Lawrence Martin suggests that the current government aspires to a 1950s vision of Canada (h/t Sister Sage).
I've been thinking about the 1950s a lot lately, because the 1950s were when my grandparents were about my age. As I get older, I find myself reaching the age that my parents and grandparents were when they made major decisions that ultimately affected me, so I find myself trying to picture what I'd be thinking in their shoes during that era.
During the 1950s, all of my grandparents found themselves with large numbers of children to raise, so they all got jobs. The jobs weren't anything fancy, didn't require any post-secondary, nothing a child would want to be when they grow up, just good honest hard work.
They then proceeded to keep these jobs, go into work every day and do the good honest hard work, until eventually they retired. They all got pensions from these jobs too, except for my one grandmother whose employer offered them a pension, but the workers took a vote and decided "No, thank you, most of us are married and our spouses have pensions. What in the world would we need with two pensions?"
Let me repeat that: the economic environment was such that simply by working hard, they were able to keep the same job for decades, buy houses, and raise gaggles of children who ended up going to university. And they all got pensions, except for one workplace where the employer offered a pension and the workers declined because most of them already had another pension!
If someone wanted to convince me that a 1950s worldview is beneficial, creating similar economic conditions would certainly be a good start!
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