Summary of Thesis (PH. D.)--University of Michigan, 1945. / Reprinted from the Canadian journal of economics and political science, vol. 12, no. 1, February, 1946. Includes bibliographical references.

During the Second World War, the Canadian government could claim only moderate success for its information operations. To begin with, the government had difficulty in 1939 establishing its first-ever, full-scale wartime information agency, the Bureau of Public Information, and providing it with an effective organization and policy. Various outside interests, particularly Canadian newspapers and social scientists, pressed the government to adopt a policy which reflected their particular views on the role of wartime information in a liberal democratic system. After trying out an information policy that rested on facilitating newspaper coverage, the minister of National War Services with responsibility for public information allowed the director of Public Information to expand his activities in an ad hoc manner and to adopt newspaper or social scientific techniques if he saw fit. This approach satisfied no one and led to a complete reorganization of information work in 1942 and the formation of the Wartime Information Board, the Bureau's replacement, which finally emerged with a policy in 1943. The chief architect of the new approach, John Grierson, wanted to use the social sciences in an integrated media approach that explained how democracy fit into an increasingly complex, technological society. But this was difficult. The WIB could not avoid involvement in conflicting currents of midwar opinion. Orthodox free-enterprisers asserted the primacy of private business while anyone with opinions to the left of them urged varying degrees of social change. The reformers themselves, however, could not agree on the desirable measures. After barely escaping the crossfire, Grierson resigned in 1944. The new general manager, A.D. Dunton, finally succeeded in setting up a smoothly-run operation that generally followed Grierson's direction. At the same time that the board was explaining democratic procedures to Canadians, however, political interference in its operations demonstrated that the new propaganda techniques could be manipulated for possibly undemocratic ends. The evolution of official wartime ideology more or less parallelled policy development. The Bureau began by trying to establish a concept of Canadian nationalism that encompassed a mixture of chauvinistic patriotism and a general realization of the outlines of Canadian nationhood. In the wartime context, this meant presenting a view of the enemy, of the allies and of wartime events that would mobilize Canadians to support the government's policies. It also involved trying to define a view of 'Canadianism' that would encompass the ethnic community as well as English and French Canadians. By the middle of the war, it was obvious that this approach had not proved satisfactory. The BPI's successor, the Wartime Information Board could not totally reorient all these operations but did manage to establish new programmes that took a different approach to Canadian nationhood. Basically, these programmes tried to awaken a sense of participation in alienated groups, to take individual needs into account and to provoke discussion about the direction of government policy. The propaganda operations, however, were not totally reoriented and retained some elements of chauvinistic patriotism. The new system, despite its success in heading off popular discontent, opened the door to manipulation of public opinion. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

For Canadians the Second World War traditionally evokes images of the invasion of Normandy, the Falaise Gap, and the ill-fated raid on Dieppe. Over the years Canadians who served overseas have been recognized but, at the same time, soldiers who served on the home front have been overlooked. This is because many of Canada's home defence soldiers were conscripted under the National Resources Mobilization Act, and were unwilling to go overseas. Thousands of Canadians, however, were denied entry into the regular forces because they were too old, too young, or classified as medically unfit. In British Columbia during the Second World War, these men were given the opportunity to enlist in a unique home guard unit called the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers (P.C.M.R.). The Pacific Coast Militia Rangers were organized in response to public pressure, and because existing coastal defences were inadequate. Composed of unpaid volunteers trained in guerilla tactics, the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers were a home defence force peculiar to British Columbia. The Rangers were not a typical military organization. Rather, they were a distinctively North American fighting force in the tradition of previous Ranger formations. A sense of historical tradition was evident in the designation of "Rangers" for British Columbia's Second World War guerilla home defence volunteers. In North America, since the 1700s, men born in and acquainted with the hinterland-frontiersmen, hunters, cowboys, and trappers proficient in the use of firearms-have been formed into irregular Ranger units in times of emergency. There is a long list of these North American Ranger organizations: Rogers' Rangers in the French and Indian War; Butler's Loyalist Rangers, the East Florida Rangers, and the Queen's Rangers in the American Revolution; the Frontier Battalion of the Texas Rangers in the revolution against Mexican authority; Mosby's Rangers in the U.S. Civil War; and the Rocky Mountain Rangers in the Northwest Rebellion. The Pacific Coast Militia Rangers were the twentieth century revival of this Ranger tradition. Throughout history, all Ranger units have used the same tactics: they employed guerilla warfare with an emphasis on surprise attacks, they operated in small units which were highly mobile, and they focussed on rifle training. A lack of formal military discipline has also been characteristic of all Ranger formations. The Pacific Coast Militia Rangers, then, were not an innovation in the Canadian military experience. They were part of a distinct military tradition of irregular troops adapted to suit North American frontier conditions. The Pacific Coast Militia Rangers reflected the character, fears, and internal conflicts of British Columbia's society. British Columbia was a predominantly white community and the P.C.M.R. mirrored the widespread white ethnic prejudices in the province. Ethnic groups were largely excluded from the Rangers and Native Indians, who were accepted as valuable recruits, were treated in a paternalistic manner. Militant trade unionism has been an important facet of B.C. history, and trade unionists were prominent in the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers. Trade unions fully supported the P.C.M.R. and Ranger membership was dominated by the working class. The labour movement's influence in the P.C.M.R. can be seen in the anxiety over the possible employment of Ranger units to break strikes. The role of war veterans in the P.C.M.R. also reflected the composition of the larger society. First World War veterans were a well-defined group in B.C. society, and their values and outlook were revealed through their Ranger participation. The veterans' zeal and rivalry with younger Rangers indicates that their patriotism was, at times, misguided, but it was rooted in a personal need to play a visible role in the war effort. The P.C.M.R. operated in a democratic manner: if the commander of a Ranger company was disliked by his men, he could be voted out of his position. Similarly, if Rangers disagreed with directives from P.C.M.E. headquarters they were quick to express their displeasure and threatened resignation. This would have been impossible in the regular army, but in the P.C.M.R.-composed of citizen-soldiers-it was a commonplace pattern. The social equality between ranks, and the egalitarian way in which the P.C.M.R. operated expressed the New World frontier values of British Columbia in the 1940s. The wartime fears and phobias of British Columbians showed in the actions of the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers. Life in British Columbia during the early years of the Second World War was, for the most part, as secure as life in other regions of Canada. This was changed, however, with the bombing of Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941. The aggressiveness of Japan and the stunning success of her war machine, caused panic in the Pacific Coast province about the vulnerability of B.C. to an attack. In addition, the war sharpened the already existing white racial animosity against the Japanese, and _ provided a socially acceptable outlet for its expression. White British Columbia has had a history of fear of Asians and, subsequently, anti-Orientalism has been a current in the province's culture. In much the same way that anti-Japanese sentiment forced the federal government to intern and evacuate British Columbia's Japanese population, so too did public outcry prompt the formation of local home guard units. These two problems-the defence of British Columbia and anti-Japanese sentiment-became manifest in the history of the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers. From the Dominion government's viewpoint, the P.C.M.R. was a valuable organization. The Rangers provided military protection at a low cost, but they also comforted a frightened population which demanded protection from a Japanese invasion. It will be argued here that while the main purpose of the P.C.M.R. was home defence, the organization became much more than that to both the government and the people of British Columbia. Quite apart from its defence role, the P.C.M.R. provided reassurance, sustained the morale of a population at war, and acted as a means to indoctrinate civilians with military propaganda. / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

