By: Rénald Fortier
Ingenium – Canada's Museums of Science and Innovation
“Worth Defending” – A brief look at the 1954 advertising campaign of a major Canadian aircraft manufacturing firm, Canadair Limited of Montréal, Québec, part 4
Nov 1, 2024
Media
The advertisement “Le libre choix d’une carrière,” in English “Freedom of Vocation,” published by Canadair Limited of Montréal, Québec, as part of its 1954 Worth Defending advertising campaign. Anon, “Canadair Limited.” La Presse, 13 July 1954, 7.
Good morning, my reading friend, and welcome aboard.
The advertisement for the advertising campaign of the aircraft manufacturer Canadair Limited of Montréal, Québec, with which we begin the 3rd, err, the 4th and final part of this article, appeared in July 1954 in Canadian and Québec daily newspapers. It appeared in August in Canadian and foreign aeronautical magazines, Canadian Aviation, Flight and Aircraft Engineer and Interavia, for example.
This advertisement was entitled “Freedom of Vocation,” in French “Le libre choix d’une carrière / Liberté de vocation.”
It showed a young white man holding a diploma. The portraits of many people, white men in all cases, in the background, offer examples of potential careers: artist, miner, pilot, surgeon, surveyor, etc. And no, this advertisement certainly had little to do with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s freedoms mentioned in the other parts of this article.
The advertisement also blithely swept under the rug the fact that women made up 22% of Canada’s labour force in 1951, but back to our story.
The text of the Québec French language sub-version of this advertisement read as follows, once translated:
The free choice of career is an essential right that we, free countries, had always possessed, except in cases of great national peril. We have always been able to choose, without restriction, an honest occupation … You and I can be, at our discretion, artists or labourers – clerks, lawyers, professors, engineers or doctors.
Free choice of career is contrary to the principles of totalitarianism … for, by its very nature, the totalitarian regime is dedicated to the barbaric practice of regimentation and slavery! The free choice of a career is well worth defending!
If yours truly may be permitted a comment, you and I could have been doctors, engineers, lawyers and professors in 1954 provided we could have afforded the high cost of education required to land those jobs.
In that regard, in 1954, the level of education was lower in Québec than in Ontario, and the level of education of young Québec women was even lower than that of young Québec men. This was even truer from francophone Quebecers.
Would you believe that less than 20% of anglophones and francophone Québec young men aged 15 to 24 in 1951 were pursuing their studies, or that less than 15% of Québec young women of the same age were doing the same? By way of comparison, no less than 66% of Quebecers aged 15 to 24 were pursuing studies in June 2023.
This being said (typed?), the superintendent of public instruction, Omer Jules Desaulniers, declared on more than one occasion during the 1950s that Québec’s education system, ideal, magnificent and perfect according to him, was quite simply the best in the world.
Although a Département de l’Instruction publique had been operating in that province since 1875, it was primarily a management body which reported to the Secrétariat de la province de Québec, a sort of ministry of the interior which had fingers in many pies.
Before the creation of the Ministère de l’Éducation in May 1964 (!), the real decisions concerning the education of the vast majority of the population of Québec, namely the francophone roman catholic population, were in fact made at meetings of the Comité catholique of the Conseil de l’instruction publique, an organisation whose members, unelected of course, were the very conservative roman catholic bishops of Québec and an equal number of lay people sharing the same faith who were not exactly known for their liberalism.
Desaulniers’ claims that Québec’s education system was the best in the world were in fact utterly ridiculous. Québec’s education system was both underfunded and archaic. Would you believe that in 1951, 60% or so of the province’s educational institutions were without electricity and that 40% or so had neither water nor toilets inside? The mind boggles.
And yes, the utterly inadequate institutions in question were one-room schools, in French écoles de rang. My parents attended such rural schools in the late 1930s and early 1940s.
A brief digression about Desaulniers, if I may. The Université de Sherbrooke, located in… Sherbrooke, Québec, quite possibly through its rector, a member of the roman catholic clergy, Irénée Pinard, awarded him an honorary doctorate in… pedagogy in October 1957. I kid you not, but back to our July 1954 advertisement.
The use of a term as strong as slavery was surprising in an advertising text, and this even if it was associated with totalitarianism in the francophone Québec advertisement. It was also found in the text of the French language sub-version from Europe, words translated here: “Freedom of vocation obstructs the path followed by the totalitarian state … because, by its very nature, totalitarianism is doomed to the primitive times uses of submission and slavery! Freedom of vocation is worthy of defence!”
