This department was created in 1925 with the goal of exploring the economic future of Northern Canada. It was intended to review and make recommendations on the health and welfare of First Nations and Inuit trading partners. The head quarters of the Department were moved to Ottawa, and eventually closed in 1931. The creation of the Home Industry Program was the result of research conducted into the economic future of Northern Saskatchewan. This program focused on the production and sale of handicrafts, intended to provide Indigenous people with a new means of obtaining a livelihood. Indigenous health and welfare were among other issues examined by the Department. Charles Townsend, director of the Department of Development, detailed a proposal whereby the HBC would have a post manager distribute cod liver oil and a meal made from cod livers to those Indians who were regular custumers. These initiatives were based on the assumption that malnutrition was one of the leading causes of greater disease in Indigenous populations. Aside from vitamin distribution, by 1928 the HBC Development Department was also issuing powdered milk, 'Baysol' antiseptic, and earphones for the deaf.
Summary
Implications
While the government occasionally engaged in humanitarian programming to provide a boost to economic development and/or address issues relating to health, these programs were occasionally invested with Eurocentric or Judeo-Christian moral values, ultimately rendering them assimiliative. For example, early missionary initiatives in programs of assimilation perpetuated Eurocentric gender norms such as household divisions of labor and the separation of public and private spheres of living. As well, these programs imposed ideas of femininity commonly associated with the Victorian era - in which women were expected to occupy themselves with activities of the private sphere, including handicrafts. Women in this time period were also perceived to be responsible for cooking and nutrition, and thus deficiencies in this area were frequently blamed on inadequate domestic skills, particularly as it relates to Indigenous women. Thus, such programs had a tendency to perpetuate ideas of Indigenous people as "backwards", rather than suffering from the effects of a rapid shift to a capitalist cash-based economy, the diminishing of animal populations due to settler overhunting and colonial bureaucratic interference which manifested in regulations of hunting, fishing and trapping. As well, while the government may have intended to foster economic development, without consulting Indigenous peoples as to underlying issues that prevented long-term solutions, these programs were often short-lived, as indicated by the abbreviated tenure of this Department.
Date
1925-00-00