could be utilized and applied to prevent suffering in Canada. The league aimed to act as an independent supplementary force influencing public policy reform in Canada during this tumultuous period. Working with both intellectuals and politicians, the league assisted in the creation of centralized social welfare and national assistance schemes. The LSR disbanded formally in 1942 during the Second World War.
Canadian nationalism seeks to promote the unity, independence, and well-being of Canada and the Canadian people. Canadian nationalism has been a significant political force since the 19th century and has typically manifested itself as seeking to advance Canada's independence from influence of the United Kingdom and the United States. Since the 1960s, most proponents of Canadian nationalism have advocated a civic nationalism due to Canada's cultural diversity that specifically has sought to equalize citizenship, especially for Québécois and French-speaking Canadians, who historically faced cultural and economic discrimination and assimilationist pressure from English Canadian-dominated governments. Canadian nationalism became an important issue during the 1988 Canadian general election that focused on the then-proposed Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement, with Canadian nationalists opposing the agreement - saying that the agreement would lead to inevitable complete assimilation and domination of Canada by the United States. During the 1995 Quebec referendum on sovereignty that sought to determine whether Quebec would become a sovereign state or whether it would remain in Canada, Canadian nationalists and federalists supported the "no" side while Quebec nationalists supported the "yes" side, resulting in a razor-thin majority in favour of the "no" side that supported Quebec remaining in Canada.
Melville Henry Watkins was a Canadian political economist and activist and professor emeritus of economics and political science at the University of Toronto. He was a founder and co-leader with James Laxer of the Waffle, a left-wing political formation within the New Democratic Party that advocated an "independent socialist Canada" and Canadian nationalism. He was appointed a Member of the Order of Canada in 2019.
The Royal Commission on National Development in the Arts, Letters and Sciences, otherwise known as the Massey Commission, chaired by Vincent Massey, was founded in 1949. The Massey Commission examined Canada's cultural needs. Massey had long believed that Canadians' rich cultural history was deeply embedded in European culture but was too little known to the world. An avid art collector himself, he sponsored exhibits in Europe and saw the need for a national commitment to promoting the arts.
It is not entirely evident who first used the branch plant economy concept; however, it has been extensively used in Canadian and UK literature since the 1970s. This concept broadly describes the negative consequences on the growth of the regions whose economies are primarily composed of branch plants that belong to multi-plant firms. Since the position of branch plants within the command chain is low, the regions that host these branch plants tended to be remotely controlled by the plant headquarters, which are usually located distantly. Authors at that time thought that branch plants might create a short-term boom in the regional economies when initial investments were deployed, or when they performed well owing to external factors such as the sector's expansion. That boom, however, did not sustain itself over the long term.
Cultural protectionism in Canada has, since the mid-20th century, taken the form of conscious, interventionist attempts on the part of various governments of Canada to promote Canadian cultural production and limit the effect of foreign culture on the domestic audience. Sharing a large border and a common language with the United States, Canadian politicians have perceived the need to preserve and support a culture separate from US-based North American culture in the globalized media arena. Canada's efforts to maintain its cultural differences from the US and Mexico have been balanced by countermeasures in trade arrangements, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
The Bank of Canada is a Crown corporation and Canada's central bank. Chartered in 1934 under the Bank of Canada Act, it is responsible for formulating Canada's monetary policy, and for the promotion of a safe and sound financial system within Canada. The Bank of Canada is the sole issuing authority of Canadian banknotes, provides banking services and money management for the government, and loans money to Canadian financial institutions. The contract to produce the banknotes has been held by the Canadian Bank Note Company since 1935.
The Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada, also known as the Macdonald Commission, was a historic landmark in Canadian economy policy. Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau appointed the Royal Commission in 1982, and it presented its recommendations to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney in 1984. The commission's recommendations reflect three broad themes mainly derived from neoconservative ideology.
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic to the Pacific and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering 9.98 million square kilometres, making it the world's second-largest country by total area. Its southern and western border with the United States, stretching 8,891 kilometres (5,525 mi), is the world's longest bi-national land border. Canada's capital is Ottawa, and its three largest metropolitan areas are Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver.
The Canada Development Corporation was a Canadian corporation, based in Toronto, created and partly owned by the federal government and charged with developing and maintaining Canadian-controlled companies in the private sector through a mixture of public and private investment. It was technically not a crown corporation as it was intended to generate a profit and was created with the intention that, eventually, the government would own no more than 10% of its holdings; it did not require approvals of the Governor-in-Council for its activities and did not report to parliament. Its objectives and capitalization, however, were set out by parliament and any changes to its objects decided upon by the Board of Directors had to be approved by parliament.
The Foreign Investment Review Agency (FIRA) was established by the Canadian Parliament in 1973 to ensure that the foreign acquisition and establishment of businesses in Canada was beneficial to the country. The Foreign Investment Review Act that created the agency was the culmination of a series of government reports and debates. The 1957 report of the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects firmly planted foreign investment on the political agenda. Next, the 1968 Watkins report, called for a national policy capable of handling Canada's interests in the age of the multinational corporation.
Don Drummond, is a noted Canadian economist, having served extensively in the federal Department of Finance Canada, as Chief Economist at Toronto-Dominion Bank and as a scholar at Queen's University. He is known for his wide contributions to public policy in Canada and extensive citation on economic issues.
Canadianization or the Canadianization movement refers partly to a campaign launched at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada in 1968 by Robin Mathews and James Steele. The purpose of the campaign was to ensure that Carleton as an employer treated Canadian citizens equitably and that Canadians would remain or become at least a two-thirds majority of the teaching staff. Although Carleton was the particular institution addressed in the recommendations of Mathews and Steele, they were concerned about fairness for Canadian scholars in the hiring practices of all Canadian universities and about a lack of Canadian content in many courses.
