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...note.
The first is its author. W.A. Mackintosh, 24 years old at the time, was to become the most important Canadian economist of his generation. Acknowledged as the "co-discoverer" (with Harold Innis) of the staple thesis, his academic writings on the geographical background to Canadian economic development and on the prairie wheat economy were central to the export-based model of economic growth. His Economic Background on Dominion-Provincial Relations, written for the Rowell-Sirois Royal Commission in 1939, remains the best single statement of the staples interpretation of Canadian economic history.
Mackintosh was also the principal figure in creating the distinctive school of applied economics at Queen's University, with its emphasis on public policy. Following in the liberal tradition of Adam Shortt and O.D. Skelton, (1) one aspect of this work was to develop framework for managing capital-labour conflict. He was a strong advocate of Canada's Industrial Disputes Investigation Act and credited Shortt's astute administration with what early success it achieved in ameliorating industrial disputes. (2) Like Skelton, he was also a strong proponent of the right to collective bargaining but stopped short of endorsing public sector unionism or any actions that threatened the "constitutional authority" of government. Reflecting this concern, Mackintosh was responsible for the first Industrial Relations program in a Canadian university, created at Queen's in the 1930s.
More important, however, was Mackintosh's contribution to the development of Canadian economic policy during World War II and for post-war reconstruction. On leave of absence from Queen's, he served in various capacities with the Department of Finance between 1939 and 1946. Among other things, he was the chief architect of the Federal Government's wartime labour policy, which sought to balance the burdens of financing the war by restricting wage demands while attempting to ensure that inflation did not unduly erode the standard of living of Canadian workers. It is open to debate how successfully this end was achieved; however, there is no question that his earlier observations on the circumstances of World War I shaped his thinking. Finally, Mackintosh is perhaps best remembered for drafting the White Paper on Employment and Income in 1945, which set out the Canadian Government's vision of the post-war economy managed along Keynesian lines. (3)
The second point involves the circumstances surrounding the writing of the article. Having obtained his BA and MA at Queen's under the mentorship of Skelton, Mackintosh entered the doctoral program at Harvard in 1916. After one year of study, he accepted a position at Brandon College where he spent two years as Professor of Political Economy. During this period he also worked during the summer for the Department of Labour in Ottawa, contributing to the first attempt to construct reliable wage and price indices. This statistical work, coupled with his familiarity with the surge in labour militancy in western Canada during the latter stages of the war, led to his first academic paper, "Economics, Prices and the War." Written while in Brandon and published in April 1919, the paper emphasizes the unequal burden imposed on Canadian workers by the war effort, where rising prices undermined real wages at the same rime as war profiteering was widespread. (4)
Having decided to give up his position at Brandon College and return to Harvard to complete his doctoral degree, Mackintosh departed for Ottawa in June 1919 but upon arriving in Winnipeg found himself in the midst of the General Strike. He took the opportunity to attend union meetings and to interview members of the strike committee. He would return to Winnipeg six weeks later to attend...
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