The English language sub-versions of “Le libre choix d’une carrière / Liberté de vocation,” yet again identical by the way, used a slightly nuanced version of the term slavery:
Freedom of Vocation stands squarely across the road to a controlled state … for, by its very nature, totalitarian rule is dedicated to the dark-age custom of regimentation and virtual slavery! Freedom of Vocation … is worth defending!
If yours truly may be allowed a comment regarding the connection between slavery and primitive times / dark ages, the fact was that this socio-economic system was not officially abolished in the United States until December 1865, more than 6 months after the end of the American Civil War.
Were the authors of the English language versions of our advertisement trying not to offend their American readers by using the expression virtual slavery, you ask, my devilishly angelic looking reading friend? No comment.
This being said (typed?), the last state to ratify and certify the amendment to the Constitution of the United States which abolished slavery did so in… March 1995 and February 2013.
The advertisement “La libre initiative,” in English “Freedom of Enterprise,” published by Canadair Limited of Montréal, Québec, as part of its 1954 Worth Defending advertising campaign. Anon, “Canadair Limited.” La Presse, 10 August 1954, 33.
The advertisement with which Canadair continued its advertising campaign in August 1954 once again strayed somewhat from Roosevelt’s freedoms. “Freedom of Enterprise,” in French “La libre initiative / Liberté d’entreprise,” in English free enterprise / freedom of enterprise, was, however, somewhat similar to the advertisement from the previous month, entitled, you will recall, “Freedom of Vocation.”
It should be noted that, for the first time, the European sub-versions did not appear at the same time as the North American sub-versions published in newspapers. They were in fact found in May 1954 in the British weekly Flight and Aircraft Engineer and in September in the Swiss monthly Interavia, for example.
In all cases, the drawing for the “Freedom of Enterprise” advertisement showed a series of small businesses along a street – and not some industrial or commercial complex. The words on the storefronts of said stores were in French or English, as the case might have been: shoe repair shop and cordonnerie, or bakery and boulangerie.
The text of the Québec French language sub-version of said advertisement read as follows, once translated:
In a free society, a man can work for himself or for others … establish a small workshop or build a factory. In a totalitarian state, the individual does not count … he is forcibly regimented in an anonymous, all-powerful and soulless system.
Freedom of initiative is a right that everyone must have … the right to choose the work that suits us best … to derive legitimate profit from our activity … to aspire to the highest positions. Certainly, freedom of work well deserves to be defended!
You have of course noticed, my reading friend, that the text of this advertisement used the term man to identify the person who had the freedom to choose a career.
You will also allow me to state that said freedom depended to a large extent on the moolah and / or education that said person had.
And yes, you are quite right, the terms fascism and communism, present in advertisements which had appeared earlier in 1954, had completely disappeared, and this in favour of the term totalitarianism.
That political system was, by the way, denounced more forcefully in the French language sub-version published in Europe than in the one which could have been read in Québec. The following quote, extracted from the European text and translated here, should prove my point: “In the totalitarian system, [man] is nothing more than a cog … a number tossed by a monstrous organisation of control and regimentation.”
The identical texts of the English language sub-versions of the August 1954 advertisement took a slightly different approach to totalitarianism: “In a totalitarian state [man] is a mere cog … a number on a card, slotted into a masterplan of iron control and regimentation.”
Yours truly wonders whether the recognition of the right “to reach for the summits,” mentioned in translation in the European French language sub-version of our advertisement, a right present in the European English sub-version as the right “to reach toward the stars,” might be related to the motto of the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Said motto was indeed Per ardua ad astra, in English through adversity to the stars, or something to that effect.
And yes, you are probably right, my reading friend, the presence of an advertisement entitled “Freedom of Enterprise” in Canadair’s 1954 advertising campaign was probably not accidental.
The advertisement “La liberté de réunion,” in English “Freedom of Assembly,” published by Canadair Limited of Montréal, Québec, as part of its 1954 Worth Defending advertising campaign. Anon, “Canadair Limited.” La Presse, 17 September 1954, 9.
It was in September 1954 that Canadair presented Canadian newspaper readers with an advertisement entitled “Freedom of Assembly,” in French “La liberté de réunion / La liberté d'assemblée.” Readers of Canadian and foreign magazines would have access to it the following month, the titles of those advertisements being once again “Freedom of Assembly,” in French “La liberté d’assemblée.”
