The Icelandic Canadian - 01.03.1968, Page 18

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THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
Spring 1968
hit Western Canada especially hard,
combined with crop failures and
drought and dust storms. And we had
world-wide economic stagnation that
no government, at any level, knew how
to deal with. The economic tools we
have today were not yet developed.
The Second World War finally end-
ed the depression. Governments had
tried to spend their way out of the
depression, but the spending was on
too small a scale. Only the massive
wartime expenditures were large
enough to start up the economy of the
world and get it going again.
It is a sad commentary on our pre-
war economic knowledge that it took
a war to end the depression, but it
really is the truth.
The depression had left its scars on
Manitoba. It left its scars in the blast-
ed hopes and the wasted years. It left
its worst scars on the outlook and at-
titudes of our people.
This depression outlook was not
confined to people in government, or
to one political party. It affected us
all—both in the public and the private
sector.
After the Second World War ended,
the outlook of many Manitobans was
not toward the new opportunites then
presenting themselves. The world was
at peace—the economy was growing.
But Manitoba was still looking
through depression-trained eyes.
The hard lessons of the depression
—to make do, to conserve what we
had, to preserve, to play it safe—these
were not -the lesson we needed now.
We needed instead to learn how to
recognize new opportunities—how to
grasp them and make the most of them.
We needed the same attitude of mind
that had built this province in the first
place.
It -took time for government and
business both to change their outlook.
And in both sectors the change was
never total—there are still elements in
our society unable to change those
hard-learned ways of thought.
But there were people who came
forward with a new attitude. And our
province has grown in the post-war
years. We are paying now, in the form
of higher taxation, for many things
that could have been done for much
less money in the early post-war years.
We could have built schools and
hospitals and roads years ago for a
fraction of what they cost us now.
Businessmen could have invested in
plant and equipment then if credit had
been provided, and thus, paid for it
by now over and over again—building
our economy in the process.
But the change in outlook did take
place, and the province changed it.
The necessary social needs of a modern
society, our utilities, were built to the
standard of 20th Century society’s re-
quirements and our resources were
utilized.
There must always be a balance be-
tween what you want and what you
can do. You cannot build even the
simplest structure without knowing
what materials you have available and
how you are going to use them.
This was the reason why the Com-
mittee on Manitoba’s Economic Fu-
ture, COMEF, was convened in 1961—
to assess what Manitoba consisted
of economically—and to decide what
best use could be made of our poten-
tial.
Just as our early explorers charted
our physical frontiers, so the COMEF
Report charted our economic frontiers.
The Report of the Committee issued
in 1963, established guidelines and re-
commendations to assist in our econ-
omic development. And those guide-
lines in the main have been followed.
The COMEF Report pointed out
the way to spark economic growth in
Manitoba was with a growing and