The CCF is a federation of organizations whose purpose is the establishment
in Canada of a Co-operative Commonwealth in which the principle
regulating production, distribution and exchange will be the supplying
of human needs and not the making of profits.
WE AIM TO REPLACE the present capitalist system, with its inherent
injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination
and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in
which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise
and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government,
based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order
is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by
chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns
the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has
become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible
minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory
interests the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit
is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates
between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits
go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression,
in which the common man’s normal state of insecurity and hardship
is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only
in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources
and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled
and operated by the people.
The new social order at which we aim is not one in which individuality
will be crushed out by a system of regimentation. Nor shall we interfere
with cultural rights of racial or religious minorities. What we
seek is a proper collective organization of our economic resources
such as will make possible a much greater degree of leisure and
a much richer individual life for every citizen.
This social and economic transformation can be brought about by
political action, through the election of a government inspired
by the ideal of a Co-operative Commonwealth and supported by a majority
of the people. We do not believe in change by violence. We consider
that both the old parties in Canada are the instruments of capitalist
interests and cannot serve as agents of social reconstruction, and
that whatever the superficial differences between them, they are
bound to carry on government in accordance with the dictates of
the big business interests who finance them. The CCF aims at political
power in order to put an end to this capitalist domination of our
political life. It is a democratic movement, a federation of farmer,
labour and socialist organizations, financed by its own members
and seeking to achieve its ends solely by constitutional methods.
It appeals for support to all who believe that the time has come
for a far-reaching reconstruction of our economic and political
institutions and who are willing to work together for the carrying
out of the following policies:
1. Planning
The establishment of a planned, socialized economic order, in order
to make possible the most efficient development of the national
resources and the most equitable distribution of the national income.
The first step in this direction will be setting up of a National
Planning Commission consisting of a small body of economists, engineers
and statisticians assisted by an appropriate technical staff.
The task of the Commission will be to plan for the production,
distribution and exchange of all goods and services necessary to
the efficient functioning of the economy; to co-ordinate the activities
of the socialized industries; to provide for a satisfactory balance
between the producing and consuming power; and to carry on continuous
research into all branches of the national economy in order to acquire
the detailed information necessary to efficient planning.
The Commission will be responsible to the Cabinet and will work
in co-operation with the Managing Boards of the Socialized Industries.
It is now certain that in every industrial country some form of
planning will replace the disintegrating capitalist system. The
C.C.F. will provide that in Canada the planning shall be done, not
by a small group of capitalist magnates in their own interests,
but by public servants acting in the public interest and responsible
to the people as a whole.
2. Socialization Of Finance
Socialization of all financial machinery--banking currency, credit,
and insurance, to make possible the effective control of currency,
credit and prices, and the supplying of new productive equipment
for socially desirable purposes
Planning by itself will be of little use if the public authority
has not the power to carry its plans into effect. Such power will
require the control of finance and of all those vital industries
and services, which, if they remain in private hands, can be used
to thwart or corrupt the will of the public authority. Control of
finance is the first step in the control of the whole economy. The
chartered banks must be socialized and removed from the control
of private profit-seeking interests; and the national banking system
thus established must have at its head a Central Bank to control
the flow of credit and the general price level, and to regulate
foreign exchange operations. A National Investment Board must also
be set up, working in co-operation with the socialized banking system
to mobilize and direct the unused surpluses of production for socially
desired purposes as determined by the Planning Commission.
Insurance Companies, which provide one of the main channels for
the investment of individual savings and which, under their present
competitive organization, charge needlessly high premiums for the
social services that they render, must also be socialized.
3. Social Ownership
Socialization (Dominion, Provincial or Municipal) of transportation,
communications, electric power and all other industries and services
essential to social planning, and their operation under the general
direction of the Planning Commission by competent managements freed
from day to day political interference.
Public utilities must be operated for the public benefit and, not
for the private profit of a small group of owners or financial manipulators.