The advertisements which appeared in September in Canadian newspapers and in October in our magazines (Canadian Aviation, Flight and Aircraft Engineer and Interavia) showed several people, all of them lily white, arriving at a public meeting. A sharp dressed man, to quote the title of a popular 1983 (!) song by the American rock band ZZ Top, presumably another white participant, welcomed them at the entrance of an important-looking building.
If yours truly may be permitted some nitpicking, the expression on the sign just behind this man differed according to whether it was on the Québec or European French language sub-version of the advertisement. That expression was respectively Assemblée ce soir and Réunion publique, in English assembly tonight and public meeting. The English language advertisements carried the words Public meeting, by the way.
The text of the Québec French language sub-version of that Canadair advertisement read as follows, once translated:
Public meetings are the echo of the feelings and will of the people. They shape opinion and are the very contradiction of dictatorship. As soon as totalitarianism takes hold, it suppresses freedom of assembly.
The right to assembly is part of the very essence of democracy, and the air which is breathed there is that of freedom. Let us think about it … Freedom of assembly is worth defending.
That time around, the differences between the French and English sub-versions of that advertisement were quite small. As for the French language sub-version from Europe, words translated here, for example, public meetings “are the very contradiction of dictatorship.” As for the English language sub-versions, identical one had to admit, those same public meetings “are the sworn enemies of any form of autocratic government.”
The English language sub-versions of the advertisement also drove the point home further regarding the suppression of public meetings: “They are the first to be banned when totalitarianism takes hold – and never return.”
As was said (typed?) above, the advertisement which appeared in Canadian daily newspapers in October 1954, in other words “Freedom from Want,” was the same one which had appeared in June.
You will of course remember that it was you, my reading friend, who pointed out that the double presence of that advertisement was perhaps not so curious after all. It is indeed in October that Canadian families celebrate Thanksgiving.
The advertisement dedicated to the members of the Canadian armed forces who had died in service published by Canadair Limited of Montréal, Québec, as part of its 1954 Worth Defending advertising campaign. Anon, “Canadair Limited.” La Presse, 9 November 1954, 35.
The tenth and final advertisement in Canadair’s 1954 advertising campaign appeared in November, in Canadian newspapers as well as in Canadian and foreign aviation magazines. This was hardly surprising given that the Armistice which brought to and end the fighting during the First World War was signed in November 1918.
And no, that signing did not really end that war. The peace treaties signed between June 1919 and August 1920, with little enthusiasm, if not under duress, by the defeated parties, Austria, Bulgaria, Germany, Hungary and the Ottoman Empire, officially ended the First World War.
The absence of a title accompanying the last advertisement of Canadair’s campaign, other than the words “Worth Defending,” in French “Défendons ce bien précieux / Digne de défense,” which appeared throughout the year, was noteworthy.
The drawing on the advertisement showed a war memorial and a multitude of crosses similar to those found in military cemeteries. The monument, incidentally, closely resembled the Cenotaph in the Victory Square of Vancouver, British Columbia.
The text of the Québec French language sub-version of that Canadair advertisement read as follows, once translated:
‘It is stone without stain and stone without fault,
The highest prayer we have ever carried,
The most righteous reason we have ever thrown away,
And towards a borderless sky the highest line.’
(Charles Péguy)
But the prayer is not enough. Above all, the sacrifice must not have been in vain. ‘The straightest reason’ must defend us from a feeling of false security and make us carry high the torch of freedom.
Let us respect the supreme sacrifice of the Canadian soldiers, sailors and aviators who gave their lives in past wars. And let us consider that the cause for which they gave their all is still worth defending!
Before we go any further, allow me to note that we should also respect the supreme sacrifice of women wearing or not a uniform who gave their lives in past wars.
The several lines which introduced the Québec French language sub-version of the November 1954 advertisement came from a long 1913 poem by the French writer / poet / essayist / editor Charles Pierre Péguy, La Tapisserie de Notre-Dame. The work in question, a work dedicated to Mary, our lady of Chartres, linked to the magnificent cathedral located in… Chartres, France, a work and a place that very few Quebecers knew, had absolutely nothing to do with the carnage that was the First World War, except for the fact that Péguy had died in combat in September 1914.
Yours truly must admit that I do not understand what Péguy was doing in that advertisement, except for the fact that he was a Catholic intellectual who rejected modernity.
We are perhaps entitled to wonder whether the person who wrote the text of the Québec French language sub-version of the Canadair advertisement was part of the hyper-conservative secular and religious elites present in the Québec of the time for whom agriculture, the family, the French language and the roman catholic religion were the foundations of Québec’s francophone society, a society they wanted to keep isolated from the changes taking place beyond its borders. Anyway, let us move on.