Compulsory military service took on the most organized, long-term form it has ever had in Canada during the Second World War. But few historians have looked beyond the politics of conscription to study the creation, administration, or impact of a system that affected more than 150,000 men. This thesis examines the Army's role in creating and administering the compulsory military training system, and particularly the influence of Major-General H. D. G. Crerar and other senior officers. Faced with the federal government's policy of conscripting manpower only for home defence in 1940, and influenced by their own personal and professional desires to create a large, powerful Army that could take a leading role in the fighting overseas, Army leaders used conscripts raised under the National Resources Mobilization Act to meet both purposes. In this development can be found the origins of the "big army" of five divisions that fought for Canada overseas. Ultimately, thanks to the burden created by the "big army," and the entry of Japan into the war in late 1941, the NRMA failed to meet the huge demands imposed on the nation's manpower resources. The result was the political crisis that almost brought down the federal government in October and November 1944. / This thesis also explores the origins and background of the conscripts themselves, and the impact of the NRMA on their lives. As the NRMA became more and more central to the Army's plans after 1941, conscripts were exposed to a number of pressures designed to convince them to volunteer for overseas service. By late 1944, the only ones who remained were those who had most strongly resisted these efforts, a fact that the country's generals understood better than its politicians. The events of late 1944 brought the Cabinet to an awareness of the situation, but only at the cost of the prestige and influence that the Army had built up over the earlier years of the war. Thus, the way that the Army managed the NRMA came very much to shape the political debates that took place, and the place of the Army in Canada after the war.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 338-350). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

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Two main points histories of the Second World War in Canada traditionally emphasize are (1) the role of war-related fiscal policy in finally ending the Great Depression and (2) the success of government control over the economy. Potential output estimates show a large output gap still in existence in 1939, with it quickly closing by 1941. The Dominion government's war-related fiscal policy emerges as the factor explaining this rapid recovery. But Dominion fiscal policy was also important to recovery before the war. Canada's participation in bi-lateral trade negotiations, which lowered tariffs, the chief instrument of contemporary Dominion government fiscal policy, in reciprocation for similar concessions, stimulated exports, the chief source of recovery before the war. / The matter of success rests largely on how well the Department of Munitions and Supply achieved the Dominion government's strategic aims during the war. Two strategic aims identified in this thesis are the government's desire to minimize the costs associated with war production and to avoid over-expansion in the iron and steel industry. Examining the production records of the Dominion Steel and Coal Company (Dosco), a primary iron and steel firm, and the Trenton Steel Works, a secondary manufacturing firm, shows how the government allocated production in a least cost manner among Canadian producers, consistent with the first of these two aims. Through its Crown Corporations, the Department also strove to minimize the costs associated with establishing war plant. Concerning the second aim, the government avoided rehabilitating Dosco's steel plate mill until sufficient domestic demand warranted it. With its capacity extraneous to the Canadian industry, the government closed the mill after the war. In contrast to the importance previous research placed on political factors in explaining the government's conduct of the war effort, this thesis argues that considerations production costs and input prices were a vital part of the government's decision making process.