Grand Trunk Railway Research Articles

Empty Promises: Why Workplace Pension Law Doesn't Deliver Pensions by Elizabeth Shilton

Reviewed by: Empty Promises: Why Workplace Pension Law Doesn't Deliver Pensions by Elizabeth Shilton Kevin Skerrett Elizabeth Shilton, Empty Promises: Why Workplace Pension Law Doesn't Deliver Pensions (Montréal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press 2016) The June 2017 bankruptcy filing of Sears Canada and the consequent cuts to the pensions it owes to its retired employees briefly returned public attention to, among other problems, serious gaps in Canada's workplace-based pension system. When companies like Sears, or Nortel, go down, thousands of workers not only lose their jobs but also face deep cuts to their legally-promised (but often under-funded) pensions. Alongside these dramatic failures, even profitable companies like the "Detroit Three" auto-makers have been pulling the plug on the provision of secure, defined benefit (db) type pension plans in favour of defined contribution (dc) alternatives (often on a "two tier" basis). Even many public sector employers have taken up pension restructuring as a key strategy for managing the impact of austerity budgets and revenue losses. Canadian capitalism in the early 21st century is resolving some of its contradictions on the backs of current and future retired workers. Elizabeth Shilton's Empty Promises provides a timely legal history of Canada's workplace pension plans that offers vital context for understanding these negative developments. As a long-time labour-side pension lawyer, her general conclusions will shock those in the labour movement still trying to make the remaining workplace pensions work. She describes "a system that has been declining for decades and may well be in its terminal phase.… Workplace pension plans should be declared a failure." (172–173) Shilton's path to this conclusion features a select history of the legal record on pensions – legislative, regulatory, contractual, and judicial – to tell an intensely political story. Though analytically incomplete in certain respects, this book should nonetheless provoke a deep rethinking of working-class strategies for meeting basic economic needs in later life. The book's first few chapters set out an early history of pension provision in Canada. By selecting a short list of typical early private sector plans, Shilton develops the primary thesis she threads throughout the text – that pension plans were "conceived and designed to meet the needs of employers." (15) Given that these earliest plans pre-dated organized trade unions by several decades, it is hardly surprising that their initiation and design was exclusively an employer affair. This meant that while they offered workers the appealing prospect of wage continuation after retirement, employer control transformed them into powerful tools to enforce workforce discipline. Plans at the Grand Trunk Railway (1874) and Bell Canada (1917) are profiled as having such a degree of employer discretion over payment that any individual – working or retired – could lose it if they stepped wrong, including by organizing: "Railway [End Page 273] employers … Grand Trunk among them, had a history of using pension sanctions as an anti-strike weapon. Striking employees might be denied pensions altogether, or receive reduced pensions, because the company refused to credit pre-strike service towards their pensions. Even retired employees actually receiving pensions might find their pensions affected if they failed to support the company during a strike." (21–22) But even among employees who behaved well, Shilton points out that extraordinary restrictions on eligibility – such as an age 50 with 20 years service "vesting" rule – made qualifying for the pension both difficult and rare. The result was a powerful employer tool of social control that cost employers very little. Shilton cites a 1938 study of pension coverage that concludes that while about 30 per cent of the labour force of that time worked for employers with a pension plan, only about half of that number were eligible to enroll (frequently white collar or management employees) and only a very small percentage of those who did would actually retire with a pension. The middle chapters of the book, tracing the post-World War II consolidation of the pension system we are familiar with today, provides further support for the author's central argument of continuing employer control. Even when the emerging trade unions gained legal recognition and succeeded in making...

The mystery of privity: Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada v Robinson (1915)

This article examines a little known decision of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council: Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada v Robinson (1915). The examination is historical and it provides a different insight into the understanding of privity of contract, a doctrine central to contract law. The examination reveals a process of trans-Atlantic legal migration in which English law was applied to resolve an Ontario case. The nature of the resolution is surprising because it appears to conflict with the better known decision of the House of Lords, Dunlop Pneumatic Tyre Company, Limited v Selfridge and Company, Limited, which a similarly constituted panel delivered in the same week. This article argues that there was a greater malleability in the resolution of cases concerned with privity than was thought to have existed. It is also argued that the power of Canadian railway capitalism is a significant factor in understanding the legal resolution of the case. Finally, the article considers the use of English and American precedents relevant to the case. The application of English precedents to the case led to a resolution not entirely befitting Canadian conditions.

