Maturing in Hard Times: Canada's Department of Finance Through the Great Depression

Shaun R.G. Brown was a military historian in Kitchener, Ontario.

Robert Bryce has written a thorough, well-researched history of the Department of Finance during the depression of the 1930s. The author draws upon his intimate knowledge of the Finance Department, having served as the Deputy Minister from July 1963 to March 1970. In fact, he can be easily identified as one of the group of Ottawa mandarins actively recruited in the thirties to reshape a burgeoning Ottawa civil service. The Cambridge influence of John Maynard Keynes permeates the theme of this history.

Beginning in the twenties, but also referring to the Finance Department of earlier times, the author traces the evolution of the department as an indispensable part of the governmental structure.

Focusing on the causes and extent of the depression of the 1930s and its impact on a wide range of governmental policies, Bryce describes the department’s increasing involvement in the formation and conduct of economic policies. The appointment of William Clifford Clark as the Deputy Minister in November 1932 is viewed by Bryce as a most important development. Clark, a friend of O.D. Skelton, a man who was making his own presence felt in Ottawa, was to become the head mandarin of finance for the next 20 years. More important, Bryce describes the involvement of the department in events ranging from the collapse of the gold standard in 1931, to the possible default of the governments of the western provinces, the introduction of federal unemployment and housing policies, and the founding of the Bank of Canada. The author provides comprehensive notes and bibliographic detail as well as an index.

Though the subject of finance may seem to most readers quite narrow if not dull, the work succeeds as both good history and fascinating reading.