"What if our Federal Politicians had been Unsuccessful in Attaining UI Benefits for Seasonal Fishermen and the Whole 10-42 Cycle had Never Occurred in Rural Newfoundland?"
— Alan Doyle, Great Big Sea
Doug May: "Around 1956 it looked as though the Liberal government's term in office was coming to an end. Louis St. Laurent was the Prime Minister and quickly losing popularity, while a young firebrand lawyer from Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, John Diefenbaker, was rapidly gaining in popularity. To try and secure the East it was suggested the unemployment insurance be changed so that fish harvesters could receive insurance based upon weeks worked. That certainly affected the harvesting sector and gained political support. But incomes in the harvesting sector by and large were very low.
In 1970 (federal Minister of Manpower and Immigration) Allan MacEachen, who was from Cape Breton, saw the unemployment system in much wider terms — not only as an insurance but also as a way to redistribute incomes and help fight poverty. He went ahead with major reforms and liberalizations and the generousity increased. And for ten weeks work you could receive 42 weeks of benefits.
The unemployment system — it's like chicken soup. It wasn't just the unemployment system per se, but the combination of the unemployment system coupled with the natural resources available, coupled with the community values of home production, self-sufficiency and being a jack-of-all-trades was something that the community, government, labour and business all thought of as a good system. It was a win, win, win situation.
Rural Newfoundland would have been smaller without it — although I often think the rumours of the death of rural Newfoundland are greatly exaggerated! But this unemployment system accommodated people. It began to move people out of the traditional home-based, family fishing enterprises into the plants. It tended to keep people in the fisheries instead of seeing them pursue other occupations, or choose to go to school. That new adjustment came with the problems in the fisheries in the 1990s that included, of course, the moratorium.
But the unemployment system may have helped the adjustment process of the 1970s and maintained a quality of life. The economic benefits allowed the province to maintain something important that was non-economic — a cultural identity."
Doug May is a professor of economics at Memorial University, and co-author of The Rock in a Hard Place: Atlantic Canada and the UI Trap.
