Canada's first European settlers supported themselves mainly by subsistence farming. All family members, young and old, farmed, fished, and hunted not to sell to others but to feed and clothe themselves. Together, family members created their own "social security." In the Canada of the 1920s, the idea that families should look after their elderly, sick, and injured members remained a powerful influence on policy makers.

Another idea still current at the time was that poor people lacked diligence and foresight. Charitable giving to the poor was often suspect-people thought such giving encouraged its recipients to become lazy and to live off the labour of those with the right moral fibre, the industrious and thrifty.

The realities faced by the sick, the old, and the poor had little to do with these concepts. As Canada began moving towards an industrial economy in the decade after Confederation, larger, more highly mechanized farms began to replace family operations. As the demand for agricultural labour dropped, people moved to the cities. Here they depended on their employers for the money required to buy life's necessities. Their employers, however, often did not pay a living wage. Unsafe working conditions were common, but rarely was compensation paid in case of injury or death. Private pension plans were generally available only to government, railway, and bank employees.

On their meagre salaries, workers and their families had no choice but to live in crowded, unsanitary houses and neighbourhoods. They found it impossible to save enough money to fund retirement-or to care for their own elderly or ailing parents.

As the nature of the new problems created by industrialization started to become more apparent, governments did begin to act. In 1903 Ontario required all counties to establish homes for the aged by 1906. Such homes also existed in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Manitoba, and British Columbia. In Quebec, religious organizations provided care. However, there was always a large gap between the number of elderly in need of care and the number of spaces available in "homes for adults."

J.S. Woodsworth and Abraham Heaps broke with the charitable model these homes represented, and urged policy makers to tackle the underlying causes of poverty and illness. In 1911, Woodsworth wrote in his book, My Neighbor, "But how difficult it is to minister adequately to the needs of the injured workmen of whom we have spoken, or those of their companions who run similar risks. They are part of a system as we are part of the same system. We as individuals cannot help them as individuals. The whole system must be reckoned with-possibly completely changed." Until the day arrived that the system was changed, believed Woodsworth and Heaps, it was their job to do whatever possible to improve the lives of the poor. As a result, they supported such measures as old age pensions and unemployment insurance in Parliament. And in their own way, their initiatives did change the system.