Our natural resources must be developed by the same methods. Such
a programme means the continuance and extension of the public ownership
enterprises in which most governments in Canada have already gone
some distance. Only by such public ownership, operated on a planned
economy, can our main industries be saved from the wasteful competition
of the ruinous overdevelopment and over-capitalization which are
the inevitable outcome of capitalism. Only in a regime of public
ownership and operation will the full benefits accruing from centralized
control and mass production be passed on to the consuming public.
Transportation, communications and electric power must come first
in a list of industries to be socialized. Others, such as mining,
pulp and paper and the distribution of milk, bread, coal and gasoline,
in which exploitation, waste, or financial malpractices are particularly
prominent must next be brought under social ownership and operation.
In restoring to the community its natural resources and in taking
over industrial enterprises from private into public control we
do not propose any policy of outright confiscation. What we desire
is the most stable and equitable transition to the Cooperative Commonwealth.
It is impossible to decide the policies to be followed in particular
cases in an uncertain future, but we insist upon certain broad principles.
The welfare of the community must take supremacy over the claims
of private wealth. In times of war, human life has been conscripted.
Should economic circumstances call for it, conscription of wealth
would be more justifiable. We recognize the need for compensation
in the case of individuals and institutions which must receive adequate
maintenance during the transitional period before the planned economy
becomes fully operative. But a CCF government will not play the
role of rescuing bankrupt private concerns for the benefit of promoters
and of stock and bond holders. It will not pile up a deadweight
burden of unremunerative debt which represents claims upon the public
treasury of a functionless owner class.
The management of publicly owned enterprises will be vested in
boards who will be appointed for their competence in the industry
and will conduct each particular enterprise on efficient economic
lines. The machinery of management may well vary from industry to
industry, but the rigidity of Civil Service rules should be avoided
and likewise the evils of the patronage system as exemplified in
so many departments of the Government today.
Workers in these public industries must be free to organize in
trade unions and must be given the right to participate in the management
of the industry.
4. Agriculture
Security of tenure for the farmer upon his farm on conditions to
be laid down by individual provinces; insurance against unavoidable
crop failure; removal of the tariff burden from the operations of
agriculture; encouragement of producers’ and consumers’ cooperatives;
the restoration and maintenance of an equitable relationship between
prices of agricultural products and those of other commodities and
services; and improving the efficiency of export trade in farm products.
The security of tenure for the farmer upon his farm which is imperilled
by the present disastrous situation of the whole industry, together
with adequate social insurance, ought to be guaranteed under equitable
conditions.
The prosperity of agriculture, the greatest Canadian industry,
depends upon a rising volume of purchasing power of the masses in
Canada for all farm goods consumed at home, and upon the maintenance
of large scale exports of the stable commodities at satisfactory
prices or equitable commodity exchange.
The intense depression in agriculture today is a consequence of
the general world crisis caused by the normal workings of the capitalistic
system resulting in: (1) Economic nationalism expressing itself
in tariff barriers and other restrictions of world trade; (2) The
decreased purchasing power of unemployed and under-employed workers
and of the Canadian people in general; (3) The exploitation of both
primary producers and consumers by monopolistic corporations who
absorb a great proportion of the selling price of farm products.
(This last is true, for example, of the distribution of milk and
dairy products, the packing industry, and milling.)
The immediate cause of agricultural depression is the catastrophic
fall in the world prices of foodstuffs as compared with other prices,
this fall being due in large measure to the deflation of currency
and credit. To counteract the worst effect of this, the internal
price level should be raised so that the farmers’ purchasing power
may be restored.
We propose therefore:
1.The improvement of the position of the farmer by the increase
of the purchasing power made possible by the social control of the
financial system. This control must be directed towards the increase
of employment as laid down elsewhere and towards raising the prices
of farm commodities by appropriate credit and foreign policies.
2.Whilst the family farm is the accepted basis for agricultural
production in Canada the position of the farmer may be much improved
by: (a) The extension of consumers’ cooperatives for the purchase
of farm supplies and domestic requirements; and (b) The extension
of cooperative institutions for the processing and marketing of
farm products.