The text of the French language sub-version from Europe did not quote Péguy. In fact, it quoted a translation of a text which was probably quite well known in Canada, if only within the anglophone community, a text, say I, which had a strong connection with the Armistice signed in November 1918. Here is the text in question of the sub-version in question, translated here of course:
‘To you from failing hands we throw the torch;
Be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.’
And yet, when the parade ends and the last note of the trumpets fades, it is so easy to ‘deceive’ by letting oneself be overcome by the feeling that ‘nothing will happen here’ … and, if one is not vigilant, the fruits of victory and freedom are lost.
‘Keep the torch high’ – but do we have the will to do it? We will if we respect the sacrifices of our soldiers, our sailors, our aviators in the gigantic battles of the past. Think about it… they died for a cause that is worthy of defending, right now.
The aforementioned text probably quite well known in Canada, if only within the anglophone community, was of course In Flanders Fields, a war poem written in May 1915 by a Canadian physician serving in Europe in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (CEF), Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, shortly after the funeral of a young friend, also a member of the CEF, killed in combat, Lieutenant Alexis Hannum Helmer.
You will of course have noticed, my reading friend, that the text of the Québec French language sub-version of the Canadair advertisement contained no specific allusion to the loss of the fruits of victory and freedom, acquired during the Second World War.
That same sub-version was also the only one to specify that the soldiers, sailors and aviators who had died were Canadian, the 3 other sub-versions referring to “our” soldiers, sailors and aviators.
In that regard and at the risk of overstepping the bounds of good taste, yours truly wonders how that reference to “our” soldiers, sailors and aviators was translated in the German language version of Canadair’s advertisement, provided there was one of course.
Now that I think about it, I must admit to myself that I wonder how the author of the German language texts managed to write something which would work well in West Germany. I also wonder how the author of the Spanish language texts managed to write his freedom and rights texts, given that Spain and many countries in Latin America were dictatorships in 1954. Anyway, let us move on.
And it is with the advertisement dedicated to the memory of the soldiers, sailors and airmen who had died in combat that Canadair’s advertising campaign for the year 1954 ended.
It should be noted that this advertising campaign did not appeal to the fourth freedom stated by Roosevelt, that of being free from fear. The international arms reduction program which would have made conflicts between states impossible, a program proposed by the American president in 1941, was in fact hardly applicable in 1954, several years only after the start of the Cold War, a period of heavy military spending if ever there was one.
In 1947, for example, Canada’s federal government budgeted approximately $195 000 000 for national defence. In 1952, it budgeted approximately $1 960 000 000, or 10 times more, for that same purpose, a peak which would not be surpassed until… 1973, by which time a dollar was worth 58.5 or so cents of 1952. By the way, those amounts corresponded to approximately $3 085 000 000 and $22 520 000 000 in 2024 currency.
If yours truly’s calculations are correct, those 1947 and 1952 amounts corresponded to approximately 1.4% and 7.8% of Canada’s gross domestic product (GDP). Wah!
Those were huge amounts for Canada, but it must be remembered that the amounts that the United States then devoted to national defence were vastly higher. The fraction of GDP devoted to that same national defence was also quite a bit higher.
For comparison, Canada’s military spending in 2023 corresponded to just under 1.35% of GDP.
Incidentally, in constant dollar value, the spending peak of 1952 was surpassed in… 1987.
Yours truly would like to point out before going any further that I have strong pacifist tendencies. I do, however, recognise the need to protect the planet from all the nogoodniks on it.
This being said (typed?), the pressure on the federal government to increase spending on national defence, an increase of nearly 50% (!?), or 12 or so billion dollars if that increase was to take place today, cannot be met in 36 ways. It will require redistributing funds, raising taxes / income tax, borrowing money (and / or equipment?), asking for donations of money (and / or equipment), etc., or a combination of those options, and this despite the fact that cuts and redistributions could affect social programs (education, health and welfare for example) that benefit millions of Canadians who are more or less in need. Just sayin’.
Mind you, it might be a good idea to completely overhaul Canada’s disastrous military procurement process before spending anything. Finding a way to attract the many thousands of young people needed to use and maintain the new equipment would also be a good idea.
And that is all for today, and… Yes, yes, this 4-part article was a brief look at the 1954 advertising campaign of Canadair. We obviously do not share the same definition of the word brief.
Rénald Fortier
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