May 1966 — VOL. 47, No. 5 —
Our Atlantic Provinces
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A new stirring is evident in many
parts of Canada on this eve of the Centenary of Confederation.
All the provinces and the federal administration are taking
new looks at their achievements, needs and plans. They are
getting together to explore many phases of life — law,
education, welfare, industry, and the conservation and use
of natural resources.
This is in keeping with the spirit of the country. The early
history of Canada is a story of exploration. The voyages of
Cartier, Hudson, Champlain, Radisson, Cabot and a score of
other seafaring men gave to the wilderness a geographical
importance.
The history of Canada that is now being written is also
one of exploration, but it is in the realm of thought and
society rather than that of physical things. Its purpose is
to build navigable channels of understanding between the ambitions
and cultures of ten provinces, and to construct portages around
cataracts and rapids too turbulent to sail through.
There is a certain irrelevancy evident in many of our approaches
to our problems. Nearly every book about Canada excuses economic
and cultural failures on the ground that we have a small population
spread thinly over a continental area. Instead of intoning
a miserere for our transgression in spreading ourselves
so thinly it would be more efficient to answer the question:
What can we do about it?
This is the new spirit animating the seaboard. Many things
are needed in all Canada, but the Atlantic provinces need
them all at once, and are moving toward getting them.
It was along this coast that Europeans made their first
contact with northern North America. Today, about ten per
cent of the people of Canada live beside the Atlantic. Excluding
Newfoundland, which has only 3.2 persons per square mile,
the Atlantic provinces are densely populated. While Ontario,
the most thickly populated of the inland provinces, has only
18 persons per square mile, Prince Edward Island has 48, Nova
Scotia has 36, and New Brunswick has 21. Their maritime geography,
however, has favoured decentralization of settlement, and
their biggest city has only 92,500 residents.
Exploration
All the seaboard provinces had their ups and downs during
the periods of discovery and settlement. France claimed the
Maritimes because Cartier had planted the French flag on the
Gaspé Peninsula in 1534, and England claimed them because
John Cabot, operating under a charter from King Henry VII,
raised the royal flag in 1497.
In any event, Canada's recorded history starts with the
Cabot voyages, although authorities disagree about whether
he discovered Newfoundland or Cape Breton Island first. It
is known that four days after his return to England there
was entered in the royal accounts this item: "To hym that
found the new isle £10." Cabot only drew his pension of £20
a year twice, so his total reward for adding a continent to
the English crown was £50.
The early explorers were unanimous about the desolate appearance
of the new-found lands. A cold current sweeps along the Labrador
coast, so that John Davis, aboard the exploring bark "Sunshine",
named this "The Land of Desolation", and Cartier wrote in
his diary one June day in 1534 about the north shore of the
St. Lawrence: "I did not see a cartload of good earth. To
be short, I believe that this was the land that God allotted
to Cain."
The first European to leave a record of landing on Prince
Edward Island was Jacques Cartier, in 1534.
What is now New Brunswick was neglected except for the visits
of casual fishermen until Champlain came in 1604 and discovered
the St. John River.
The whole maritime region became known as Acadia, and from
it many men with bold spirits set out to found fortunes in
the fishery and fur trades and on piratical excursions along
the coast. Timber cruisers later made their way inland along
the rivers in search of pine groves.
Settlement
From its discovery in 1497 until the landing of the Pilgrim
Fathers at Plymouth Rock in 1620, Newfoundland was the only
British possession in North America. Queen Elizabeth I had
commissioned a settlement there in 1583, but it was not until
1610 that a permanent colony was established on Conception
Bay. In 1615 a shipload of settlers from Wales founded Trepassey,
and by 1712 there were nearly 3,000 English settlers along
the harbours of the Avalon Peninsula. They followed a hard
and lonely life, their diet restricted, their social life
primitive.
It was in 1604 that colonization was attempted off the New
Brunswick coast, when de Monts and Champlain planted settlers
on Île St. Croix. Champlain's map shows dwellings, storehouses,
a chapel and several gardens. The winter was severe, and 35
men of the original 79 died of scurvy. In June 1605 the survivors
sailed to the north shore of Annapolis Basin and called their
new settlement Port Royal. Nearly 200 years later, during
a boundary dispute with Maine, New Brunswick was able to point
to the relics of this settlement on lie St. Croix (now Dochet's
Island) as clear proof that the St. Croix River was the true
boundary.
