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Canada experienced its worst economic crisis during the Great Depression of the 1930s with unprecedented numbers of Canadians suffering extreme economic and social hardship. Survival and struggle to change those conditions became as much a mark of the times as the economic circumstances themselves. The Communist Party of Canada (CPC) was one organization that played a significant role in this national upsurge of struggle. The Party believed that the worsening material conditions would engender class consciousness of Canadian workers, leading to the overthrow of the capitalist system to achieve a worker-farmer socialist state. The Party was instrumental in organizing workers, farmers, the unorganized and the unemployed, however, it was not successful in raising Canadian working class consciousness to a revolutionary level. The factors that will be analyzed as being the main contributing factors to the Party's limitations are the CPC1srelationship with the Comintern, repression by the Canadian state, and dominant ideology that prevailed in Canada during the Depression. From its inception in 1921 the CPC worked assiduously to meet the needs of Canadian workers in a rapidly changing economy in the 1920s and one that was also collapsing in the Depression. In many ways it recognized Canadian workers' needs in these times and was at the head of the labour movement fighting for workers' needs and defending them. However, the CPC was somewhat hamstrung by its very close relationship with the Comintern allowing this international communist body to dictate almost every move it made whether or not it was the best for Canadian workers. State repression of the CPC and labour movement, also had a curbing effect on the advancement of the CPC in its work with Canadian workers, forcing the Party underground, decimating its leadership and intimidating Party activists, unions and workers. Finally, dominant ideology during the Depression, in spite of serious threats by alternate sets of ideas, particularly those promulgated by the CPC, largely stood its ground as defender of the present capitalist system that relied on the exploitation of Canadian workers for its survival.

The purpose of the thesis is essentially to elaborate, and to a lesser extent to test the relevance of a theoretical framework focussing simultaneously on the spheres of industry, work and community in staple-specific contexts, explicitly in Canadian forestry and mining single-industry towns (SITS). The framework builds two ideal types of these towns by drawing from the main approaches that have addressed the topic in political economy, labour and community studies. The core underlying argument is that a reconsideration of some neglected staple insights constitutes a legitimate endeavour. The framework stresses that forestry SITs have more: of an elite model of power structure, separate work and community social arrangements, individualistic income strategies, as well as lower class consciousness and numerous contradictory class locations; while mining SITs have more: of a class model of power structure, overlapping work and community arrangements, income strategies framed in secondary relations terms, as well as a higher class consciousness and fewer contradictory class locations. After a brief introductory chapter, the second, third and fourth ones extensively review and interpret the literature, gathering empirical material and theoretical considerations useful to the comparative theoretical framework. The latter is detailed and its claim circumscribed in Chapter five; its relevance is tested in the two last chapters by using it as a backdrop to explain staple specific patternings regarding the organization of work in the main resource sector and women's experience in the family.

This thesis entails the study of both why and how decentralisation of government authority takes place. Decentralisation in Canada is explored by investigating a federal proposal for the devolution of active labour market policies from federal to provincial governments, and by closely examining the positions taken by both levels of government during the development of two federal-provincial labour market agreements in the mid-1990s. The two bilateral agreements chosen for this examination are, the Canada-Nova Scotia Agreement on a Framework for Strategic Partnerships, and the Canada-Alberta Labour Market Development Agreement. The central focus of this research is to examine the extent to which federal and provincial governments’ positions on the devolution of policy are influenced by ‘political’ and ‘public’ interests. The first argument holds that political imperatives influence governmental priorities, attitudes, and motivations as decisions about devolution are made. The second argument maintains that governmental positions on devolution are founded on the motivation to promote the best outcomes for the public at large. This study employs a research focus that is qualitative in nature, and it draws from interpretive and constructivist approaches to inquiry. Interviews were conducted with civil servants who represent federal and provincial interests in the provinces of Alberta and Nova Scotia. A comparative analysis of the evidence found that both political and public interests influenced federal and provincial positions on devolution. This research illustrates that while political and public interests might be separated analytically, in real cases of policy-making they overlap. Nonetheless, the evidence tips the scales towards a political interest explanation much more clearly and convincingly than a public interest interpretation.

