On This Day: Labour’s Day of Protest, 1976

More than one million Canadian workers walked off the job on Oct. 14, 1976, in a one-day national protest against the federal government’s wage and price controls, in what the Canadian Labour Congress calls the largest labour protest in the country’s history.

The Canadian Labour Congress, led by Joe Morris, called the National Day of Protest a year after Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau’s government introduced its anti-inflation program, according to the congress. The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan said the program was brought in on Oct. 13, 1975.

The program was administered by the Anti-Inflation Board, chaired by Jean-Luc Pépin. It covered federal employees, most other public-sector workers and private employers with 500 or more workers, while farmers, fishermen and regulated industries were exempt from price controls, the encyclopedia said.

Wage increases were capped, regardless of the rise in the cost of living. The sources differ on the exact limits. The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan said the caps were 10 per cent in the first year, eight per cent in the second and six per cent in the third. The Canadian Labour Congress described the limits as eight per cent, six per cent and four per cent over three years. Both agree that inflation was running at nearly 11 per cent in 1975.

The congress said the program was a betrayal. It called it “a broken campaign promise and betrayal of workers by the Trudeau Liberal government.” Before the 1974 federal election, the Conservatives had proposed legal caps on wages and prices. The congress said the Liberals ridiculed the idea and campaigned against controls before winning a majority.

The scale of the walkout was unusual. The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan said unions across the country responded to the congress’s call, with rallies in every major city. In Saskatchewan alone, almost 28,000 people took part in what was a voluntary work stoppage.

The Labour History in 2 Minutes podcast reported that forestry, mining and auto production shut down completely in many areas, and that some towns and cities were fully on strike. In Vancouver, pickets halted bus service and newspaper deliveries.

The action was uneven, however. The podcast said many public-sector workers stayed on the job. Some critics argued that a single day of protest would not be enough to defeat the controls, while supporters called it a strong show of force.

The controls stayed in place. Saskatchewan withdrew from the program on Sept. 30, 1977, according to the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan, and the federal controls were phased out in 1978. The Anti-Inflation Board was dissolved the following year.

The congress argued that the program did little for the problem it was meant to solve, saying inflation fell by only 1.7 per cent by the time controls ended in 1978. It also noted that the Liberals were defeated at the next federal election. Those figures are the congress’s own.

If you find reporting like this useful, consider supporting Canada News Media, an independent Canadian newsroom with no corporate parent.