Memories of Prosperous Hamilton

Thinking of the death of JFK reminded me of Hamilton in the 1960's.

The City was not perfect. There was nasty racism (although Lincoln Alexander was soon to be elected) and forget about gender equality. Pollution was not so great either.

But the City was prosperous and everyone who wanted work could have it. The steel mills produced steel; and all the factories that clustered around the mills churned out screws and nails and frames and everything made of metal. Rich people were rich but not so much richer than steel workers that they lived in different worlds. We all shopped at Eatons, went to the same public high schools and a Caddy was different in degree but not in kind from a Chev.

Now Hamilton has a lovely waterfront (really) and clean air (well, often) but shuttered stores and high unemployment. The economic meltdown came to my hometown a long time ago.

What happened?

I see two big issues.

First, Canada stopped making stuff and became (or regressed to) being a nation of natural resources and services. I am a lawyer -- I don't actually make anything. At the end of a long day (and I do work hard) I have created nothing tangible, nothing that anyone can use. What's more, I don't know many people who do make things. When I was growing up most kids had dads (mom stayed at home) who made doors or screws or cars or pillowcases or something. Now that's done in China. What Canada does produce is oil and minerals -- that other nations use to make stuff.

Second, and my Blue Liberal heart pauses as I say this, the unions were more solid in the 1960's. Unions, when they are industry based and there to get a decent shake for their members -- job security, fair wages, respectful treatment -- act to stabilise industry. A good union is a partner in industry. Today the unions are weak and, what's worse, are centred in non-industrial sectors like education. Such unions don't add to stability; they weaken it. And where industrial unions do have some power they use it oddly; auto workers and their unions may be destroyed by their very success.

So what do we need to do? Reunionize the nation? No -- I'm not driving at that.
But we do need an industrial policy that says Canada ought to make things. Services are not enough. If everyone is a waiter who will cook the food? And how will patrons pay for dinner? And that new industrial policy, a policy that says Canada ought to produce stuff for the world, ought to recognise the legitimate place unions have in industrial manufacturing.

Last year I read the Conscience of a Liberal -- an American book -- that argued unions are essential to a prosperous society and that inequality in income (if extreme) destroys the fabric of the nation. At the time I dismissed it as socialist cant. Now I'm not so sure.