De la Roche landed a number of settlers on Sable Island,
Nova Scotia, in 1598; Lescarbot had made fair progress with
farming near Port Royal when the place was abandoned by the
French in 1607; some seventy Scottish settlers grouped around
the site in 1628, but gave up after three years; between 1750
and 1752 more than 2,000 settlers arrived from Germany and
took up homesteads around Lunenburg. Mile by mile the coast
became studded with settlements.
The capital of Prince Edward Island was founded in 1720.
Its great influx of Scottish settlers came in 1803, when about
800 landed. The land was administered until 1873 largely for
the benefit of absentee landlords. Today it is almost entirely
under cultivation by the descendants of English, Scottish,
Irish, Acadian and United Empire Loyalist settlers. The Island
is soon to be connected to the mainland by a causeway, tunnel
and bridge complex nine miles long, carrying both highway
and railway traffic.
War between France and England kept the maritime provinces
in an uproar for many years. The war ended with the Treaty
of Paris in 1763 when the French colonies were ceded to Britain.
Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick, originally a part
of Nova Scotia or Acadia, became separate colonies in 1769
and 1784. Cape Breton separated from Nova Scotia in 1784 but
was reannexed in 1820. In 1755 more than 2,000 Acadians crossed
to Prince Edward Island, and in 1784 others migrated to the
northern part of New Brunswick, where they founded the settlement
of Madawaska. In 1961, at the time of the Census, there were
17,418 Acadians on the Island, more than 15,000 bearing one
of the 23 family names listed in the Census of 1798.
American fire-brands from Maine made determined attempts
to convert Nova Scotia and New Brunswick into the fourteenth
revolting colony, and went so far as to destroy Fort Frederick
on Saint John harbour in 1775. They kept the French and British
territories in a ferment, but their revolution had a beneficial
effect on the economy of the Atlantic provinces.
Thousands of colonists in the New England States and elsewhere
did not see eye to eye with the fathers and mothers of the
American Revolution, so they moved over into Canada. In the
spring of 1783 a fleet of twenty transports, the first of
many, sailed into the St. John River with 3,000 people aboard.
Eventually, some 50,000 Loyalists came to Canada, of whom
30,000 settled in the Maritimes.
Confederation
In 1814 the Duke of Kent proposed a union of the Maritime
colonies, but it was not until 1864 that decisive action was
taken. A meeting of delegates of the three colonies was held
at Charlottetown. Representatives came to it from Upper and
Lower Canada, and the result was a much wider union than had
been thought of.
None of the Atlantic provinces came into Confederation in
a mood of infatuation. In fact, Prince Edward Island hesitated
for six years, and Newfoundland remained aloof for 82 years.
But the talks of 1864 were vitally important in the survival
of Canada.
When Queen Elizabeth II opened the Fathers of Confederation
Memorial Building in Charlottetown in 1964 to mark the 100th
anniversary of the conference, she said: "The Confederation
which had its beginnings here in Charlottetown has been the
rock on which the Canadian nation has built its strength and
authority. One hundred years of unbroken democratic practices,
embracing the Crown, Government, and Parliament, mark Canada
as one of the world's older and most stable nations."
Confederation and the building of a railway led to an increase
of trade with the rest of Canada, but in spite of compensatory
measures the provinces down by the sea have not kept up with
the progress being made in western provinces. The decline
of wooden shipping, the opening up of supplies of natural
products from other lands, the loss of markets to the south,
the rise of tariff barriers against exports, the centralization
of finance and industry closer to the big population provinces,
and the geographical isolation of the seaboard provinces:
all these have contributed to underdevelopment.
The result, as was pointed out at a conference in 1965,
has been lower income per person, lower goods output per capita,
lower average investment in new capital, lower labour force
participation, and higher unemployment and underemployment
than in the central provinces.
One piece of statistical evidence is to be found in family
incomes. In all Canada, according to the 1961 Census, there
were 3,657,000 families, 77 per cent of which had annual incomes
of more than $3,000. The Atlantic Provinces compared in this
way: Newfoundland, 86,000 families, 49 per cent; Prince Edward
Island, 14,000 families, 55 per cent; Nova Scotia, 147,000
families, 63 per cent; New Brunswick, 111,000 families, 61
per cent. Every other province had 68 per cent or more of
its families in the over-S3,000 income bracket.
