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The Denial of Social Experiment in Canadian Housing Policy before the Second World War

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Social Welfare 1850–1950

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Abstract

Canadian housing policies, unlike efforts in health care, have attained no noteworthy apotheosis, can claim no triumphant prophets of legislated social experiment, and have often expressed fiscal rather than social considerations. In the extraordinary circumstances of the after-math of the 1917 Halifax explosion, the federal government did initiate the first public housing venture in Canada. That experiment, induced by devastation, was on its own until the construction of housing for munitions workers during the Second World War. The depression of the 1930s prompted housing legislation, but of limited social impact. Both the Dominion Housing Act (1935) and the National Housing Act (1938) basically worked through lending institutions, and were intended primarily to loosen the mortgage market and stimulate the construction of single-family detached dwellings.

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NOTES

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Authors
  1. John Weaver
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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Oxford, United Kingdom

    D. C. M. Platt (Professor of the History of Latin America) (Professor of the History of Latin America)

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© 1989 D. C. M. Platt

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Weaver, J. (1989). The Denial of Social Experiment in Canadian Housing Policy before the Second World War. In: Platt, D.C.M. (eds) Social Welfare 1850–1950. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10343-0_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-10343-0_5

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-349-10345-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-349-10343-0

  • eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)

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