The Golden Age was marked by very strong economic growth and by close to full employment, resulting in steadily rising real wages and the expansion of the fiscal base needed to finance the growing welfare state.
By the inter-war period, social democracy had emerged in Canada as a more or less coherent ideological and political force.
Social democracy was not only about the welfare state and public services and expanding social rights, but also about regulated capitalism, economic democracy, or even transcendence of capitalism as an economic system.
What if the CCF-NDP’s history as a mass party and a democratic, membership-based movement for a better world is in fact its unique strength in Canadian politics?
Ed Broadbent and his co-authors spoke at the Toronto Reference Library to launch their new book on Canadian social democracy.
To be humane, societies must be democratic — and, to be democratic, every person must be afforded the economic and social rights necessary for their individual flourishing.
Perspectives is a new space for the Canadian progressive left to build on the ideas of political economy, governance and working-class political strategy.
“Coming back to the commitment by the state, instead, I say, we need an expansion of the role of the state through decommodification. This will lead to the real freedom of more citizens, in a way that simple political and civil rights cannot.”
The 2023 Ellen Meiksins Wood Lecture was delivered by economist Armine Yalnizyan—a leading voice on Canada’s economic scene.