Growing vitality
The Atlantic provinces are attacking today's problems in
an energetic and aggressive way. Just as they gathered themselves
together to repel invaders, so today they are making a united
effort to cope with changed market and living conditions.
Their economies have gained momentum in the past ten years.
There is a growing social vitality. They are not waiting for
a new generation and the operation of blind materialistic
forces or the slow influence of politics to bring a better
turn of the wheel of fortune.
Committees, commissions, groups and associations are drawing
a chart of natural resources, possible markets, selling organizations,
and the application of technology. They are examining land,
forest and water conservation, electric development, new land-use
patterns, the use of fertilizers, the development of industry,
community planning, improved education and health services.
They are determined to use their natural resources plus technology
plus planned self-help. They are preparing checklists of action
required so as to lend purpose to their plans and inspire
public interest.
Since Newfoundland, the most underdeveloped of the provinces,
entered Confederation in 1949 its budget has quintupled; it
has built more than a thousand new schools and doubled the
number of teachers; it has paved hundreds of miles of roads;
its personal income has climbed from $163 million to $523
million; automobiles have increased from 14,000 to 65,500.
People in isolated outports are moving their homes on rafts
to central locations where they can have the advantages of
schools, electric power, telephones, medical services and
modern fish-packing plants. Infant mortality has been reduced
from 92 per thousand live births in 1941-45 to 31 in 1964,
and maternal mortality from 4.2 to 0.4.
If the technological revolution destroyed the raw material
export foundation of the maritime economy, it is technology
that now holds out hope of recovery. Every society which seeks
to keep its people on the rising tide of the standard of living
has to learn this lesson.
The adjustment of an area to new conditions is always difficult.
It may involve changes in occupation and location for miners,
farmers and fishermen. However, the provinces have planned
to educate people for new jobs, to assist them in their removal
to new places, and to develop and enlarge industries to occupy
them in year-round employment.
Industrial development
The case for improvement of industry in the Atlantic provinces
can be painted on a broader canvas than local betterment:
it is necessary to the continued advancement of all Canada.
The need to expand manufacturing is seen in these figures:
in 1960 the per capita output of manufacturing in the Atlantic
region was $218, compared with $589 per capita in Canada as
a whole.
As the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council remarked in its
outline of strategy in October 1965: "The central purpose
of economic development in the Atlantic region for the immediate
future is increased employment through the establishment and
expansion of economic activities which show good promise of
becoming efficient."
Every new industry broadens the base upon which other industries
can be established, and the resulting diversification strengthens
the economy. This is necessary if the 18,100 new jobs per
year postulated as necessary by the Economic Council are to
be provided and migration reduced. It is, says the Council,
"an awesome target". Courageous effort must be made to discover
new sources of exploitable resources, and to ensure the maximum
use of known resources consistent with proper conservation
practices.
Newfoundland is pressing forward the development of its
resources of forests, iron ore, lead, zinc and copper. It
is opening up Labrador, which it plans to link to the island
by a tunnel so as to make readily available the great resources
of iron ore and hydroelectric power.
New Brunswick is also seeking a greater degree of industrialization
in order to raise its living standard closer to that of the
nation. Its gross value of manufactured products rose from
$264 million in 1950 to $462 million in 1965. There are signs
that a greater emphasis is being placed on a higher degree
of processing natural resources. As the director of the industrial
branch said two years ago: "In view of the continued capital
expenditures in the province, the continued establishment
and development of industries of both a primary and secondary
nature, and the greater diversification of industry giving
year round employment, the economic future looks good."
Nova Scotia's new capital investment reached $337 million
in 1965, an increase of 26.6 per cent over 1964; manufacturing
shipments were up 6.5 per cent to $535 million; employment
increased, and the average weekly wage rose to $73.76, an
increase of 4.3 per cent.
Atlantic culture
The Atlantic seaboard is a mosaic of cultural groups, yet
friction is negligible. Around 1717 there were French and
English fishermen plying their trade together off Canso under
friendly conditions. Those were the years when some confidently
predicted that Canso would become the greatest port in America.
