One of the most aggressive campaigns to fight the explosive growth and intrusion of government was our Wake up Canada campaign which featured a Red Rooster on full-page advertisements in newspapers across Canada. It was January 1976.
We were coming off price and wage controls to fight inflation, and CFIB disagreed with the fundamental premise of the federal government, that the inflation problem was a weakness in the functioning of the free market system.
It was our view that the explosive growth of government spending at all levels, massive public deficits, huge increases in unemployment insurance benefits and public sector wage settlements that averaged about 22% , were the real cause of our inflation.
The public support we received for our campaign was staggering. To our surprise, a call came from the Prime Minister's Office suggesting a meeting with the PM. We presented Mr. Trudeau with a framed copy of one of our ads, but I was captured in a photo laughing, and that was not appreciated by our membership. It was the last time any senior CFIB staffer was seen smiling with a politician. To our membership, meeting with their elected officials is serious business.
The campaign did pay off, and in June, after a personal visit by Minister Robert Andras to CFIB's head office, an announcement was made that eligibility to receive UI would require 12 weeks of previous work, an increase from the previous 8 weeks. It seemed that government had discovered what we had been telling them, that small firms operating seasonal businesses could not get employees to work. Someone previously coming off construction, for example, would normally work for say a fuel oil company during the winter months. The government, however, provided a better option. Go on Unemployment Insurance.
It was shocking to learn over the years just how out of touch politicians can be. A large nation covering multiple time zones has substantial seasonal swings in weather and the smaller the firm, the more seasonal the operations. Politicians from Eastern Canada wanting to provide fish plant workers with a guaranteed annual wage, created havoc for the rest of the nation’s small business employers.