9 - Canada, Economic Nationalism, and Opulence, 1957–1966

Summary

When I moved in 1959 from the University of Manchester to the University of Chicago, I had no expectation of becoming involved in public discussion of Canadian economic policy issues. … That I have since become involved in analysis and criticism of Canadian economic policy has largely been the consequence of the dramatic reversal of Canada's economic fortunes since 1957–8 and of a sense of responsibility to put my professional knowledge at the disposal of my countrymen if invited to do so.

Canadian Quandary (CQ), vi

In his Autobiographical Notes of 1969 he claimed that when he went to Chicago

I had not intended to take any interest in Canadian economic problems, but I got started down that primrose path by an invitation to prepare a paper on trade policy for the Kingston Conference of liberally-minded people in September 1960.

(13)

But he had been commenting on Canadian affairs for some years (see discussion in Chapter 5). Moreover, given the subject of his concerns after 1959 and the centrality of Walter Gordon to them, it makes sense to go back to Manchester and, as he did in his 1974 Self-Evaluation (10), begin with his review of the Preliminary Report of the Royal Commission on Canada's Economic Prospects chaired by Walter Gordon, which appeared in the Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science in February 1958. The arguments of his review presaged many of his subsequent criticisms.

[The Commission] also feels that … legislation to control monopolies should be “restudied” to take account of the view of “some reasonable people” that concentration and agreement are desirable under Canadian conditions.[…]