Corps de l’article

Jurists who place high hopes in consumers’ ability to influence the economy to better match their social ideals may be disappointed with the current state of affairs. The financial difficulties faced by the small retail stores and newspapers that formed the heart of communities, or the ever-rising sales of airplane tickets and gas-guzzling vehicles at a time of ecological crisis, seem to point to a general disinterest in the mindful use of spending power. The consumer is perhaps best understood as a down- to-earth creature, concerned with comfort and convenience, and uninterested in steering the production process in any given direction.

In this context, some have argued that the law should take over where consumers have failed. Though they may act is if only concerned with their immediate material interests, judges should imagine them to be more responsible and ambitious. In a notable recent article, Lina Khan argued that lawmakers in the 19th century believed the average consumer was also concerned with the smooth functioning of the free market, democracy and justice ; if he were still imagined in this way in anti-trust law, retail giant Amazon might be regulated more effectively, taking its rising economic and political clout into account[1]. Whether a reconceptualization of consumers’ ambitions might have similar effects in the context of consumer protection law is certainly subject to debate. And this discussion, at least in legal circles, risks revolving around the legal mechanisms that might incentivize or even intensify activist consumerism. Some may ask whether creating a private right of redress for buyers of products designed to quickly become obsolete might harness consumer dissatisfaction for the benefit of the environment[2], for instance, or whether a class action by consumers shocked to learn big-brand chocolate makers have yet to eradicate child labour in their supply chain, might force them to take the issue more seriously[3].

In this paper, I track the figure of the idealized consumer citizen in the debates surrounding the adoption of the Consumer Protection Act (the “CPA”)[4] in 1971. I do so for two reasons. First, deeper knowledge the economic and political context that witnessed the adoption of the province’s very first CPA is valuable to situate and understand both this Act and consumer law in general. Second, this figure was not only already present in the comments made by various activist groups : it took on a more extreme and rather paradoxical form. Consumers were cast both as the key to a socially and economically emancipated Quebec, and as powerless, helpless victims of consumer capitalism. They were also expected to reach full power and liberation by using tools that were very similar to those that more modest reformers, who saw consumers as down-to-earth creatures with little interest in larger economic affairs, would grant them. I suggest that, though these interveners had little influence on the CPA itself, they promoted and helped shape the ideal of the consumer citizen concerned with the social impacts of his choices, which still appears in discussions on consumer law today[5]. The current elusiveness of this greater-than-life figure, which often fails to manifest as more than a theoretical ideal, may be explained by the peculiar circumstances that saw it enter the legal discourse.

This paper is divided in two parts. In the first part, I set up the context that led to the adoption of the first CPA in 1971. I briefly canvass the social and economic changes that represented the province’s turn to consumerism. I then introduce in some detail the history of two activist groups that presented memoranda to the Commission[6], namely the Fédération des Associations de Coopératives d’Économie Familiale (the “FACEF”) and the Consumers’ Association of Canada (the “CAC”)[7]. On the one hand, the FACEF made the boldest demands and amassed the most support : it headed a coalition of nine groups[8] and was explicitly endorsed by one more[9], thus speaking for more than half of the pro-consumer interveners appearing before the Commission permanente des Institutions financières, Compagnies et Coopératives (“the Commission”). It was also in its first year of existence, the product of the federation of local cooperatives which were created for the most part by a union, the Confédération des syndicats nationaux (the “CSN”), to help workers with budgeting and financial issues. The CAC, on the other hand, was a well-established information and advocacy group created specifically to deal with consumer issues. After reviewing their public calls to action in the year preceding the presentation of the bill, I summarize the Liberal Party’s 1971 CPA — a modest first attempt at protecting consumers.