But the fraternization became offensive to the higher commands,
and dissension was sown.
People of many nationalities have settled in the Atlantic
provinces since then, and they retain and cherish their folk
customs and speech. The visitor finds the Acadian culture
still flourishing along the shore of St. Mary Bay, where the
Acadian Festival attracts thousands of spectators; the Highland
Games at Antigonish and the Gaelic Mod and Highland Gathering
at St. Ann's uphold the Scottish tradition; and every group,
from the native Micmac Indians to the most advanced modern,
finds a show-case at the Nova Scotia Festival of the Arts
at Tatamagouche. But, more important, these groups have woven
their traditions with those of their neighbours to form a
unique culture shared by all.
The Atlantic provinces have contributed far out of proportion
to their population to Canadian education and culture. The
oldest university in Canada is to be found in Nova Scotia,
and other universities from sea to sea have been led by presidents
and chancellors whose native land was along the Atlantic coast.
The "Antigonish Movement" of education and co-operation had
its birth in St. Francis Xavier University, Nova Scotia. Newfoundland
education, too, is on the move, with revolutionary changes
made during the first 17 years of union with Canada. Memorial
University, established as a degree-granting institution in
1949, was the first university in Canada to offer first-year
tuition free.
Co-operation
The problems and feuds of earlier days have largely disappeared,
and all that remains of them are the crumbling forts and the
obsolete guns which are now attractions for tourists. The
spirit of co-operativeness is demanded by the age. The lives
of all modern nations, if they are going to remain modern,
now impenetrate each other in many complex ways.
The Maritimes have had their share of object lessons. As
W. S. MacNutt says about the early days in The Atlantic
Provinces: "The strident cry for equality in the distribution
of favour and patronage had the inevitable effect of halting
or retarding construction everywhere."
Today, tens of thousands of primary producers have banded
together for economic operations, mutual enlightenment and
the advancement of farming, fishing and forestry. The provincial
governments are working together to plan development of markets,
of electricity, and of research. The federal government has
been showing constructive interest. The Atlantic Development
Board, established in 1962-63, has approved expenditures for
hydro-electric installations, trunk highway systems, water
supply and sewage systems to serve fishery products plants,
research laboratories and pilot plants.
Democratic institutions
The Atlantic provinces have been in the forefront of democratic
advances. When it was sought to impose centralized rule from
Halifax, the Nova Scotia outports strongly resisted, and stood
up for their local rights. Nova Scotia gained representative
government in 1758, when it elected Canada's first General
Assembly. New Brunswick achieved self-government in 1784.
Prince Edward Island gained responsible government in 1851.
Newfoundland, whose people have had aspirations that were
democratic and inclinations that were individualistic, suffered
many ups and downs. She had no resident governor until 1818,
but attained to legislative assembly stature in 1832, and
responsible government in 1855. Following the depression of
the 1930's, which carried the colony to the verge of bankruptcy,
responsible government was suspended in favour of government
by a commission. In 1948 Newfoundland people voted, by a small
but adequate margin, to join Canada, becoming the tenth province.
Looking forward
It can be said that the people in the Atlantic provinces
are looking forward. There have been many periods of optimism
in the past, separated by severe suffering in hard times,
but in a way particular to themselves the maritime people
of Canada cling with fondness to their Atlantic heritage.
They have been people who thought it more important to be
real individuals than to have security, shelter and worldly
possessions under guardianship.
There are always people in every age and environment who
view with alarm and thereby raise apprehension, and those
who view with gloom and thereby cause depression, but the
scene in the Atlantic provinces after a hundred years of confederation
shows people who are becoming sure of themselves and their
future.
Guy Henson, Director of the Institute of Public Affairs,
Dalhousie University, said at a conference on adult education
ten years ago: "These provinces can have a future of achievement
in material things, of progress in civic affairs, and of creative
satisfaction in things of the mind and spirit. I believe that
we are richly endowed in natural resources if we open our
eyes to see them, in geographical location if we will use
it, and, above all, in human resources if we bestir ourselves
to realize our possibilities."
These objectives must be worked toward with a sense of urgency
so as to reduce as quickly as possible the differential between
the standard of living in the seaboard provinces and the rest
of Canada. This is an obligation of the people of Canada as
a whole as well as of Newfoundlanders and Maritimers themselves.
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