Even citizens of a South American republic might have envied Canadians in 1963. An attemptedcoup d’état, the overthrow of one government and the precarious existence of another, a rebellion within one party and murmurings of discontent in a second, political fasts, and a terrorist movement—these and many equally exciting and sometimes bizarre events constituted the political fare for the year. Underneath, however, was the continuing tragic theme of centrifugal forces seemingly too strong for the tender fabric of the ties that bound the nation together. And by the end of the year Prime Minister Pearson might well have...

Provincial affairs were marked by two outstanding features in 1963: increasing expenditures and financial need, and political stability. The first was neither new nor different from the problem faced in Ottawa. But the rapidly mounting costs of education, welfare, and economic development outran provincial revenues and made a reconstruction of Canadian federalism an economic and financial, as well as a cultural, necessity. Politically, the provincial voters, if not “tranquille dans la possession de la verité” like M. Lesage, seemed content with their governors. Nowhere was the established order seriously threatened. Premiers Bennett, Robarts, and Robichaud strengthened their hold on office,...

After a pause in the rate of expansion late in 1962, the pace of economic activity in Canada during 1963 continued to improve. It was a year of solid, if unspectacular, growth in employment, production, investment, and income, highlighted by the largest wheat crop in Canada’s history, record wheat sales, a significant increase in exports and a decline in imports, and a strong advance in the secondary manufacturing sector of the economy. Prices, remarkably steady early in the year, began to advance sharply in the fall as the full impact of devaluation on the prices of imported goods became effective....

Most canadians will remember 1963 as the year when relations between English and French-speaking Canada became more strained than at any time since the wartime conscription crises of the mid-1940’s. But few, indeed even in the Industries where it was taking place, appreciated that another important change was under way. Indications were that the direction of Canadian industry in the future would be controlled not by the private sector but by the state, and that long-range government planning rather than the familiarad hocdecision-making of industry would regulate Canadian companies. In 1963 this trend was apparent in both the...

Many matters of importance to labour were carried over into 1963. Collective bargaining negotiations were in process in a number of firms at the beginning of the year—the most noteworthy case involved the International Nickel Company and the United Steelworkers of America. The dispute in the maritime industry was far from solution and continued to occupy the centre of attention during 1963. The problem of providing public employees with a means of effective bargaining became a pressing policy issue. Union leaders began to reconsider their past approach to political action and also to wrestle with the problem of Canadian...

Agriculture had a notably successful year in 1963. Farm incomes increased substantially. Farm problems seemed less serious. Future prospects for agriculture appeared more favourable than they had for many years. It is true that this sector of the economy had been moving, though with difficulty, towards a more favourable economic position for more than a decade, but a bountiful crop and good prices in 1963 made this trend more rapid and striking. Moreover, by 1963 improvements in agriculture were extending beyond farmers’ incomes into agricultural institutions and services, into politics and policies, and into the attitude of the consumer.

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The year opened in the atmosphere of uncertaindétentewhich followed the dramatic Russo-American confrontation in the Caribbean in October. In contrast to the three previous years, each of which had witnessed a grave international crisis—in the Congo, at Berlin, and over Cuba—it proved a year of relative tranquillity, in which the major conflict lay within the Soviet bloc rather than between it and the West. In Canada the biggest headlines dealt not with relations with Communist powers but with differences over defence questions which brought relations with the United States to an unprecedentedly low level. Both the...

One cannot help but be struck by the large amount of talking and writing about education in Canada, and by the varying quality of the ideas put forward. A quotation in the November issue of the Canadian Education AssociationNews Letter,taken from a publication of the English National Union of Teachers, may explain some of this verbiage: “The trouble with so much educational journalism is that it tends to report words rather than deeds. A glance through the news columns of the educational Press shows a heavy preponderance of people saying things as opposed to doing things.” The Fort...

La discussion qui a entouré le projet de loi visant à créer un ministère de l’éducation au Québec est certainement l’événement majeur qui, dans le domaine de l’éducation, s’est produit au Canada français en 1963; pendant six mois, soit de la mi-avril à la mi-octobre, elle a constamment tenu les journaux en haleine. Le bill 60 se situe même au nombre des problèmes qui ont le plus passionné toutes les couches de la population québécoise au cours de cette année. Sur le plan politique, 1962 a été, pour les Canadiens français, l’année de la nationalisation de l’électricité; de la même...

