Canadians at Last: Canada Integrates Newfoundland as a Province

Olaf Uwe Janzen is an associate professor of history at Sir Wilfred
Grenfell College at the Memorial University of Newfoundland.

With this, his first monograph, Raymond Blake performs an invaluable
service to the study of modern Newfoundland history and, indeed, of
postwar Canadian political history. Whereas past studies of
Newfoundland’s entry into Confederation in 1949 have focused either on
the events and circumstances that led to that fateful decision or on the
career and policies of the province’s first premier, Joseph R.
Smallwood, Blake expressly sets out to identify and explain the
policies, administrative measures, and bureaucratic structures that were
introduced both before and after March 31, 1949, in order to make
Newfoundland a part of the Canadian federation.

Six chapters, with an introduction and conclusion, examine in turn the
administrative, constitutional, and legal procedural measures that
allowed the transition to take place smoothly; the means by which
Canada’s budding social welfare programs were introduced to
Newfoundland with a minimum of delay; the steps taken to minimize the
impact of Confederation on Newfoundland’s manufacturers without
compromising national economic policies and strategies; the diplomatic
negotiations with the United States that were needed as Canadian
sovereignty was extended over territory where an American military
presence had taken root during the war; and, finally, Ottawa’s
ultimately unsuccessful efforts to balance the need to stimulate
Newfoundland’s fishing economy while fulfilling Confederation’s
promise of social progress. This analysis is based on an impressive body
of primary evidence supported by a solid contextual framework of
secondary research.

Blake has not covered every aspect of Newfoundland’s integration into
Canada (he concedes that he does not discuss freight rates), and at
times the thematic focus of individual chapters, which means going over
the same chronology more than once, undermines the narrative flow of the
overall argument. This is possibly the legacy of the book’s origins as
the author’s 1991 doctoral dissertation. Finally, one cannot help but
wonder if Newfoundland had in fact “become a province like the
others” by 1957, when, despite Ottawa’s best intentions and efforts,
the province remained exceptionally poor, with its society and economy
dominated by the exploitation of just a few natural resources.
Nevertheless, Canadians at Last will surely become an indispensable
acquisition for anyone wishing to understand modern Newfoundland
history.