THERE IS A HOUSING SHORTAGE. We are encouraged to consume Canadian produce. And the federal government is contemplating modular housing. The year is 1941.
Since Canada entered the war two years prior, a lot of changes have taken place at home. Factories producing war equipment have popped up in city suburbs across the country. Thousands of people have moved into these suburbs, leaving behind the farms and fields of rural life, to work in the new war industry. Often in out-of-the-way areas, these factories were not only hard to get to, but offered little in terms of nearby accommodation. This lack of housing for the workers and their families put wartime manufacturing at risk.
It was at this time that the federal government took an unusual step. In 1941, the Wartime Housing Limited agency was created – a public entity had entered the private world of real estate. This decision initiated a series of events that would eventually lead to the emergence of one of Canada’s most ubiquitous houses – the strawberry box – and along with it, the birth of the Canadian suburb.
Housing the Workers (Temporarily)
In Toronto, the war industry workers flocked to factories such as the GECO munitions plant in Scarborough, and the Small Arms Limited weapons manufacturer in Etobicoke, both opened in 1940. They did not have it easy. A 1943 documentary produced by the National Film Board (NFB) paints a wretched picture of their living conditions. If
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Brigid Cami is one of the editors of Toronto Journal.