The most interesting happenings in the general area of public law during the past year lie more in what did not take place than in actual recorded events. Some of these are gone forever; for example, the excitement over whether Mr. Diefenbaker, no longer having the largest party in the House of Commons, even though no party had actually attained a majority, was constitutionally obligated to turn in his commission to the Governor General after the April 1963 federal elections; also the speculation over what the Supreme Court of Canada might have done with the British Columbia Electric case if...

Measured against the dramatic events in the health field in 1962, the year under review might be described as a year of unrealized expectations. In the economic and planning spheres, reports on a number of studies were being awaited. In the research and clinical areas, one seemed to sense a general expectation that some major breakthrough in the cause or treatment of a disease, or diseases, of major consequence was imminent. After the Saskatchewan medicare struggle and the impact of thalidomide, 1963 seemed strangely quiet and prosaic; perhaps the most dramatic episode was the announcement by the new Minister of...

Welfare in canada in 1963 was dominated by three major themes: the headlines and the press coverage were captured by the furor over the Canada Pension Plan; public welfare and private welfare programmes came under scrutiny in a variety of ways as part of the fundamental realignments that were accompanying welfare’s awkward adjustment to the realities of the second half of the twentieth century; and increasing attention was given to the problems of staffing the welfare services. Each theme was, so to speak, enlarged and further confused as it developed under the growing pressures of discordant interests. No immediate major...

Probably the most distinctive development in Canadian journalism during 1963 was a sharp improvement in relations between press and government. The most marked change came in April when Mr. Pearson replaced Mr. Diefenbaker as prime minister. InRenegade In PowerPeter Newman said of the Conservative leader: “Few Canadian public figures have paid more heed to the press or understood the real nature of its function less.” Mr. Pearson showed understanding of that function when, in his first public speech after assuming office, he enunciated a philosophy of journalism quite different from that practised by his predecessor. During 1963 at...

The expansion of science in Canada observed in 1962 continued throughout 1963. In industry the growth derived from increasing emphasis on research as the key to export trade and from the encouragement provided by government research incentives. Science in the universities was developing in relation to rising graduate enrolments, but these same enrolments as well as the costs of modern scientific investigation were creating for the universities new and pressing problems concerning the financing of research. In the government sector the Royal Commission on Government Organization called for a single cabinet post responsible for national scientific policy; for a central...

In august over 1,000 delegates, bishops, priests, and laymen, from seventy-eight countries representing eighteen autonomous churches descended upon Toronto for the Third World Anglican Congress. The spectacle was colourful, exciting, and moving, and the deliberations were pervaded with an unusual sense of urgency and candour. “Day after day,” wrote Dr. E. R. Fairweather in his introduction to theReport of Proceedings,

one speaker after another helped to sketch a vast panorama of the twentieth-century world in all its religious and cultural diversity and its political and economic complexity, until in the foreground our Anglican contribution to the Christian mission stood...

Peut-être ne faut-il pas être trop déçu d’une année qui nous a donné, en plus d’une édition collective des poésies d’Alain Grandbois, de nouveaux recueils de poèmes de Rina Lasnier et de Gatien Lapointe, des pièces d’Anne Hébert, d’André Laurendeau et de Jacques Ferron, des essais personnels de Pierre Vadeboncoeur et de Pierre Trottier et des livres graves et utiles de professeurs comme Emile Simard, Philippe Garigue, Pierre Angers et Marcel Trudel. Tout cela peut nous consoler peut-être de ce que des vingt romans de l’année, aucun ne soit vraiment remarquable, sauf peut-êtreTout compte faitde Jacques Languirand qui,...

Whatever the economic or political crises in 1963, Canadian writers and publishers experienced something close to a banner year. The output of poetry and fiction was less bulky and perhaps less impressive than writing in the humanities, social sciences, and public affairs, but several of the country’s most experienced writers, as well as several new ones, published works that readily met past standards.

Irving Layton is a difficult man to praise. His prose, short story and critical preface alike, has never matched his poetry. Forewords have been diatribes, sometimes illogical and ill-mannered, though always passionate, and illuminating at least of...

