La grande émigration canadienne : quelques réflexions exploratoires

L’article s’intéresse à un événement trop souvent négligé dans l’histoire canadienne : l’émigration, tant anglophone que francophone, survenue durant les 40 dernières années du 19e siècle. Le texte fait ressortir les similitudes et les contrastes de l’émigration des deux groupes linguistiques. L’explication offerte ici repose sur l’incapacité de la croissance d’emplois industriels à absorber la croissance rapide de la population dans une société rurale qui n’avait plus de terres cultivables disponibles. Les changements majeurs apportés dans les années 1860 à la structure tarifaire américaine sont un important facteur d’explication, selon nous, de cette croissance insuffisante de l’emploi industriel canadien.This paper reviews the too-much neglected historical experience of large-scale emigration from Canada over the last four decades of the nineteenth century. It is shown that this involved anglophone Canadians as well as French. The paper focuses on the similarities and also on some of the contrasts in the emigration characteristics of the two ethnic groups. An explanation of the emigration is offered in terms of a rate of growth of industrial employment insufficient to absorb the rapid population growth that was occuring in a rural society that had run out of cultivable land onto which to expand settlement. The major change in tariff policy in the United States that was brought about in the 1860s is identified as an important reason for the insufficient growth of industrial employment

La grande émigration canadienne : quelques réflexions exploratoires

This paper reviews the too-much neglected historical experience of large-scale emigration from Canada over the last four decades of the nineteenth century. It is shown that this involved anglophone Canadians as well as French. The paper focuses on the similarities and also on some of the contrasts in the emigration characteristics of the two ethnic groups. An explanation of the emigration is offered in terms of a rate of growth of industrial employment insufficient to absorb the rapid population growth that was occuring in a rural society that had run out of cultivable land onto which to expand settlement. The major change in tariff policy in the United States that was brought about in the 1860s is identified as an important reason for the insufficient growth of industrial employment. L’article s’intéresse à un événement trop souvent négligé dans l’histoire canadienne : l’émigration, tant anglophone que francophone, survenue durant les 40 dernières années du 19e siècle. Le texte fait ressortir les similitudes et les contrastes de l’émigration des deux groupes linguistiques. L’explication offerte ici repose sur l’incapacité de la croissance d’emplois industriels à absorber la croissance rapide de la population dans une société rurale qui n’avait plus de terres cultivables disponibles. Les changements majeurs apportés dans les années 1860 à la structure tarifaire américaine sont un important facteur d’explication, selon nous, de cette croissance insuffisante de l’emploi industriel canadien.

Women, Work and Childbearing: Ontario in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century

Anglophone Canada, Ontario especially, was in the forefront of the world fertility decline. The limitation of childbearing within marriage was underway by the middle of the nineteenth century or shortly thereafter in parts of Canada. Among most European populations at this time, the growth of population was restrained largely by postponement of marriage. This paper explores the speculation that Ontarians may have turned early to reduced marital fertility because of the weakness of economic and social support for extended spinsterhood. Evidence on fertility decline and reduced nuptiality in the 1851 to 1891 period is reviewed. It is shown that paid employment outside the home was very limited in relation to the number of adult single women potentially available. It is argued, further, than in relative terms there were diminished demands on women for work within the household as well. Marriage, and a household of one's own, was the preferred state, but that brought exposure to childbearing. The unappealing features of extended spinsterhood may have contributed to a relatively early acceptance by anglophone Canadians of the idea of limiting the fertility of marriage. Le Canada anglais, et particulièrement l’Ontario, a été l’un des chefs de file du déclin mondial de la fécondité. La réduction du nombre d’enfants dans les familles était déjà commencée au milieu du 19e siècle ou peu après dans certaines régions du Canada alors qu’à la même époque, à l’intérieur de la plupart des populations européennes, l’accroissement de la population était surtout limité par le retard de l’âge au mariage. Cet article soulève l’hypothèse que les Ontariens peuvent avoir adopté rapidement la limitation des naissances dans la famille conjugale en raison de la faiblesse du support économique et social dont jouissaient les femmes célibataires. Le déclin de la fécondité et la réduction de la nuptialité entre 1851 et 1891 est réexaminé. Il est démontré que le travail rémunéré à l’extérieur de la maison était très limité en regard du nombre de femmes célibataires disponibles; en termes relatifs, le travail domestique était également en diminution. Le mariage et la consitution d’un foyer constituait donc le statut privilégié pour les femmes bien que comportant le risque d’avoir des enfants. Les problèmes posés par la condition de femme célibataire peuvent ainsi avoir contribué, pour les Canadiens anglais, à une acceptation relativement rapide de l’idée de limiter les naissances à l’intérieur des familles