In the second part of this paper, I delve into debates of the National Assembly and the Commission to tease out the paradoxical image of the consumer and explore its relevance for contemporary discussions. Here, I associate the interventions of the FACEF and others with the speeches of the few elected members of the Parti Québécois (the “PQ”) and the Ralliement créditiste[10]. They shared more radical views on consumerism, on average, than the members of the Liberal Party and the Union Nationale (the “UN”)[11]. It was them who argued that the new rules and institutions should do more than protect consumers from dishonest practices, but empower them to inflect the production process as they saw fit. It was also them who most harshly criticized consumer choices. Furthermore, while Members of the National Assembly (“MNAs”) from all parties and radical and moderate consumer groups alike insisted on the importance of consumer education, they hinted at important yet difficult to express differences between their suggestions. To help resolve these two paradoxes, I consider these interventions in light of the FACEF’s objectives and history. Here, I suggest that key aspects of the organization’s approach to consumer protection were lost in translation : while they were obvious in the FACEF’s actions with members and other organizations, they were difficult to express within the confines of a formal presentation relating to legislation meant to mitigate the worse effects of private law on consumers. This mismatch between the means the FACEF wished to use to achieve consumer emancipation and those offered by legal advocacy may explain the awkward position of the current-day consumer. Though he has inherited strong legal protections, he is, without the existence of groups like the FACEF to theorize and organize his role in the economy, like a worker benefiting from good labour standards, but non-unionized: better off, but not much of an economic force himself.

1 Lead-up to the debates

1.1 A new economy

It is generally accepted that Canada began to turn to consumerism in the 1950s. Historian Joy Parr puts forward two statistics that encapsulate the meaning of that change : “Personal expenditures on consumer durables trebled from 1948 to 1960, and consumer credit outstanding rose fivefold[12].” The first rise is confirmed elsewhere : in his study of wages, consumption, and poverty in Quebec from 1920 to 1960, historian Jean-Pierre Charland calculated that from the 1945 to 1960, the consumption of durable goods rose by 567 % in Quebec, compared to a rise of 146 % for all household spending[13]. Parr explains that washing machines, stoves and refrigerators were rarities during the war, such that in 1945 “more than 80 per cent of Canadian households did not own refrigerators, and most of the washers and ranges they were using dated from the late twenties and early thirties[14].” Housewives were eager to purchase these items once available, having restricted their consumption to adapt to the war economy despite seeing their disposable income rising during that period[15]. New goods like the television were attractive[16], as were automobiles which were taxed during the war[17]. In addition, Charland notes, the price of these consumer items relative to the average salary had lowered over the years[18].

The reasons for the rise in indebtedness are more contested[19]. The rise in the availability of loans can be traced back to the 1920s, when credit began attracting finance and became more than a way for small shop owners to gain client loyalty, but an industry in and of itself[20]. The transition to consumerism may have facilitated, or been facilitated by, a number of changes. According to Parr, what shifted was not “the attitude or the norm towards credit but rather the definition of what constitutes the basic needs of the population”, most likely relying on the work of sociologist Gérard Fortin to support this conclusion[21]. Fortin co-authored with anthropologist Marc-Adélard Tremblay a report on the consumption habits of Quebecers in 1958, published in 1963, in which the authors concluded that since satisfying basic needs like food and shelter was now a given for most families, other goods gained in relative importance and became needs themselves[22]. In addition, they hypothesized that advertising contributed to presenting these other goods as needs, by creating a standard norm of consumption all families should aspire to, seemingly irrespective of their income[23].

Parr also points to institutional changes. Until the 1950s, consumers would obtain credit directly from stores, who financed these loans by selling their clients’ obligations to finance companies[24]. But finance companies started making less cumbersome direct loans to wage earners, and “their share of the consumer loan market doubled between 1948 and 1964”[25]. Banks also began issuing consumer loans in 1958. As Parr explains, “with more funds to lend than businesses wanted to borrow, the banks began to realize that at some rates of interest handling small loans might be worth their while”[26]. The fact that consumer loans became more accessible because more lenders sought to profit from this market complicates the picture : it is perhaps not sufficient to point to changing definitions of wants and needs to explain the turn to consumerism. Indeed, a more granular account of changing lending practices, in the form of a case study of the evolution of the Caisses Desjardins, reveals both a strong pressure to lend and the active promotion of credit for consumption purposes.

