The purpose of this paper is to raise issues and provoke discussion, not to present a blue print. Although war-time experience has contributed much to the education of economists, I suspect there are few who would be dogmatic about whether, or how, full employment can be maintained after the war. The problem is not entirely and indeed may not even be mainly one of economic analysis. The most important question may be a social or political one, viz. whether the desire for full employment is so compelling that people will be willing to subordinate personal and group interests sufficiently to achieve it.

War-time developments have emphasized how far Canada was from full utilization of its resources during the thirties. In August, 1939, after nearly a decade of struggle against mass unemployment, we now know there were still more than half a million Canadians who were unemployed. In addition, many were working on short time, or were being supported in concealed unemployment on farms, and many farmers were on relief. Since then, the gainfully occupied have increased from about 3.7 million to about 5.1 million, including the armed forces. In addition, our capital equipment has been increased, new skills have been developed, and new production techniques have been worked out under the forced draught of war. The indications are that full employment of all who really want to work after the war will probably involve jobs for about 4.7 million people, or one million more than in 1939, and a volume of production perhaps 50 per cent greater than the pre-war level.

In this paper only two aspects of the problem are explored: first, the case for anti-trust; and second, the adequacy of the existing legislation. Other aspects of great importance are neglected. Three which call for serious discussion in the near future are: the criteria for judging the behaviour of monopolists, as a basis for regulation in cases where monopoly is deemed desirable or inevitable; the problems presented by the widespread development of international cartel agreements especially in relation to government negotiations for freeing international trade; the difficult problems of eliminating the abuse of patent rights as an instrument of monopoly while retaining the advantages of the patent system. These last two aspects have received much attention in the United States, and Canadians would be well advised to study the findings of the Bone Committee on Patents1 and the Kilgore Committee on Scientific and Technical Mobilization.

One other limitation should be stated: this paper, like most discussions of post-war problems, is based on the assumption that there will be a return to something like the pre-war system of capitalist free enterprise. Though the degree of government interference with the system proposed by even the most conservative groups would constitute a considerable advance from the pre-war status, this assumption appears not unreasonable for Canada in the calculable future (no long period, in my view). The importance of the matters discussed depends on the correctness of this assumption; but the making of the assumption implies no preference, one way or the other, as between possible economic systems.

Social security is a rather new concept on which ideas have not yet really crystallized anywhere. And this is, of course, true of French Canada as well as of English Canada, or England, or the United States. For the present, the initiators of social-security plans have had the best of it, because their proposals have awakened sympathies everywhere in the people in general. As to the élites, they have not yet had much time to turn around, analyse the idea in depth, and pronounce a definitive judgment, the less so because it is considered good propaganda for the time being not to cool the hopes which it may have raised among the common people.

Social security, then, is a new idea in its presentation, which has just been launched and is still taking profit of the smooth seas on which one can almost always count when one is still manoeuvring along the drydocks. Later it will have to meet rough seas, it will have to meet the inquisitive eye of scholars, dissecting it in the light of their philosophy of life, of society, it will have to meet the acid test of experience. When this time comes, and it is coming rapidly, what opinion will definitively take shape in French Canada? French Canadians being what they are, i.e. Gallic-minded and imbued with a Catholic conception of life, what can one expect to meet on that subject in Quebec, if not as a unanimous opinion, at all events as a current of thought more pronounced there than anywhere else? What course can one expect French Canada to take if it is to remain faithful to the essentials of its culture? That is what I shall try to explain, putting before you, first, the essentials which have a direct bearing on the concept of social security. Then I shall proceed, in the second' place, to draw your attention to certain practical points which will show that the views coming out of that process are not at all devoid of factual value.

Let it be clear at the outset that the title of this paper should not be interpreted too broadly. The Quebec dealt with here is not the whole province but the region and the city of Quebec. So far as social research is concerned, no general account will be given of the numerous investigations and studies, more or less related to what is specifically meant by social research, which have been carried on by French-Canadian scholars during the last few decades. I refer particularly to the valuable contribution made in recent years by the economists and human geographers of L'Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales of Montreal to research work in Canada, notably in the highly interesting series of studies on Notre Milieu, published within the last three years under the directorship of M. Esdras Minville. The more immediate concern of this paper is to discuss the origin and the first experiments of one institution, which in my opinion represents something specifically new in the province, the Department of Social Research of the Faculty of Social Sciences at Laval University.

At the School of Social Sciences of Laval University in Quebec, which last December became officially an autonomous and full-fledged Faculty of the University, a Department of Social Research was founded in the autumn of 1943. Its staff consisted of a few full-time professors and its general aim was to carry on social-research projects and studies of significance to the French-Canadian milieu. The Department was favoured from conception to birth and during its infancy by the fruitful guidance of an expert and great friend, Dr. Everett C. Hughes of the University of Chicago, formerly of McGill University. Professor Hughes came to Quebec in September, 1943, to help shape the new institution as well as to outline the first general projects to be undertaken. During the past year, additional valuable assistance was given us by Dr. C. A. Dawson of McGill University, Dr. Carl C. Taylor of the United States Department of Agriculture, Dr. Léon Gérin, the venerable French-Canadian sociological pioneer, and a few other individuals.

This paper deals with some of the problems which confront immigrants who strive to become adjusted to a new environment in Canada's largest cities. The materials presented refer to people from the continent of Europe who have settled in Montreal or Toronto during the present century. The point of view taken here is that the experiences of European immigrants, as told by themselves or by their Canadian-born children, contribute valuable information and significant insights into the processes by which they become assimilated toward one or the other of Canada's two major cultures.

As a social term, assimilation commonly refers to a political rather than a cultural concept. As R. E. Park points out, “it is the name given to the process or the processes by which people of diverse racial origins and different cultural heritages, occupying a common territory, achieve a cultural solidarity sufficient at least to sustain a national existence.” In this country, as in the United States, an immigrant is usually considered assimilated when he has learned the language and the social usages of the native community well enough to participate in its economic, political, and social life without encountering prejudice. The emphasis is here on external indices, such as ability to speak French or English, achievement of the status of a citizen through naturalization, and adoption of the dress, the manners, and the social ritual of the Canadian-born with whom the immigrant comes in contact.