The rise and fall of a Canadian maritime policy, 1939-1965: A study of industry, navalism and the state

"The Rise and Fall of a Canadian Maritime Policy, 1939--1965" traces the strategic, economic and technological imperatives of Canadian maritime policy from the problems of the Second World War through the reconversion period and cold-war rearmament eras. Wartime experiences spawned a large balanced naval fleet, and a large oceanic merchant marine. In addition, Canada's shipyards ranked among the nation's ten largest industrial employers. The difficulties and expense of this growth prompted efforts to protect these wartime developments. Although the post-war plight of each of these sectors has received discussion in the secondary literature, virtually no account has examined the effort to coordinate the measures of protection between the three elements, the navy, shipyards and merchant marine. Establishing that such a coordinated, largely traditional, maritime policy was pursued is the first objective of this thesis.; During the period of post-war planning, the government developed policies to maintain these hard-won national assets. In a nascent form of militarism, the state, labour and enterprise all supported this maritime policy, a policy directed at maintaining a viable merchant marine, a navy to defend it and an industry that could supply the ships for both. In large measure, these means of protection were loosely coordinated through the newly created Canadian Maritime Commission (1947--1965), but were greatly influenced by the requirements of the Royal Canadian Navy.; As a study of industry, navalism and the state, this dissertation appraises the economics of the industries involved, the shifting forms of state management, and the influence of the Cold War. The interaction between the naval and civil arms of the government and civil sectors over issues of strategy, structures, procurement and maritime trade are addressed. These elements considered, Canadian maritime policy progressed with increasingly mixed results through the late nineteen-fifties. Contradictions between naval, trade and industrial policy hampered the pursuit of a well coordinated maritime policy throughout the years of the Canadian Maritime Commission. The changed nature of maritime trade, and prolonged labour and market crises for the merchant fleet marked it the first pillar of this maritime policy to collapse. More slowly, new assumptions about industrial competitiveness and national security, combined with rapidly escalating costs associated with naval shipbuilding, and new NATO strategies, eroded the technological, managerial and financial foundations of the coordinated maritime policy.; The related naval and industrial policies to preserve these industries were not fundamentally reformed until the period of integration of the Canadian Armed Forces, beginning in 1964. For the navy, a rapid rate of technological change compounded the impending obsolescence of much of the war-built fleet. Modernizing the fleet promised to sharply increase naval demands on the federal budget through 1985. Staying abreast the technology and changing NATO strategies prompted the far reaching reforms to both naval and merchant shipbuilding policy undertaken by the Liberal administration of Lester B. Pearson. By 1965 the role of the Canadian Maritime Commission was greatly reduced, and the Canadian deep-sea merchant marine had virtually disappeared from the seven seas. Pearson's reforms struck down the Maritime Commission, reduced and reoriented the navy, and separated responsibilities for shipping and shipbuilding policy. Thus ended a distinct period of Canadian maritime policy.