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Source: City of Toronto Archives; Fonds 1266; Item 84160<br />
Buying food at Eaton’s using ration stamps, 30 March 1943<br />
Not that the Canadian government did not play a part. Broad describes the critical role of the<br />
Wartime Price and Trade Board (WPTB), which was established on the day that Britain<br />
declared war on Germany, a week before Canada itself did so. The name of the organization<br />
might suggest that the Board tried to run a command economy in wartime, but the author also<br />
notes that it only instituted rationing in 1942, a full 34 months after Canada had been at war.<br />
Other chapters are illuminating for the perspective they provide on the role of advertising,<br />
which enjoyed a profitable renaissance, as did the film industry, which saw a dramatic increase<br />
in attendance rates over the course of the war. Time and again I found that most, if not all, of<br />
my preconceptions of life in wartime Canada were shattered.<br />
The book is well illustrated with contemporary photos (including a well-stocked Montreal drug<br />
store, complete with soda fountain) and advertisements (including one predicting a post-war<br />
world which would not be unfamiliar to the Jetsons). There is a highly detailed appendix with<br />
figures on everything from retail sales of lumber, food and alcohol (all of which generally<br />
trended upwards over the course of the war), as well as charts depicting personal expenditure<br />
as a percentage of disposable income. The notes run to some 36 pages, and the bibliography<br />
includes a wide variety of primary sources and contemporary periodicals—including<br />
Soda Fountains in Canada!<br />
146 THE CANADIAN ARMY JOURNAL VOLUME 16.2 2016
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