3.Both of the foregoing to have suitable state encouragement and
assistance.
4.The adoption of a planned system of agricultural development based
upon scientific soil surveys directed towards better land utilization,
and a scientific policy of agricultural development for the whole
of Canada.
5.The substitution for the present system of foreign trade, of a
system of import boards to improve the efficiency of overseas marketing,
to control prices, and to integrate the foreign trade policy with
the requirements of the national economic plan.
5. External Trade
The regulation in accordance with the National plan of external
trade through import and export boards
Canada is dependent on external sources of supply for many of her
essential requirements of raw materials and manufactured products.
These she can obtain only by large exports of the goods she is best
fitted to produce. The strangling of our export trade by insane
protectionist policies must be brought to an end. But the old controversies
between free traders and protectionists are now largely obsolete.
In a world of nationally organized economies Canada must organize
the buying and selling of her main imports and exports under public
boards, and take steps to regulate the flow of less important commodities
by a system of licenses. By so doing she will be enabled to make
the best trade agreements possible with foreign countries, put a
stop to the exploitation of both primary producer and ultimate consumer,
make possible the coordination of internal processing, transportation
and marketing of farm products, and facilitate the establishment
of stable prices for such export commodities.
6. Co-operative Institutions
The encouragement by the public authority of both producers’ and
consumers’ cooperative institutions
In agriculture, as already mentioned, the primary producer can
receive a larger net revenue through cooperative organization of
purchases and marketing. Similarly in retail distribution of staple
commodities such as milk, there is room for development both of
public municipal operation and of consumers’ cooperatives, and such
cooperative organization can be extended into wholesale distribution
and into manufacturing. Cooperative enterprises should be assisted
by the state through appropriate legislation and through the provision
of adequate credit facilities.
7. Labour Code
A National Labour Code to secure for the worker maximum income
and leisure, insurance covering accident, old age, and unemployment,
freedom of association and effective participation in the management
of his industry or profession
The spectre of poverty and insecurity which still haunts every
worker, though technological developments have made possible a high
standard of living for everyone, is a disgrace which must be removed
from our civilization. The community must organize its resources
to effect progressive reduction of the hours of work in accordance
with technological development and to provide a constantly rising
standard of life to everyone who is willing to work. A labour code
must be developed which will include state regulation of all wages,
equal reward and equal opportunity of advancement for equal services,
irrespective of sex; measures to guarantee the right to work or
the right to maintenance through stabilization of employment and
through unemployment insurance; social insurance to protect workers
and their families against the hazards of sickness, death, industrial
accident and old age; limitation of hours of work and protection
of health and safety in industry. Both wages and insurance benefits
should be varied in accordance with family needs.
In addition workers must be guaranteed the undisputed right to
freedom of association, and should be encouraged and assisted by
the state to organize themselves in trade unions. By means of collective
agreements and participation in works councils, the workers can
achieve fair working rules and share in the control of industry
and profession; and their organizations will be indispensable elements
in a system of genuine industrial democracy.
The labour code should be uniform throughout the country. But the
achievement of this end is difficult so long as jurisdiction over
labour legislation under the B.N.A. Act is mainly in the hands of
the provinces. It is urgently necessary, therefore, that the B.N.A.
Act be amended to make such a national labour code possible.
8. Socialized Health Services
Publicly organized health, hospital and medical services
With the advance of medical science the maintenance of a healthy
population has become a function for which every civilized community
should undertake responsibility. Health services should be made
at least as freely available as are educational services today.
But under a system which is still mainly one of private enterprise
the costs of proper medical care, such as the wealthier members
of society can easily afford, are at present prohibitive for great
masses of the people. A properly organized system of public health
services including medical and dental care, which would stress the
prevention rather than the cure of illness should be extended to
all our people in both rural and urban areas. This is an enterprise
in which Dominion, Provincial and Municipal authorities, as well
as the medical and dental professions can cooperate.