The greatest manifestation of the Canadian cultural explosion in 1963 was the proposed series of arts centres to be built across the country. The “arts centre,” a cluster of variously sized auditoria for the performing arts, with complementary art galleries, museums, and even broadcasting outlets, has become not just an architectural oasis but the pulsating heart of a community. This approach to living is new in North America and results from increased leisure time, the evolution of town planning as a super-art, and the general public acceptance of the worth of artistic expression in the maturation of a nation. In...

Il y a des signes d’essoufflement chez les animateurs du théâtre professionnel en cette fin d’année. Et ce malaise se communique rapidement. A chaque semaine les journaux en font état et, malgré la foi vibrante des optimistes de la cause, il ne faut pas être grand clerc pour se rendre compte que nous entrons dans un nouveau cycle de création dramatique et d’activité théâtrale qui fait naître de nouvelles angoisses.

Qu’en résultera-t-il? Sans aucun doute un renouvellement du répertoire et des chefs de file ainsi qu’une mystique mieux comprise, plus fermement entretenue, du rôle que doit jouer le théâtre dans...

Although 1963 will not go down in history as the most spectacular year in Canadian art, it did have a few high moments: it will be remembered as the year pop art hit Toronto; the year of organizing shows of Canadian art for exhibition abroad; and the year museum men from outside the country juried our shows and added Canadians to their collections.

One of the early events of the year was the Royal Canadian Academy Exhibition which opened in Toronto and inaugurated the Samuel and Ayala Zacks Purchase and Gift Award. The latter provides for the purchase of a...

L’année radio-télévision 1963 aura été marquée par l’affaire CJBC, comme une autre année avait été marquée par une certaine grève. Québec n’a pas encore son poste de la chaîne nationale française de télévision, mais ça viendra. Et à Montréal on a fait table rase d’un vieux quartier pittoresque de l’Est, et très bientôt on commencera à y ériger un palais (très moderne) qui logera les studios et tous les services montréalais de Radio-Canada — et revalorisera tout l’Est de la ville.

Les chaînes françaises de radio et de télévision de Radio-Canada, en cette année 1963, ont été allongées de nouveaux...

Although 1963 brought an end to the bitter inter-network rivalry that flared up during 1962, culminating in the controversy over the Grey Cup telecast, so many new problems arose or became apparent that by year’s end the industry was faced with greater uncertainties than ever before.

As often happens in violent struggles, the previous year’s quarrel between the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and CTV Television Network Limited reached such a pitch of ferocity that it frightened the combatants themselves, and both became anxious to find a basis for peaceful coexistence that would permit the orderly settlement of differences, out of the...

Radio broadcasting in Canada is a volume affair. Although its quality may often be doubted, there is never any question of its quantity. Almost every Canadian listener today has the choice of two or more stations; and in heavy population areas, he has dozens to choose from twenty-four hours a day. In the past, however, the number of stations available has not significantly increased his freedom of programming choice. Most private enterprise stations have sounded much the same as each other; only CBC has offered real variety.

It was an important development, then, that in 1963 private stations became less...

The many musical events of 1963 were seldom startling, but often showed an uncertainty and fitfulness that might puzzle an outsider. “Healthy disconnectedness” might be the best phrase to characterize Canadian musical life of the ‘50’s and ‘60’s, and in this sense 1963 was a typical year. A few organizations and enterprises floundered from lack of support; others were launched with brave hopes and the usual unconcern for what had come before; and, as in most areas of Canadian culture, one half of the country rather prided itself on not knowing what the other half was doing. When Les Jeunesses...

For six years now the Canadian film industry has displayed all the potential of an expectant elephant. It has seemed that at any time a significant and sizeable entertainment movie industry could be born here, but as 1963 closed the midwives still waited, and the industry continued to grow in volume, diversity, experience, and professionalism.

As 1963 began, the Glassco Commission recommendations were offering private producers their best hopes of making more money. Glassco had suggested that the CBC and the National Film Board should divert more work to private enterprise. Although the year died without any official policy change...

The canadian sports scene in 1963 saw a continuation of many of the trends of the previous year. Canadian athletes continued their assault on the native record book, while some set new international marks. The Pan American Games saw Canadian athletes achieve their greatest success ever in an international meet. The popularity of football, hockey, curling, horse-racing, and track and field continued to increase, while that of professional baseball and boxing continued to decline. And once again Canada’s representatives failed to win the world hockey tournament.

This year’s football season in the eastern football conference was almost a replica of...