Progress and Agriculture in Post-World War II Saskatchewan

This work is an examination of the relationship between ideology, public policy and environmental reality. This examination is set in the context of post-World War II Saskatchewan and the policies established to accommodate returned veterans and reconstruct the province s society and agricultural economy. Canadians believed that the Allied victory symbolized the rightness of the North American way of life. Canadians also believed that technological innovations achieved during the Second World War would translate into prosperity for the country s citizens. The belief that technology could create prosperity is one that this work calls the ideology of progress. The federal Veterans Land Act and the provincial Carrot River project are policies that can be studied through the framework of the ideology of progress. Both policies involved planning and organization of agriculture as well as government supervision of veterans farming operations. This work argues that policy reflects ideology, often with no regard to environmental or human factors.