Probing for Passage: The St. Clair Tunnel

This article provides an historical account of the construction of the St. Clair tunnel that connected the U.S. with its northern neighbor Canada under the St. Clair River in eastern Michigan in 1890. This first subaqueous tunnel to be built in North America was necessitated by the political difficulties of bridge-building at the time, as bridges were to allow for boats with even the tallest masts to travel safely below. As Grand Trunk Railway wished to cross the river, the company contracted the Canadian engineer Joseph Hobson for the 8,000 foot long tunnel. Hobson, who found there to be both shale and blue clay underneath the river, decided to tunnel through the clay, which he thought to be the more stable of the two. The tunnel was excavated from both sides using a steel shell that was pushed along as progress was made. Hobson also made use of air pressurization in the tunnel at a time when such technology was little-used.

An Analysis of the Payrolls of the Point St.Charles Shops of the Grand Trunk Railway

This paper contains a summary of the methods used in, and the important findings of, an analysis of the payrolls of the Point St. Charles Shops of the Grand Trunk Raiiway for part of the period 1880-1917. The analysis was carried out under the following headings : ethnicity, hours of work and wages, persistence in the job and the journey to work.

Gentlemen engineers: the working lives of Frank and Walter Shanly

As the literature pertaining to the history of the profession of civil engineering in Canada is not extensive, further contributions to that history are of great interest to all who value our rich engineering heritage. Richard White’s book is a very welcome addition to this literature and will be acclaimed not only by engineers but by a wide range of the general public who have an interest in finding out more about the development of our country. The book tells the story of the lives of two of Canada’s best-known civil engineers, Frank and Walter Shanly, two Irish-born lads who in 1836, at the ages of 16 and 19 respectively, immigrated to Canada with their whole family. As Canadian civil engineers, they achieved fame principally as a result of their work on two major projects: the Grand Trunk Railway in Canada and the Hoosac Tunnel in the United States. From original documents, principally those contained in the Archives of Ontario and the National Archives of Canada, the author’s impressive research has resulted in an intriguing tale of life in Canada of the 1800s and has uncovered new information regarding the state of the engineering profession in that era. Central to Richard White’s theme is his “discovery” that at the time the two Shanlys took up civil engineering, there already existed a profession in Upper Canada with a status approaching that of the more established professions, so that being an “engineer” was not incompatible with being a “gentleman.” This, the author points out, is in contrast with what appears to be the prevalent view of other historical authorities that, in that era at least, the term “gentlemen engineers” was an oxymoron! The consensus amongst these authorities was that the development of the profession in Canada followed the pattern understood to have been established in Europe and the United States, of a gradual raising of the status of the engineer from ingenious “artisan” to technically competent professional. White points out, however, that the “prevalent” view may be flawed, as there is evidence that there were considerable variations in the background and status of the celebrated “Victorian” engineers. Thomas Telford and George Stephenson, indeed, rose from the “artisan” level, but the Brunels, for example, were of semi aristocratic status. It is also suggested that there were other factors at play and that the very nature of the Upper Canada society of that time was so different from that of the contemporary societies of Europe and the United States that it may have delayed the development of a purely “professional” class and extended the “gentlemanly” era well beyond the time that it lasted in these other societies. “Perhaps an unusually old fashioned society could also harbour an unusually gentlemanly civil engineer” (p. 185). The difference in the way the “gentlemen” Shanlys perceived civil engineering, in comparison to the way in which the profession was beginning to develop over their lifetimes, becomes evident when one sees that although it was Walter, in his later role as a member of Parliament, who introduced the incorporation bill that established the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, neither brother took an interest in this move to establish civil engineering on a professional basis. “It was this new ‘Victorian’ profession which espoused the ideology of progress and social betterment, that Walter and Frank had mixed feelings about, and it was this profession that organized itself into the CSCE from which Walter stayed aloof” (p. 184). For the general reader, the book gives an excellent account of the attempts of an Irish immigrant family of “gentlemanly” background to come to terms with life not only in a new world geographically, but in a rapidly changing world of commerce and industry. The more technical aspects of the story relating to the engineering works, the canals and railroads built by the brothers are described clearly and may be easily understood by the nontechnical reader. The engineer, too, will find many items of interest relating to the technical descriptions of the works but may regard as more important the discussions on the role of the professional engineers of that time, their relationship with contractors, and how it was frequently difficult to separate these roles in a truly meaningful way. This is illustrated by the fact that although we celebrate the Shanlys as engineers and Walter, in particular, was very jealous of his role as an independent professional, yet they were as active as contractors as they were engineers. They were, of course, not unique in this, as other famous engineers of that time operated in a like manner, Sanford Fleming and Casimir Gzowski being two obvious examples. In a further clarification of this contradictory situ-

