Canada. National Employment Service : The Employment Service Council of Canada was set up under the Department's supervision "for advisory purposes in relation to the operation of the Employment Service and generally on ways of preventing unemployment and is representative of the Dominion Government and the Provincial Governments, returned soldiers, organized labour and a member of the larger employing interest".
The Department's Employment Service Branch was created under the Employment Services Co-ordination Act of 1918. Its purpose was to cooperate with the provincial governments to maintain the Employment Service of Canada. The mandate of the Employment Service itself was to aid and encourage the organization and coordination of a network of employment offices across Canada and to promote uniformity of methods and policy among them; to establish one or more clearinghouses for the interchange of information between employment offices; and to compile and distribute information received from employment offices and from other sources regarding prevailing conditions of employment.
On August 7 the Unemployment Insurance Act became law (4 Geo. VI, c.44). In 1935 Parliament had passed the Employment and Social Insurance Act (25-26 Geo. V, c.38, 28 June 1935) as part of the Bennett "New Deal" but in 1937 the Supreme Court of Canada declared this Act ultra vires. The federal government then asked the provinces to waive their exclusive constitutional rights to jurisdiction over unemployment insurance and by June 1940 all had done so. The British North America Act was amended and the Unemployment Insurance Act was then passed. Contributions were first payable in July 1941 and first benefits were paid out in February 1942. Under the Act a system of local employment offices was opened across Canada under the title of the National Employment Service. This new service replaced the former Employment Service of Canada set up in 1919 and was jointly funded by the federal and provincial governments with the actual offices having been run by provincial authorities. About eighty per cent of Canadian workers were covered by the Act. Payments under the Act totalled 00,000 in 1943 rising to 1.1 million in 1946 to 41.1 million in 1954 to 94 million in 1961 and to .1 billion in 1974. (The Act was completely overhauled and benefits much expanded by Parliament in 1971).
Under Order in Council (P.C. 7994, September 4, 1942) the Minister of Labour became fully and formally responsible for the Unemployment Insurance Commission "without prejudice to the autonomy and continuity of the Unemployment Insurance Commission" and "shall in cooperation with the Unemployment Insurance Commission administer the Unemployment Insurance Act, 1940, along with the administration of the National Selective Service Regulations, 1942 ..." Under this Order in Council the Unemployment Insurance Commission became a branch of the Department of Labour to be known as the Employment Service and Unemployment Insurance Branch and a commissioner of the Unemployment Insurance Commission was chosen to head it.
Effective 1 January 1966, four important Branches were wholly shifted from the Department of Labour to the Department of Citizenship and Immigration (soon to be the Department of Manpower and Immigration); these were the Civilian Rehabilitation Branch, the Manpower Consultative Service, the Technical and Vocational Training Branch and the National Employment Service. RG27 General inventory; Department of Labour, Annual Report, 1930- 1931, p. 6; and Statistics Canada, Social Security National Programs (A review for the period 1946 to 1975) Ottawa 1976, Chapter One, Section C.
