The Rhetoric of Dominion Income Taxation and the Modern Political Imaginary in Canada, 1910-1945

This thesis uses Quentin Skinner's study of rhetoric to interrogate the origins of the modern political imaginary in Canada between 1910 and 1945.The Dominion taxing power was the object of a sustained rhetorical critique in the early 20 th century, in which the Liberal and Conservative party identities, built around the protective tariff in the post-Confederation era, were slowly weakened and supplemented with a new representation of difference: the left-right spectrum.Beginning in 1910 with the Grain Growers' Guide, the nationalist resonances of the Dominion tariff were cast as duplicitous distractions from exploitation and fiscal inefficiency.During the First World War, this characterization of the tariff and the political differences it produced became tied to demands for 'conscription of wealth,' as the basis of a fairer and more democratic political culture.A species of what Ian McKay calls a "people's enlightenment," this critique resulted in the first Dominion income tax, the Income War Tax of 1917.A Dominion income tax introduced the new possibility of transferring income that had been taxed progressively from one region to another.The catastrophic economic depression of the 1930s exposed the weakness of the tariff as a fiscal instrument; a more powerful Dominion income tax was cast as the necessary solution to the crisis, and was duly introduced in 1941 and 1942.With these changes, income taxation became a universal burden and the possible basis for large-scale Dominion social programs like the Family Allowances -a combination that Shirley Tillotson calls "the citizenship of contribution."In recognition of this new possibility, party programs for the redistribution of income were aligned on a left-right spectrum.The displacement of the old party system and the establishment of the new spectrum were both examples of what is here termed political iii modernism, creating a new and modern political imaginary for a democratic politics of redistribution.My supervisor Dominique Marshall has been equal parts enthusiastic and skeptical about the project from the beginning, and I have benefitted from her suggestions and critiques many times.That the final project differs so much from what I originally intended owes quite a bit to her guidance and example.Professors Opp, Hillmer and McKillop each contributed in their own way, Opp through his thoughtful and erudite critiques, Hillmer through the reciprocal sharing of his own research, and McKillop through the example of his own scholarship.Beyond my committee, John Walsh was instrumental in getting me to choose Carleton over Queen's University, and was helpfully critical of my initial 'great man' theory of taxation; he advised me to broaden my cast, which I did much later.Duncan MacDowell supported me in a number of ways, including advising me to read up on Norman McLeod Rogers, which I did much later.David Dean introduced me to the study of Parliament in Early Modern England, which was influential in my taking parliamentary speeches more seriously than others have.I began talking about studying the effect of income taxation shortly after finishing my Master's thesis at Trent University, and I drew on the experience and knowledge of a lot of people there.Jim Struthers, who had been on my Master's committee and had taught the Honours seminar on the welfare state, was the first person I spoke to about studying effects of income taxation on the language of political difference.He talked me published the definitive two-volume Taxes, Tariffs and Subsidies in the 1950s.21 Tax history, like political history more generally, is currently undergoing a revival, but the book that would be most relevant to this study, Shirley Tillotson's study of taxation in Canada in the 20 th century, remains unpublished.Much of the early canon of political history in Canada, in fact, grew out of the democratic struggles of the early 20 th century.Frank Underhill's contributions to the study of Canadian political parties and political culture, informed by his belief that both traditional parties were "dominated by the business interests of the great Eastern industrial and financial centres," found its way into articles in the Canadian Forum before being published in academic articles.22 Donald Creighton's account of the political and imaginative challenges in the development of The Commercial Empire of the St Lawrence appeared during the depression, and its arguments about the need for a strong central government were echoed in the historical volume Creighton contributed to the Royal Commission on Dominion-Provincial Relations.23 The work of historians like Creighton and Underhill work was criticized after the 1960s for representing only a narrow swath of political reality and implicitly siding with elite conceptions of politics but, at the time they were writing, the nature of political parties and the role of the Dominion government in creating a national economy were important questions.

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