The Caisses Desjardins began developing in rural parishes at the turn of the 20th century and, until the 1950s, stayed true to their founder’s wish that they stimulate the economic development of small towns and rural areas[27]. They only granted “productive” loans that supported agricultural, artisanal or small-scale industrial activity for the benefit of the community[28]. They also regularly informed their members of the dangers of other forms of credit, which filled the home with useless goods and led to financial ruin[29]. In the early 1950s and early 1960s, however, the Caisses changed their rules on lending. So-called “millionaire Caisses” in Montreal, flush with wartime savings and led by professional managers wishing to put this amassed capital to profit, led the charge on the rural Caisses’ self-professed Christian and social ideal of lending[30]. They argued at planning events that loans should be made out solely on the capacity to repay, explaining that their members could in any event turn to finance companies specializing in credit for consumption if their Caisses denied them a loan[31]. The Caisses then began producing documents for their members explaining that good credit was, rather than “productive” credit, intelligent credit, which respected a borrower’s ability to reimburse the loan[32]. This story of the shift to consumerism can be reconciled with Fortin and Tremblay’s account : in 1958, they observed that households had not fully accepted the new norms of consumption[33], which implies that consumers might not have come to condone the use of credit to satisfy “new needs” if left to themselves.

1.2 Consumer activism, left and centre

By 1970, Quebec was behind all of the other provinces when it came to protecting consumers. In addition, the Liberal government was under pressure to act. The previous UN government had drafted a consumer protection bill that was never presented, and the bill was leaked to Le Devoir. On June 25, the paper announced it would present the main features of the bill over the following three days[34]. The very first sentence of the first article on the bill lamented that had it been adopted, the province would have been ahead of Ontario and the United States in terms of social legislation, “for once[35]”. The next day, an editorialist at Le Soleil would urge the Bourassa government to make the bill into law[36]. On June 27, the third and last article published by Le Devoir was supplemented with a short announcement : Prime Minister Robert Bourassa announced that his government would present a similar bill by October of that year[37]. Le Devoir credited its own reporting on the previous bill for this announcement[38]. Then, when Bourassa failed to deliver a bill by October as promised, La Presse chose to quote Jacques Parizeau asking why Quebec was the only province without consumer protection legislation[39]. When the bill was finally tabled in the National Assembly, its sponsor, the Minister of Justice Jérôme Choquette, recognized that Quebec was acting late compared to the other provinces[40].

In addition, some form or another of consumer protection legislation was requested by various civil society actors. In 1970, many of the organizations that would present comments on the bill were actively consulting their members and making public statements. It should be noted that the printed press was eager to give a voice to these groups ; that year, every paper consulted dedicated at least one first page to consumer protection[41].

The CAC’s Quebec branch held an assembly in May and its members voted on a number of demands[42]. They asked the provincial government to adopt a consumer protection act, as well as to regulate the power and use of snowmobiles, to forbid the unsolicited distribution of credit cards and force lending companies to print their interest rate on the card, to prescribe a maximum amount of pesticides to be used on vegetables, and to oppose a marketing scheme for eggs, pork and poultry[43]. It also held a two-day convention in October with various stakeholders, including industry representatives[44].

The FACEF and its member organizations, eight regional ACEFs, were just as active. They publicly called the previous government to action in January[45] and March 1970[46] and presented the Bourassa government with a draft consumer protection bill, developed during a two-day convention in October[47]. This draft bill echoed one of the CAC’s demands : credit contracts should clearly specify the applicable interest rate as well as the amount to which that rate would be applied. The ACEFs also asked, among other requests, that every sale be subject to a ten-day cooling-off period, that the voluntary deposit act be modernized and include a way for debtors to be liberated from their debts and that consumer lending be nationalized so that ordinary citizens may have access to credit at reasonable rates and that the province may profit from the lending[48]. A buyer’s cooperative associated with the Conseil de la Coopération du Québec (“CCQ”) would also make the news by publicly calling on both the federal and provincial governments to act[49].

