Canada sure is better off than it was in the ’60s
We’re not perfect, but our nation has made huge strides, writes David Pratt.
Our 150th birthday is an opportunity to review the huge progress we have made as a society. It can be measured by looking back on Canada around half a century ago.
I immigrated to Canada in 1962, from Britain via the United States, to take up a teaching position. I immediately found Canadians very much to my liking. My colleagues were unfailingly professional, friendly and supportive. Compared to Britain, there seemed to be a total absence of class consciousness. On the other hand …
Canada in 1962. Those dear old days! There was no countrywide medicare, and there was widespread opposition to the idea. Indigenous people were invisible, while residential schools held thousands of their children.
There were segregated black schools in Ontario and Nova Scotia. Homosexuals were routinely given long prison sentences. Abortion, contraception, oral sex and attempted suicide were criminal offences. Murderers were still being hanged. Flogging was still used in Canadian prisons.
The Canadian Constitution was subordinate to the British Parliament. Canada’s official flag was the British Red Ensign.
Apart from the superb Stratford Festival, there was very little theatre, and book stores or decent restaurants were few and far between. The Canadian film and book publishing industries were minuscule. In English Canadian schools, French was often taught by teachers who could not speak the language. School textbooks were racist.
Liquor for home consumption was purchased by passing a slip to a man or woman behind a window. Ethnicity was a criterion for immigration. Immigrants were shut out of many jobs by the “Canadian experience” requirement. Almost all manual labour in Toronto was done by immigrants referred to by the slur “eye-ties.”
Due to pressure from the dairy industry, margarine came in white blocks to which you could add dye, provided in a capsule, to turn it yellow. The Canadian government insisted that nuclear fallout in precipitation and in the food chain was harmless. The asbestos industry was killing thousands of workers. Sterilization was practised on the mentally disabled.
In 1962, out of 265 MPs, two were women. There had never been a woman prime minister, premier, governorgeneral, lieutenant-governor, Supreme Court judge, general in the armed forces or bank director.
Fewer than three per cent of lawyers, five per cent of dentists and eight per cent of doctors were women. Fewer than five per cent of women went to university. Only 30 per cent of women were in the workforce, and they earned less than 60 per cent of male pay. Women were expected to stop teaching if they became pregnant.
Over half of males smoked. Cigarettes were advertised on CBC. Almost nobody jogged. Very few people worked out. Life expectancy for males was 68. At the 1960 Rome Olympics, Canada won one medal. There had never been an MP who was aboriginal, black, Arab, Muslim, South Asian, blind, deaf or quadriplegic.
It seemed that almost everyone drove a gasguzzling car that rusted through in two years. Total post-secondary enrolment was less than 200,000. Fewer than 100 university students were aboriginal. University students were politically apathetic. The National Gallery in Ottawa occupied an office building. There was no statue to a musician or writer anywhere in Canada.
Significant improvement has occurred in almost all statistics I have cited. Collectively this constitutes a shift of enormous magnitude.
This is not to say that we have achieved perfection.
The condition of Canada’s indigenous populations remains deplorable. Our prisons are a disgrace. Health outcomes are not what they should be. The mentally ill are widely neglected or imprisoned.
The cost of post-secondary education discriminates against the poor. The gender gap in wages is far from closed. Income inequality has steadily increased for the last 20 years. But these deficiencies should not detract from our pride in the progress made, or our optimism for the future.