Age, Education and Occupation Differentials in Interregional Migration: Some Evidence for Canada

This paper reports an endeavour to bring together two strands of research on the migration of population within countries. The identification and measurement of differentials in migration among population groups of varying characteristics has received considerable attention from demographers. The issue that the author explores in this paper is the extent to which differential rates of migration by age, education and occupation classes are related to variations in the response of specific groups to the economic gains obtainable through migration.

Guns and Butter: World War I and the Canadian Economy

Abstract: We assess the impact of the war on the Canadian economy both during and after the end of hostilities. Canadian per capita income increased dramatically during the war but declined sharply in the years thereafter. Part of the pattern is explained by the increased agricultural exposure of the Canadian economy, in particular, the Prairie wheat economy expansion. Rising agricultural prices due to the war provided farmers with a windfall profit sufficiently large to boost national income. The other impact was a shift of resources into and within manufacturing. Canada supplied the bulk of Allied shells and explosives. Much of capital newly engaged in wartime production was rendered obsolete at war's end making the shift of postwar manufacturing production into consumer durables very costly

The seeds of divergence: the economy of French North America, 1688 to 1760

Generally, Canada has been ignored in the literature on the colonial origins of divergence with most of the attention going to the United States. Late nineteenth century estimates of income per capita show that Canada was relatively poorer than the United States and that within Canada, the French and Catholic population of Quebec was considerably poorer. Was this gap long standing? Some evidence has been advanced for earlier periods, but it is quite limited and not well-suited for comparison with other societies. This thesis aims to contribute both to Canadian economic history and to comparative work on inequality across nations during the early modern period. With the use of novel prices and wages from Quebec—which was then the largest settlement in Canada and under French rule—a price index, a series of real wages and a measurement of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are constructed. They are used to shed light both on the course of economic development until the French were defeated by the British in 1760 and on standards of living in that colony relative to the mother country, France, as well as the American colonies. The work is divided into three components. The first component relates to the construction of a price index. The absence of such an index has been a thorn in the side of Canadian historians as it has limited the ability of historians to obtain real values of wages, output and living standards. This index shows that prices did not follow any trend and remained at a stable level. However, there were episodes of wide swings—mostly due to wars and the monetary experiment of playing card money. The creation of this index lays the foundation of the next component. The second component constructs a standardized real wage series in the form of welfare ratios (a consumption basket divided by nominal wage rate multiplied by length of work year) to compare Canada with France, England and Colonial America. Two measures are derived. The first relies on a “bare bones” definition of consumption with a large share of land-intensive goods. This measure indicates that Canada was poorer than England and Colonial America and not appreciably richer than France. However, this measure overestimates the relative position of Canada to the Old World because of the strong presence of land-intensive goods. A second measure is created using a “respectable” definition of consumption in which the basket includes a larger share of manufactured goods and capital-intensive goods. This second basket better reflects differences in living standards since the abundance of land in Canada (and Colonial America) made it easy to achieve bare subsistence, but the scarcity of capital and skilled labor made the consumption of luxuries and manufactured goods (clothing, lighting, imported goods) highly expensive. With this measure, the advantage of New France over France evaporates and turns slightly negative. In comparison with Britain and Colonial America, the gap widens appreciably. This element is the most important for future research. By showing a reversal because of a shift to a different type of basket, it shows that Old World and New World comparisons are very sensitive to how we measure the cost of living. Furthermore, there are no sustained improvements in living standards over the period regardless of the measure used. Gaps in living standards observed later in the nineteenth century existed as far back as the seventeenth century. In a wider American perspective that includes the Spanish colonies, Canada fares better. The third component computes a new series for Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This is to avoid problems associated with using real wages in the form of welfare ratios which assume a constant labor supply. This assumption is hard to defend in the case of Colonial Canada as there were many signs of increasing industriousness during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The GDP series suggest no long-run trend in living standards (from 1688 to circa 1765). The long peace era of 1713 to 1740 was marked by modest economic growth which offset a steady decline that had started in 1688, but by 1760 (as a result of constant warfare) living standards had sunk below their 1688 levels. These developments are accompanied by observations that suggest that other indicators of living standard declined. The flat-lining of incomes is accompanied by substantial increases in the amount of time worked, rising mortality and rising infant mortality. In addition, comparisons of incomes with the American colonies confirm the results obtained with wages— Canada was considerably poorer. At the end, a long conclusion is provides an exploratory discussion of why Canada would have diverged early on. In structural terms, it is argued that the French colony was plagued by the problem of a small population which prohibited the existence of scale effects. In combination with the fact that it was dispersed throughout the territory, the small population of New France limited the scope for specialization and economies of scale. However, this problem was in part created, and in part aggravated, by institutional factors like seigneurial tenure. The colonial origins of French America’s divergence from the rest of North America are thus partly institutional