These calls to action reflected each organization’s composition, history and beliefs. The CAC was created in 1947, as a “housewives’ organization” that continued, in essence, the work of the Women’s Regional Advisory Committees of the Wartime Prices and Trade Board[50]. In 1961, it opened its membership up to men[51]. In addition to studying various products and publishing reports and magazines to inform consumers, “it followed a policy of accommodation, working in close cooperation with both government and the corporate sector”[52]. One of its main achievements was obtaining the creation of a federal department of consumer affairs[53]. It also launched various campaigns to urge the federal government to regulate packaging and labelling as well as deceptive trade and advertising practices and also asked the federal and provincial governments to impose new credit reporting policies[54].

While some celebrate the CAC’s effectiveness, calling it a “driving force” and the “vanguard” of consumer activism[55], others are less convinced. In a report on the state of the consumer movement in Canada, based on two dozen interviews with members of various organizations including the CAC, Jonah Goldstein argued that by 1977, the CAC had yet to develop a clear definition of the interests it defended[56]. It struggled to act as a consumer advocate, which is what the federal government expected of it, but was not a role it was well suited to occupy[57]. Furthermore, Goldstein claimed that the CAC was still in part attached to an ineffective, yet typically Canadian “elite accommodation” model of advocacy[58]. The relationship between the CAC and producers was complex. On the one hand, the CAC was criticized for failing to challenge the industry[59]. On the other hand, it openly stated that Canadians would not pay more for Canadian goods and often challenged tariffs or marketing schemes, which angered those whose livelihood depended on such schemes, including some of its own members[60]. Beyond these issues, it was seen by more radical activist groups, such as the Housewives Consumer Association, as being too focussed on middle-class consumerist issues and seeking consensus[61].

The FACEF stemmed not from a government advisory board, but from a family budget service offered by a union, the CSN. According to various sources, the first ACEF was created somewhere between 1962 and 1965 in Shawinigan by labour counsellor André Laurin[62]. By 1970, there were seven more, which were more loosely connected to the CSN. For instance, in Montreal, the ACEF was headed by a member the Company of Young Canadians, with the CSN as a member organization and Laurin as its “technical counsellor”[63]. ACEFs existed to serve member organizations and members of the working class who were in need of legal and financial assistance[64]. In December 1970, they federated and created the FACEF[65], which appears to have been essentially a higher-level forum, as well as a legal department and a research and information department. It was this research and information department that drafted an “Étude préliminaire à l’implantation d’une Régie québécoise de financement des biens et services” (loosely translated as “Preliminary study for the implementation of a Quebec Goods and Services Financing Board”) which supported the demand to nationalize consumer lending[66].

The legal department was given two objectives : bringing strategic cases to court and recouping money lost to illegal practices[67]. In his presentation to the National Assembly, the FACEF’s representative stressed that it had developed a line of jurisprudence more favourable to the consumer than the new rules set out in the CPA[68]. But the FACEF’s discussion of its own objectives shows that its legal department wished to offer more than advocacy. It often pointed out the exact amounts it put back into workers’ pockets[69]. These large numbers highlighted the extent of the problems consumers were facing, but they were certainly intended to be read as an indication of the FACEF’s effectiveness in helping its members as well. These sums were not only symbols of a legal or economic dysfunction : they represented the potential benefit of implementing solutions, the real impact of these issues in a worker’s life. The FACEF also had a holistic view of legal change. At its 1971 Annual General Meeting, its members agreed to push for reforms to make the legal system more accessible. These went from creating community legal clinics to having judges hearing cases on evening and weekends, following simplified procedures and equity, and wearing plainclothes[70].

The ACEFs came to be seen as a part of the CSN’s “second front” to help workers fight against exploitation beyond the realm of production[71]. In this way, they evoke to the American “working-class version of consumerism” of the 1930s, which “regarded the organization of consumers and workers as necessary halves of a single political and economic strategy aimed at challenging the power of corporate America”[72]. And the CSN’s reporting on its 1973 convention, to take but one example, demonstrates that this second front was taken seriously. Its first page lists several battles to be fought by the CSN, including having union leaders released from jail[73]. To win these battles, workers needed tools and strategies, and the CSN chose to highlight four of them : ensuring the CSN’s financial viability, creating action committees in every union, training new activists and electing competent representatives and, finally, “cooperat[ing] together to give ourselves an economic force that belongs to us” with the help of the ACEFS[74]. In this context, “us” must be read as including more than workers, but also French-speaking Quebecers, the Québécois people.