9. B.N.A. Act
The amendment of the Canadian Constitution, without infringing
upon racial or religious minority rights or upon legitimate provincial
claims to autonomy, so as to give the Dominion Government adequate
powers to deal effectively with urgent economic problems which are
essentially national in scope; the abolition of the Canadian Senate
We propose that the necessary amendments to the B.N.A. Act shall
be obtained as speedily as required, safeguards being inserted to
ensure that the existing rights of racial and religious minorities
shall not be changed without their own consent. What is chiefly
needed today is the placing in the hands of the national government
of more power to control national economic development. In a rapidly
changing economic environment our political constitution must be
reasonably flexible. The present division of powers between Dominion
and Provinces reflects the conditions of a pioneer, mainly agricultural,
community in 1867. Our constitution must be brought into line with
the increasing industrialization of the country and the consequent
centralization of economic and financial power--which has taken
place in the last two generations. The principle laid down in the
Quebec Resolution of the Fathers of Confederation should be applied
to the conditions of 1933, that "there be a general government
charged with matters of common interest to the whole country and
local governments for each of the provinces charged with the control
of local matters to their respective sections".
The Canadian Senate, which was originally created to protect provincial
rights, but has failed even in this function, has developed into
a bulwark of capitalist interests, as is illustrated by the large
number of company directorships held by its aged members. In its
peculiar composition of a fixed number of members appointed for
life it is one of the most reactionary assemblies in the civilized
world. It is a standing obstacle to all progressive legislation,
and the only permanently satisfactory method of dealing with the
constitutional difficulties it creates is to abolish it.
10. External Relations
A Foreign Policy designed to obtain international economic cooperation
and to promote disarmament and world peace
Canada has a vital interest in world peace. We propose, therefore,
to do everything in our power to advance the idea of international
cooperation as represented by the League of Nations and the International
Labour Organization. We would extend our diplomatic machinery for
keeping in touch with the main centres of world interest. But we
believe that genuine international cooperation is incompatible with
the capitalist regime which is in force in most countries, and that
strenuous efforts are needed to rescue the League from its present
condition of being mainly a League of capitalist Great Powers. We
stand resolutely against all participation in imperialist wars.
Within the British Commonwealth, Canada must maintain her autonomy
as a completely self-governing nation. We must resist all attempts
to build up a new economic British Empire in place of the old political
one, since such attempts readily lend themselves to the purposes
of capitalist exploitation and may easily lead to further world
wars. Canada must refuse to be entangled in any more wars fought
to make the world safe for capitalism.
11. Taxation And Public Finance
A new taxation policy designed not only to raise public revenues
but also to lessen the glaring inequalities of income and to provide
funds for social services and the socialization of industry; the
cessation of the debt-creating system of Public Finance
In the type of economy that we envisage, the need for taxation,
as we now understand it, will have largely disappeared. It will
nevertheless be essential during the, transition period, to use
the taxing powers, along with the other methods proposed elsewhere,
as a means of providing for the socialization of industry, and for
extending the benefits of increased Social Services.
At present capitalist governments in Canada raise a large proportion
of their revenues from such levies as customs duties and sales taxes,
the main burden of which falls upon the masses. In place of such
taxes upon articles of general consumption, we propose a drastic
extension of income, corporation and inheritance taxes, steeply
graduated according to ability to pay. Full publicity must be given
to income tax payments and our tax collection system must be brought
up to the English standard of efficiency.
We also believe in the necessity for an immediate revision of the
basis of Dominion and Provincial sources of revenues, so as to produce
a coordinated and equitable system of taxation throughout Canada.
An inevitable effect of the capitalist system is the debt creating
character of public financing. All public debts have enormously
increased, and the fixed interest charges paid thereon now amount
to the largest single item of so-called uncontrollable public expenditures.
The CCF proposes that in future no public financing shall be permitted
which facilitates the perpetuation of the parasitic interest-receiving
class; that capital shall be provided through the medium of the
National Investment Board and free from perpetual interest charges.
We propose that all Public Works, as directed by the Planning Commission,
shall be financed by the issuance of credit, as suggested, based
upon the National Wealth of Canada.
