This thesis analyses the evolution of informal and formal, private and public income security mechanisms in Canada from the beginning of the colonial period to the present. These programs generally deal with three categories of problems: problems stemming from interruptions of production income due to sickness, accident, premature death of the breadwinner or caused by retirement or unemployment; problems related to non-participation in the labour force such as those encountered by mothers who stay home with their children, children themselves, students, handicapped people and individuals who due to age can no longer enter the labour force; problems related to insufficiency of production income which are usually the problems of low wage earners. This thesis studies mainly the income security programs designed to correct the first two types of economic dependency. / Three main theoretical hypotheses emerge from the economic analysis of the evolution in historical time of income security mechanisms. First, the types of economic dependency which those programs try to deal with are generally collective problems of income distribution or, in other words, income transfers problems; they are not individual problems of saving, neither are they intertemporal income allocation problems. Second, in the field of income security, the institutions of the private sector do not have the economic power to efficiently implement the income security programs desired. Third, the income security collective strategies are deeply influenced by the collective values of Canadian society; therefore, the form that State intervention takes in the field of income security obeys the necessities and the constraints of these values. In addition to the influence of collective values, this thesis discusses the impact of macroeconomic stabilization policies on the evolution of income security programs. / The hypotheses presented in this thesis are original in comparison to the current literature. Indeed an important number of authors consider economic dependency as being principally an individual problem of intertemporal allocation of income and not a collective problem of income distribution. Few of them study the relative efficiency of different economic institutions in providing appropriate income security programs. And finally, many authors ignore the role of collective values.

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The thesis examines Canada's public pension system and its economic impact. It discusses the evolution of Canada's public pension plans and by reviewing reports commissioned by the Quebec, Ontario, and federal governments as well as other studies, it indicates the possible direction that the system may take in the future. A two-period model of consumption planning is employed to illustrate the effects of social security programs on saving. A neoclassical growth model is then considered to see what criteria are used to determine the optimal rate of saving. By referring to the Cambridge economists' views on this subject, possible weaknesses in the neoclassical theory are exposed and the implications for economic growth are established. The empirical part of the thesis attempts to resolve two important questions, namely, the extent to which public pension plans have affected personal saving in Canada and the role of public pension benefits in the retirement decision.

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