The FACEF itself was one element of a complex web of organizations that were all invested in the creation of a cooperative economy in Quebec. It was a member of the CCQ, which would also present a memorandum to the Commission, though the FACEF believed the CCQ’s approach to cooperation was too mild: it created its own committee to study production cooperatives[75] and was involved in the creation of the Magasins coopératifs Cooprix, which were meant to take over where the CCQ’s stores had failed by emulating the practices of the big-box stores they were meant to replace[76]. As an author for the CSN explained, the old cooperative movement, which included the CCQ’s Coop stores and savings cooperatives like the Caisses Desjardins, had had some economic success, but it had nevertheless failed to compel its members to truly take charge of their affairs[77]. When the CCQ shared with its members a working document to stimulate reflection on the role of cooperatives in the province, the FACEF produced a response in which it spelled out its own, quite different perspective on the cooperative movement, which included a call to leverage cooperatives as a tool of economic development[78]. The cooperative movement, it stressed elsewhere, had socialist roots[79].

Thus, the CAC and the FACEF had different views on the potentially disruptive effects of consumer activism. The CAC was not concerned with patterns of production, while the FACEF, relying on Vince Packard’s work, believed that the relation between mass production and mass consumption was “the equation of the century”[80]. The FACEF saw consumer activism as an opportunity to build a national cooperative economy, rather than mitigate consumerism’s most salient negative aspects. The two organizations can summarily be associated with two related yet different strategies for social change : advocacy and organizing[81].

1.3 A new consumer protection bill

In the end, the CPA was tabled in the National Assembly for first reading on November 10, 1970, the day of the Assembly’s homage to Pierre Laporte[82]. The bill was briefly introduced and immediately sent to second reading, which took place on November 24 and 26, 1970[83]. The MNAs then referred the document to the Commission, which held seven days of hearings and heard submissions from approximately fifty groups and associations. Amendments were made to the bill, which was sent back to the National Assembly for a third reading on July 8, 1971[84]. The bill was returned to the Commission the very same day, where MNAs adopted it section by section[85]. The bill received assent on July 14, 1971.

The bill was composed of fifteen sections[86]. It was concerned for the most part with credit contracts of 50 $ or more (with some provisions applying specifically to loans, variable credit, contracts involving accessory credit and instalment sales), as well as contracts by door-to-door salesmen (named in the law, “itinerant vendors”) of 25 $ or more. By law, such contracts had to be done in writing and include the name and address of the merchant. Credit contracts were required to disclose the true cost of the loan and repayment terms. Contracts for instalment sales were required to explain the legal technicalities of the instalment sale and to state the cash price of the item being purchased, the amount extended as credit, and the cost of that credit, including all supplementary fees necessitated by credit, such as insurance[87]. Door-to-door sales were to be subject to a five-day cooling-off period. Representations regarding the quality or appearance of goods sold, as well as advertised warranties, were deemed to be part of the contract between a merchant and a buyer. Door-to-door salesmen as well as used car vendors were required to obtain permits. Penal sanctions were spelled out, and the bill gave consumers the opportunity to rescind unconscionable transactions or transactions that did not respect the law, as well as to contradict a written contract with oral testimony if the merchant had breached the law. The bill also created two organizations. The first was the Office de la protection du consommateur (“OPC”, in English the “Consumer Protection Bureau”) charged with upholding the law. The second was the Conseil de la protection du consommateur (“CPC”, in English the “Consumer Protection Council”), tasked with advising the government on consumer protection issues. In addition, a few amendments were made to the bill after the interventions at the Commission. The main amendment involved the inclusion of a new section on credit reports, which gave consumers the right to access reports in their name[88].