The Creative Financing of an Unprofitable Enterprise: The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada, 1853-1881

The Grand Trunk was the largest of Canada′s early railways, a technological achievement, but a financial failure. By studying its financial records, we explore how the Company, through debt reorganizations, stayed afloat despite being close to bankruptcy during much of its first 30 years. We also analyze Grand Trunk securities with the help of an options pricing model, concluding that investors, who were mainly in Britain, accurately assessed the value of the Company. Included in their calculation was the possibility that raised the price of the firm′s debt and allowed the Company to successfully float new debenture issues.

London merchant bankers in the first phase of heavy borrowing: The grand trunk railway of Canada

London merchant bankers in the first phase of heavy borrowing: The grand trunk railway of Canada

George-Etienne Cartier: Montreal Bourgeois

Through the use of new sources, this study gives prominence to Cartier's business, social, and family milieu. It examines his emergence as a corporation lawyer, company director, landlord, and railway promoter as well as his political battles with his in-laws, his disintegrating marriage, and his long liaison with the unorthodox Luce Cuvillier. A rebel and political exile in 1837, Cartier by the 1850s was a member of the militia, a government minister, and a perennial defender of British traditions. His solid conservatism brough him support and rewards from the English-speaking bourgeoisie, the Grand Trunk Railway, and the Seminary of Montreal. After confederation, Cartier's political energies lessened, and his interest turned to his country estate and to pleasures of the table, drawing room, and stable. His degenerative disease and his alienation from his working-class voters in east-end Montreal made him vulnerable to his opponents, and his life ended in political defeat and implication in the Pacific scandal. His career, Young concludes, illustrates the development of bourgeois hegemony in Montreal after 1840 and the progressive integration of institutional, political, and economic structures to preserve that power.

Nineteenth Century Corporate Welfare: Municipal Aid and Industrial Development in Saint-Jean, Quebec, 1848-1914

Au Québec, à la fin du 19e siècle et au début du 20e, plusieurs municipalités tentent par divers moyens défaire partie du réseau ferroviaire et d'attirer des industries et Saint-Jean ne fait pas exception à la règle. Investessements, prêts, subventions, concessions de terrains, exemptions de taxes et autres avantages constituent les principaux appâts mis de l'avant par les dirigeants municipaux. Dans le cas de Saint-Jean, à l'instar d'autres villes, les avantages offerts aux entreprises ne produisent que peu de retombées favorables sur l'économie locale et notamment sur le secteur industriel. Cet article vise à éclairer le rôle des élites locales. Il appert que la concurrence d'autres centres urbains plus prospères et la faiblesse économique de Saint-Jean constituent les facteurs principaux qui ont motivé l'action de ses dirigeants. Jusqu'aux années 1870, Saint-Jean est un centre florissant axé sur le négoce canado-américain, mais la construction du Grand Tronc, amorcée en 1850, entraîne le déclin des activités économiques de la ville. Les hommes d'affaires locaux essaient donc de relancer l'économie en favorisant le développement du secteur industriel par l'octroi de généreuses allocations municipales. Toutefois, la plupart de leurs efforts s'avèrent vains en raison de la situation défavorable de la ville.