In this dissertation I propose the existence of a distinct and previously unacknowledged sub-genre in the Canadian social-reform writing of the 1890s, namely the industrial novel. I concentrate on several late-Victorian Canadian examples: Agnes Maule Machar's Roland Graeme: Knight: A Novel of Our Time (1892), Robert Barr's The Mutable Many (1896), and Albert Richardson Carman's The Preparation of Ryerson Embury: A Purpose (1900). These novels each reflect the expansion of industrial production in the Victorian period and the concomitant social effects of urban industrialism upon the labouring poor. I undertake an examination of these works that analyses the relationship between the novels' middle-class protagonists and the workers whose rights they are defending, seeing in the narrative patterns, imagery, and intertextual references both the articulation of an alternative kind of social justice and a tension emerging between political dissent and political conservatism. These novels of labour unrest caution against violent revolution and instead preach a doctrine of reconciliation and compromise, rooted in a reorientation of conventional notions of justice, a rejuvenation of social institutions, and the imperative of individual moral responsibility. First I focus on Machar's representation of Christian socialism, and how the language of "brotherhood" acts as an antidote and alternative to the morally degenerative effects of industrialism. Machar parallels the labour reform movement to the Christian belief in an afterlife: both are predicated upon faith and deferral, the commission of good works in the present for the benefit of some future blessing. Next, I examine Barr's novel about two strikes in a London factory, looking in particular at issues of leadership and representation. I propose that his novel works to reveal the complexities inherent in any project in which one man must speak for a crowd of others, as the end of the novel amply demonstrates the failure of communication. Finally, in my examination of Carman's novel, I analyse his refashioning of conventional notions of justice. I argue that Carman's narrative suggests the sterility of intellectual debate in the absence of any commitment to social action. I conclude by connecting the late-Victorian Canadian industrial novel to early twentieth-century literary responses to labour advocacy, urbanism, and industrialism.

There are limitations to conventional occupational health and safety research approaches and practices and numerous barriers to overcome in order to achieve progress. Occupational health and safety is impacted by the broader social-political environment. Corporatism affects the directions, ideas and practice of regulators, educators, the labour movement, scientists, medical professionals, and society as a whole, thus inhibiting workers' power to influence change. The thesis therefore explores both the wider influences and barriers to occupational health and safety advances, focusing particularly on the Canadian situation, through the general research questions: What has influenced occupational health and safety policies and practices, especially in Canada? What are some of the limitations of conventional occupational health and safety research and practices? To what extent can participatory action research and mapping address identified limitations? These questions are explored from the perspective of the population potentially at risk. New theories and approaches to occupational health and safety research are then applied in this thesis in order to explore a more specific multi-part research question: Can mapping within worker-based participatory action research be used to explore occupational health and safety conditions? In particular, can mapping contribute to occupational health and safety improvements at a local level and beyond; establish workers' previous exposures for compensation purposes; support efforts to bring about justice through compensation for workers affected by unsafe working conditions; and raise worker and public awareness of health and safety? These questions are explored through two different case studies, which examine, in depth, occupational health and safety action and possible remedies. Casino gaming workers in Windsor, Ontario, Canada undertook a collaborative study to investigate and improve current health and safety conditions. Former Holmes foundry and asbestos insulation workers in Sarnia, Ontario, Canada undertook a collaborative study to provide evidence of exposures and ensuing health problems to support claims for compensation. The outcomes of the case studies shed light on the bigger Canadian health and safety picture and demonstrate that mapping as a data collection method used within a participatory action research approach can accomplish a broad range of objectives. Mapping can raise workers' awareness, facilitate communication, build solidarity and cohesiveness, foster community support, mobilise workers to take action to reduce hazards or win compensation, in turn influencing employers, the compensation board and government agencies. The case studies accomplished the shared objective of raising worker and public awareness. The casino workers also gained occupational health and safety improvements and the Holmes workers were successful in gaining compensation.