2 Debating the bill

The important ideological and organizational differences highlighted above became apparent as these groups filed memoranda with the Commission. They also mapped on just-as-visible disagreements between MNAs. They did not relate straightforwardly to the opposition between the greater-than-life consumer citizen and the more modest view of consumers, which sees them as mainly interested in their immediate material well-being, however. Two incongruences prevent the match. First, those who argued most vehemently that the consumer should be given more power and voice were also those more comfortable criticizing the consumer’s inability to identify his own needs. This is not only paradoxical, but somewhat sobering : the picture was grim for the consumer citizen if this is how his champions viewed him. Second, these same advocates stressed the potentially radical, system-changing consequences of consumer education and empowerment, while struggling to explain how their view of education differed from that of their more moderate counterparts. Thus, the most optimistic groups put forward solutions that, although bold in appearance, still seemed to respond foremost to consumers’ material and immediate interests.

In this second section, I begin by providing an overview of the debates at the National Assembly, before further detailing these two tensions and suggesting in the end that they dissolve when one considers the FACEF’s history and objectives. Simply put, the group never envisioned the law would be used by consumers acting alone. It would appear that it rather believed the law would have little utility without collective action to systematically vindicate the rights it created. Only, though the consumer citizen is but a part of the whole that the FACEF imagined to be the key to economic emancipation, it is this part that appears to have been preserved in legal discourse.

2.1 Main points of discussion at the National Assembly

According to Choquette, the new bill was necessary because modern consumers required more protection than their predecessors : they had no way to fend for themselves in the complex operations of an advanced industrial society[89]. Firstly, sellers and producers simply had too many means at their disposal to obtain an unfair advantage in transactions[90]. Secondly, as the distance between consumers and those who made and sold the goods they sought to acquire grew, they lost opportunities to exercise agency and obtain justice if need be[91]. Thirdly, the complexity of goods, whether it be credit or a television set, limited the possibility for self-help[92]. Choquette also stressed that the main victims of unfair sales tactics were often the poorest members of society[93]. By ensuring that sellers and producers could not take undue advantage of their strong position and resources, the bill would ensure general welfare[94].

In line with Choquette’s general presentation of the bill’s raison d’être, members of his party explained that it was designed to prevent exceptional situations of exploitation. The Minister of Finance stressed that fraudulent behaviour was not the rule and that the law should not restrict honest merchants’ activities[95]. Misinformation was also targeted, whether it was brought about by misleading advertising[96] or the result of consumer ignorance[97]. Some MNAs would even go so far as to explain that they wished to help honest merchants as much as consumers[98] or that the law would protect those people who did not have a good sense for business[99]. The notion that the law simply targeted exploitative practices was a popular, almost inescapable one. Even consumer advocacy groups identified specific swindles they believed should be prohibited[100].

MNAs for the Liberal Party also tended to compare the new rules introduced in the bill with the rules on contracts set out in the Civil Code. One explained that its provisions moved an important number of contracts from an agreement-based logic to a formalist one ; in addition, these new rules recognized that a contract between adults may result in lesion, which was impossible pursuant to the terms of the Civil Code[101]. Another denounced the ideals of freedom and equality set out in the Civil Code, stating that the theory simply did not apply in reality where producers and merchants imposed their conditions upon buyers[102]. The strong contrast with the fundamental rules of contract led a MNA for the UN to argue that some provisions of the new law were revolutionary[103].

This focus on the legal aspects of consumerism, as opposed to the social and economic ramifications of the shift, was criticized by MNAs for other parties. A member of the PQ argued that one of the main issues with the bill was its legalism : the consumer as he appears in the bill is merely a legal construct, nothing more than the subject of the bill as defined therein, whereas he should have been represented in his totality, meaning, arguably, as being embedded in different dynamics and relations that should have been apprehended holistically to be properly understood[104]. This echoed the FACEF’s oft-repeated claims that the social and the economic ramifications could only be distinguished on paper and that consumers were not “abstract bipeds[105]”. Members of the PQ and the UN repeatedly questioned why the bill had not been sponsored by the Minister of Institutions rather than the Minister of Justice[106]. Choquette would eventually agree ; he announced on the first day of the Commission’s hearings that William Tetley, the Minister of Financial Institutions, Cooperatives and Companies, would be the minister responsible for the bill from that point on[107].