12. Freedom
Freedom of speech and assembly for all; repeal of Section 98 of
the Criminal Code; amendment of the Immigration Act to prevent the
present inhuman policy of deportation; equal treatment before the
law of all residents of Canada irrespective of race, nationality
or religious or political beliefs
In recent years, Canada has seen an alarming growth of Fascist
tendencies among all governmental authorities. The most elementary
rights of freedom of speech and assembly have been arbitrarily denied
to workers and to all whose political and social views do not meet
with the approval of those in power. The lawless and brutal conduct
of the police in certain centres in preventing public meetings and
in dealing with political prisoners must cease. Section 98 of the
Criminal Code which has been used as a weapon of political oppression
by a panic-stricken capitalist government, must be wiped off the
statute book and those who have been imprisoned under it must be
released. An end must be put to the inhuman practice of deporting
immigrants who were brought to this country by immigration propaganda
and now, through no fault of their own, find themselves victims
of an executive department against whom there is no appeal to the
courts of the land. We stand for full economic, political and religious
liberty for all.
13. Social Justice
The establishment of a commission composed of psychiatrists, psychologists,
socially minded jurists and social workers, to deal with all matters
pertaining to crime and punishment and the general administration
of law, in order to humanize the law and to bring it into harmony
with the needs of the people
While the removal of economic inequality will do much to overcome
the most glaring injustices in the treatment of those who come into
conflict with the law, our present archaic system must be changed
and brought into accordance with a modern concept of human relationships.
The new system must not be based as is the present one, upon vengeance
and fear, but upon an understanding of human behaviour. For this
reason its planning and control cannot be left in the hands of those
steeped in the outworn legal tradition; and therefore it is proposed
that there shall be established a national commission composed of
psychiatrists, psychologists, socially minded jurists and social
workers whose duty it shall be to devise a system of prevention
and correction consistent with other features of the new social
order.
14. An Emergency Programme
The assumption by the Dominion Government of direct responsibility
for dealing with the present critical unemployment situation and
for tendering suitable work or adequate maintenance; the adoption
of measures to relieve the extremity of the crisis such as a programme
of public spending on housing, and other enterprises that will increase
the real wealth of Canada, to be financed by the issue of credit
based on the national wealth
The extent of unemployment and the widespread suffering which it
has caused, creates a situation with which provincial and municipal
governments have long been unable to cope and forces upon the Dominion
government direct responsibility for dealing with the crisis as
the only authority with financial resources adequate to meet the
situation. Unemployed workers must be secured in the tenure of their
homes, and the scale and methods of relief, at present altogether
inadequate, must be such as to preserve decent human standards of
living.
It is recognized that even after a Cooperative Commonwealth Federation
Government has come into power, a certain period of time must elapse
before the planned economy can be fully worked out. During this
brief transitional period, we propose to provide work and purchasing
power to those now unemployed by a far-reaching programme of public
expenditure on housing, slum clearance, hospitals, libraries, schools,
community halls, parks, recreational projects, reforestation, rural
electrification, the elimination of grade crossings, and other similar
projects in both town and country. This programme, which would be
financed by the issuance of credit based on the national wealth,
would serve the double purpose of creating employment and meeting
recognized social needs. Any steps which the government takes, under
this emergency programme, which may assist private business, must
include guarantees of adequate wages and reasonable hours of work,
and must be designed to further the advance towards the complete
Cooperative Commonwealth.
Emergency measures, however, are of only temporary value, for the
present depression is a sign of the mortal sickness of the whole
capitalist system, and this sickness cannot be cured by the application
of salves. These leave untouched the cancer which is eating at the
heart of our society, namely, the economic system in which our natural
resources and our principal means of production and distribution
are owned, controlled and operated for the private profit of a small
proportion of our population.
No C.C.F. Government will rest content until it has eradicated
capitalism and Put into operation the full programme of socialized
planning which will lead to the establishment in Canada of the Cooperative
Commonwealth.
Subject Headings