Monopoly or Competition: the Nationalization of the Grand Trunk Railway

'THE OWNERSHIP and operation of a railway,' Conservative leader Robert Borden declared in • 906, '... is a national function because the railway is no more than a modern highway of commerce operated by a common carrier.'l Borden's views on railway policy had evolved gradually over the previous four years. Shortly after the Grand Trunk Pacific project was announced in November •9oa, the Conservative leader seriously considered a proposal to give the crown the right to take over the new enterprise 'after a certain period of years.' 'The advantage [of the proposal],' he remarked, 'is that it makes provision for a possible future policy of Government ownership. '2 Public debate on railway policy intensified in July • 903 when Laurier announced the terms of federal aid to the Grand Trunk Pacific-National Transcon-

Conservatives, Liberals, and Labour in the 1880's

In the 1870's, party attitudes to Canada's nascent labour movement were clearly reflected in the federal legislation of successive Conservative and Liberal administrations. Especially was this true of the Trade Unions Act of 1872 and the Breaches of Contract Act of 1877. The bill concerning trade unions was guided through the House a few weeks before a federal general election by Sir John A. Macdonald, conscious of the special contribution it would make to the success of his National Policy. It was passed in response to organized labour's outspoken demands and in the face of George Brown's determined efforts to destroy trade unionism. The Breaches of Contract bill was driven through the Commons for no clear electoral purpose by Edward Blake and Alexander Mackenzie, conscious of the special contribution they could make to the success of the Grand Trunk Railway Company. It was passed in spite of labour fears and in the face of stiff opposition from Macdonald, Irving and other leading Conservative and Independent politicians. Whereas the famous Trade Unions Act asserted the right of all workers to organize and to strike, the less well-known Breaches of Contract Act denied the right to strike to all employees of public utilities. Thus the seventies, while witnessing some major federal legislation directly affecting Canada's young trade-union movement, also saw labour inevitably moving within the orbit of Macdonald's Conservative party.

The Place of Finance Committees in Non‐Labor Politics, 1910–1930

[The] enumeration of the different 'external organizations which may bring about the creation of a political party would not be complete without mention of the action of industrial and commercial groups: banks, big companies, industrial combines, employers federations, and so on. Unfortunately here it is extremely difficult to pass beyond the bounds of generalizations and hypotheses, for such action is always cloaked in great discretion. In the Encyclopaedia of Social Sciences, E. H. Underhill demonstrates the part played in the birth of the Canadian Conservative party in 1864 by the Bank of Montreal, the Grand Trunk Railway, and by Montreal 'big business generally. Similar influences could no doubt be discovered at work in the formation of almost all right‐wing parties; but on this point we have for the most part at our disposal only presumptions (well‐founded, it is true) but not evidence: very tactful investigations would be required to make clear the forms and degrees of influence exerted by capitalist groups on the genesis of political parties.