The evolving SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Africa: Insights from rapidly expanding genomic surveillance

INTRODUCTION Investment in Africa over the past year with regard to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) sequencing has led to a massive increase in the number of sequences, which, to date, exceeds 100,000 sequences generated to track the pandemic on the continent. These sequences have profoundly affected how public health officials in Africa have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. RATIONALE We demonstrate how the first 100,000 SARS-CoV-2 sequences from Africa have helped monitor the epidemic on the continent, how genomic surveillance expanded over the course of the pandemic, and how we adapted our sequencing methods to deal with an evolving virus. Finally, we also examine how viral lineages have spread across the continent in a phylogeographic framework to gain insights into the underlying temporal and spatial transmission dynamics for several variants of concern (VOCs). RESULTS Our results indicate that the number of countries in Africa that can sequence the virus within their own borders is growing and that this is coupled with a shorter turnaround time from the time of sampling to sequence submission. Ongoing evolution necessitated the continual updating of primer sets, and, as a result, eight primer sets were designed in tandem with viral evolution and used to ensure effective sequencing of the virus. The pandemic unfolded through multiple waves of infection that were each driven by distinct genetic lineages, with B.1-like ancestral strains associated with the first pandemic wave of infections in 2020. Successive waves on the continent were fueled by different VOCs, with Alpha and Beta cocirculating in distinct spatial patterns during the second wave and Delta and Omicron affecting the whole continent during the third and fourth waves, respectively. Phylogeographic reconstruction points toward distinct differences in viral importation and exportation patterns associated with the Alpha, Beta, Delta, and Omicron variants and subvariants, when considering both Africa versus the rest of the world and viral dissemination within the continent. Our epidemiological and phylogenetic inferences therefore underscore the heterogeneous nature of the pandemic on the continent and highlight key insights and challenges, for instance, recognizing the limitations of low testing proportions. We also highlight the early warning capacity that genomic surveillance in Africa has had for the rest of the world with the detection of new lineages and variants, the most recent being the characterization of various Omicron subvariants. CONCLUSION Sustained investment for diagnostics and genomic surveillance in Africa is needed as the virus continues to evolve. This is important not only to help combat SARS-CoV-2 on the continent but also because it can be used as a platform to help address the many emerging and reemerging infectious disease threats in Africa. In particular, capacity building for local sequencing within countries or within the continent should be prioritized because this is generally associated with shorter turnaround times, providing the most benefit to local public health authorities tasked with pandemic response and mitigation and allowing for the fastest reaction to localized outbreaks. These investments are crucial for pandemic preparedness and response and will serve the health of the continent well into the 21st century