"The Surprising '50s"

Canada, most prosperous nation in the world after the U.S., closed one of its brawniest years in a brawny decade. "Canadians in 1959," reported President A. C. Ashforth of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, "produced more, imported more, exported more, spent more, and saved more than in any previous year."

To the 17 1/2 million Canadians the gains were apparent: annual per-capita income during the decade soared from $940 to $1,500, and the work week shrank from 40 to 37.9 hours. In recognition of the new prosperity, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics will soon scrap the list of 300 commodities on which it bases the monthly cost-of-living index. Explained a D.B.S. official: "There is a whole new way of life to keep track of."

Three-Bedroom Market. The new way of life has changed the face of Canada. Just after World War II, Salesman John Witherspoon bought a new house on the southern edge of Calgary, Alta. (population growth: from 104,000 in 1948 to 225,000 now). Today, he travels 50 blocks south to see his children, who live on the northern edge of a new subdivision. In metropolitan Toronto, which completed Canada's first subway in 1954, European immigration has pushed population from 1.100,000 to 1.600,000 in ten years. In Vancouver (pop. 518,000 in 1949, 659,000 now), backyard swimming pools are common and nothing smaller than three-bedroom houses seems to sell.

For years, thinly populated Canada was held together by little more than the railway tracks that joined British Columbia to the prairie provinces and eastern industrial towns. During the '50s, vital east-west links were added. In 1958 the publicly-owned Canadian Broadcasting Corp. (TIME, Dec. 14) completed the longest microwave relay network (4,000 miles) in the world. The Trans-Canada pipeline, finished in 1958, put Ontario and Quebec markets within reach of the rich, new Alberta gasfields. By the end of 1960, the last scattered 130 miles of the country's first transcontinental highway -- which was only a map in 1940 -- will be paved and ready for traffic. "The '50s completed our unity from east to west," says Northern Affairs Minister Alvin Hamilton.

A Homemade Seaway. One conse quence of this unity is a Canadian pride in such symbols of well-being as the St. Lawrence Seaway (TIME, Dec. 7). Canadians seldom forget that they put up $340 million of the $475 million cost, regard it as a project of their own. "In the '30s," says one government expert, "it would have been unthinkable for Canada to pro pose to go ahead with the Seaway on its own. In the '50s, we were quite willing to do so, and I think most of us now regret that we did not."

But Canada could not have built the Seaway -- or even its own prosperity-- by itself. More than anything else, an influx of U.S. capital investment has built Ca nadian prosperity. Items:

P: 80% of the wells in the Alberta oil fields are American owned.

P: The companies responsible for pouring $1 billion into developing the iron-ore lodes of Quebec and Labrador are U.S. controlled. U.S. Steel is spending $200 million to open a new mine, railroad, and port on the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

P: A $275 million aluminum project at Kitimat, B.C. (capacity: 1 billion Ibs. a year) was built by the U.S.-owned Aluminum Co. of Canada.

"Exciting '60--." Although high wages make Canadian goods hard to export and new trading blocs, e.g., the Common Mar ket, may force Canada to rely even more heavily on U.S. buying, the richness of Canadian resources ensures long-range prosperity. By 1970, one government commission estimated Canada should have a population of 21 million and a gross national product of $50 billion v. 1959's $34.5 billion. The "surprising '50s," pre dicts Banker Ashforth, "should be succeeded by the exciting 60s."

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