REVIEWS

Book reviewed in this articleGREAT BRITAINR. H. Tawney Business and Politics under James IChristopher Hill. Economic Problems of the Church from Archbishop Whitgift to the Long Parliament.L. Margaret Midgley (Ed.). A History of the County of Stafford.R. A. McKinley (Ed.). A History of the County of Leicester.John LE Patourel (Ed.). Documents Relating to the Manor and Borough of Leeds, 1066‐1400.Acts of the Privy Council of England, July 1628 to April 1629.Margaret Walker (Ed.). Warwick County Records: Hearth Tax Returns, Vol. I. Hemlingford Hundred: Tamworth and Atherstone Divisions.D. C. Coleman. The British Paper Industry 1495‐1860.William Woodruff. The Rise of the British Rubber Industry During the Nineteenth Century.John Clive. Scotch Reviewers: The Edinburgh Review, 1802‐1815.A. R. Schoyen. The Chartist Challenge. A Portrait of George Julian Harney.Walter E. Houghton. The Victorian Frame of Mind, 1830‐1870.T. F. T. Plucknett. Early English Legal Literature.R. J. Mitchell and M. D. R. Leys. A History of London Life.Kathleen MajorT. Woodrooffe. The Enterprise of England.W. B. Stephens. A Study of Industrial and Commercial Development, 1625‐1688.H. Cecil Pawson. Robert Bakewell, Pioneer Livestock Breeder.G. Rattray Taylor. The Angel‐Makers.WALTER HAGENBUCH. Social Economics.ITALYRoberto S. Lopez. La prima crisi della Banca di GenovaGiuseppe La Mantia. Codice diplomatic dei Re Aragonesi di Sicilia. Vol. II, edited by A. De Stefano and F. Giunta. Series I, vol. XXIV of‘Documenti per servire alia Storia di Sicilia’.Renato ZanoheriUgo TucciUNITED STATES OF AMERICALev E. Dobriansky. Veblenism: A New Critique.Bernard Rosenberg. The Values of Veblen.Arthur Nussbaum. A History of the Dollar.Marvin Meyers. The Jacksonian Persuasion: Politics and Belief.Walter D. Wyman and Clifton B. KroeberFred A. Shannon. American Farmers’Movements.E. S. Lee and Others. Population Redistribution and Economic Growth: United States, 1870‐1950. Vol. I. Methodological Considerations and Reference Tables.Milton Handler. Antitrust in Perspective: The Complementary Roles of Rule and Discretion.Kenneth O. Bjork. West of the Great Divide: Norwegian Migration to the Pacific Coast, 1847‐1893.John H. Krenkel. Illinois Internal Improvement 1818‐1848.Milton Derber and Edwin Young. Labor and the New Deal.Robert David Enterbero. The Changing Competitive Position of Department Stores in the United States by Merchandise Lines.Raymond G. Miller. Killowatts at Work: A History of the Detroit Edison Company.David Loth. Swope of G.E.‐The Story of Gerard Swope and General Electric in American Business.Kendall Birr. Pioneering in Industrial Research. The Story of the General Electric Research Laboratory.Martin Demino Lewis. Lumberman From Flint: The Michigan Career of Henry H. Crapo 1855‐186/t).Alfred H. Conrad and John R. Meyer.‘The Economics of Slavery in the Ante Bellum South’, Journal of Political Economy, LXVIUniversity of North CarolinaGENERALLudwig VON Mises. Theory and History.Karl R. Popper. The Poverty of Historicism.Torsten Garrdlund. The Life of Knut Wicksell. Translated from the Swedish by Nancy Adler.John T. Noonan, Jr. The Scholastic Analysis of Usury.Agronomisch‐Historische Bijdragen. Vol. IV.George T. Matthews. The royal general farms in eighteenth‐century France.Stanley J. Stein. Vassouras. A Brazilian Coffee County, 1850‐1900.Stanley J. Stein. The Brazilian Cotton Manufacture: Textile Enterprise in an Underdeveloped Area, 1850‐1950.Richard M. Morse. From Community to Metropolis: A Biography of São Paulo, Brazil.A. W. Currie. The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.Vernon C. Fowke.The National Policy and the Wheat Economy.A. V. Raman Rao. The Economic Development of Andhra Pradesh, 1766‐1957Jerome B. Cohen. Japan's Postwar Economy.Capital Formation and Economic Growth.

The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada. A. W. Currie

<i>The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada</i>. A. W. Currie

The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.

The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada.

The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada

Find information about UTP Journals. University of Toronto Press is Canada’s leading academic publisher and one of the largest university presses in North America, with particular strengths in the social sciences, humanities, and business. The Book Publishing Division is widely recognized in Canada for its strength in history, political science, sociology, Indigenous studies, and cultural studies. Internationally, UTP is a leading publisher of medieval, Renaissance, Italian, Iberian, Slavic, and urban studies, as well as studies in book and print culture.

The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada

Find information about UTP Journals. University of Toronto Press is Canada’s leading academic publisher and one of the largest university presses in North America, with particular strengths in the social sciences, humanities, and business. The Book Publishing Division is widely recognized in Canada for its strength in history, political science, sociology, Indigenous studies, and cultural studies. Internationally, UTP is a leading publisher of medieval, Renaissance, Italian, Iberian, Slavic, and urban studies, as well as studies in book and print culture.

Review: The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada

Review: The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada

The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada

The Grand Trunk Railway of Canada

Analysis of Cost of Freight Service, Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada

Analysis of Cost of Freight Service, Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada