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THIS PAPER PRESENTS a portrait of sub-contracting foresters at work in northeastern Ontario in the opening decades of the 20th century. Drawing upon a little-known source, the provincial forestry registers for Sudbury and North Bay Districts, the author traces the evolution of a sample of 269 sub-contractors. The length and locality of their activities, their ethnicity, the extent and nature of their contracts, and the number of firms they did business with, are the study's main variables. Although there is no doubt about their economic precariousness in some respects, notably the fact that they were constantly moving their operations and suffering frequent interruptions, it appears in the long run to have been exaggerated in the literature. In fact, the economic performance of paper-makers in the region was not much more brilliant than that of the sub-contractors. In addition the way Ontario assigned cutting permits allowed several other regional forestry enterprises to work at the same time. Regional monopolies in the woods, such as we find in Québec and New Brunswick, did not occur. Also, the sub-contractors showed a surprising degree of flexibility by the contracts they negotiated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

SINCE THE MID-1990'S, Canada and Quebec have initiated important changes to their system of social protection; the objectives of the reforms were to control public expenditure or attain zero deficit, improve the efficiency of social policies, particularly in relation to employment incentives, and guarantee acceptable living conditions. Such objectives were conveyed by a restructuring of several social protection mechanisms, achieved by reconfiguring protection parameters and activating the same social expenditure. To understand this restructuring, the article analyses the changes introduced in certain income security mechanisms including unemployment insurance, universal family allowance and welfare, at both the Federal and Quebec levels. To explain this approach, the paper is divided into three parts: the first on the reconfiguration of each mechanism, the second on the activation of social expenditure and the third introducing the elements of analysis towards this recent restructuring of social policies. The subject matter is dominated by a fundamental question, that of knowing whether the reforms convey a neo-liberal change of policy in the disengagement of the state and erosion of social rights or whether they convey a reorganization, a modification of the framework as a result of change of paradigm or reference in a socially active state or as a form of social investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

OVER THE LAST FEW years, the activities of minimum wage commissions in the western provinces and in Ontario have been the subject of several historical studies. Inspired by these projects, this paper examines the work of the Quebec Women's Minimum Wage Commission, from its inception in 1925 to its dismantling in 1937. After giving reasons which forced the Quebec government to legislate on this issue, the author presents the position of international and catholic unions on women in the work force. In his analysis of the operating mode of the commission and, more precisely, his critical evaluation of its mechanism for enforcing the law, the author concludes that as with the other commissions across Canada, the Quebec Women's Minimum Wage Commission would not have allowed wage increases for women. In a socio-economic context where women on average made half of the salary of men, the decision to use the minimum wage as stool to fight the abuse of the capitalist system had the major consequence of keeping salaries low. In fact, the low rate of the minimum wage agreed to by the commission upheld the principle of pay inequity by gender, thus reflecting the dominant ideology of the era during which the work of women was considered marginal. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tins PAPER EXAMINES the causes for the slow development of trade unionist traditions among Montreal moulders. Founded in 1859, the Montreal moulders' union underwent two decades of relative stagnation, before experiencing an important expansion. During the same period, in other Canadian towns, the moulders rapidly formed strong unions. In Montreal, ethnic and linguistic differences between the British and French Canadian moulders, and the tensions they engendered during the period, seem to have been at the center of the problem. Only a minority of moulders, primarily those of Scottish, Irish, English, and American origin, were involved in the union from the outset. The non-unionized moulders, mainly French Canadians, apparently opted for a more spontaneous form of militancy. Often organizing on a temporary basis, their position was solidified by their functional autonomy in the workplace. But in the long run, through a lengthy process of adaptation, and under the threat of degradation of their craft, the moulders closed ranks around a permanent organization of regulation and defense of their trade. The union's rise was carried out under the impulse of the French-Canadian moulders, and secondary, the Irish-Canadian moulders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]