Though only opposition MNAs claimed the legal focus of the bill was an issue, MNAs for all parties appeared to share a general unease with consumerism[108], especially advertising and consumer credit. Some pointed out that it was good to live in a society of abundance[109] and that this abundance would not be possible were it not for credit. One MNA would boldly claim : “Without credit, it is the end of our economy.”[110] But even Choquette would recognize that easy access to credit led to certain difficulties, as one would need to be “almost an ascetic” to refuse it[111]. For some, since it allowed people to live above their means[112], credit had to be regulated, and it was suggested that credit was only available for useless goods[113]. For others, credit had to be regulated for the opposite reason : because families needed to resort to credit to obtain basic goods[114].

There was also a sense that the production was wagging the consumption dog’s tail[115] and that consumers had no power to shape the market, as the rules of supply and demand did not hold in this new economy[116]. For instance, all agreed that misleading advertising should not be allowed, and MNAs for different parties asked that the bill prohibit advertising to children[117]. Advertising was also denounced for its role in making products more expensive[118], yet many could not help also decry its simple omnipresence[119] : advertisements that targeted adults and did nothing more but create new wants were described as victimizing[120].

2.2 Distinguishing wants from needs

The bill that was adopted made no difference between wants and needs and prioritized the regulating of the economic sectors where consumers were particularly vulnerable, rather than sectors that were most fundamental to human life. Though it was not rare for MNAs to mention that the problems being discussed affected the poor in particular[121], it was not so common either. Perhaps the poor were hurt more by predatory lending or fraudulent practices, but the fact that fraud was committed seemed to matter more than the fact that families would lack necessities as a result. The exception to this trend was interventions by MNAs for the PQ, who were most willing to consider the impact of consumerism on people of difference classes, to denounce the overabundance of luxuries and to state that advertising was not only enticing, but also that it impaired the ability to distinguish want from need[122]. One would ask what the law might do to prevent merchants from pushing useless merchandise onto uninformed consumers simply because it was cheap[123]. This question echoed concerns over the fact that families that were so poor that they had to depend on food donations might nonetheless own a television and recent model automobile[124].

Many of the consumer advocacy groups expressed similar views. The FACEF’s representative, Pierre Marois, would not hesitate to qualify consumers as passive recipients in a system that created false wants from thin air[125]. He also explained that the strong protective measures that the organization sought to have included in the law would force merchants to be more honest as to the objective value and usefulness of the goods they sold[126]. He claimed that consumers were simply not free to choose, both because some level of consumption was unavoidable and because of advertising[127] ; in truth, only producers were free to choose[128]. The Association féminine d’éducation et d’action sociale expressed concern with consumers’ difficulty to identify real value in other ways. It suggested that the newly created OPC should have the power to inform consumers of the “true value” of products[129]. It explained that it was not opposed to all advertising of credit, but that advertisements should be limited to informing consumers that credit was available at a given rate, “and those who truly need it can come see us[130]”. Finally, the Family Service Association of Montreal recommended a tax on advertising because it led people to buy things they would not otherwise purchase[131].

Though these comments may seem to have amounted to little more than disdain about consumers’ inability to take true advantage of the protection against fraud offered by the bill, I suggest they were in fact related to an ambitious vision for consumer emancipation. This is far from the only available read. Joy Parr, for instance, endorses the thesis that unacknowledged gender stereotypes underpin the view that consumers are passive : women, seen as pliable, simply consume what men produce and market for them[132]. Following this interpretation, the consumer’s passivity is interpreted as a fundamental flaw, which might make her worthy of contempt. And certain exchanges reveal that many interveners accepted sexist stereotypes : some MNAs and the FACEF explained that the cooling-off period for door-to-door sales would allow husbands to correct their wives’ mistakes upon returning home from work[133] ; a woman working for the Caisses Desjardins who had expertise in savings and credit was repeatedly asked about another group’s experimental kitchens, in which housewives could test the usefulness and quality of products, which a male colleague was there to present[134].

But two facts suggest that these interveners did not see consumers as inherently passive ; they were rather tragically rendered passive by a flawed economic system. First, it mattered to the MNAs who were critical of the consumerist economic system that consumers were also producers. Florian Guay, an MNA for the Ralliement créditiste who did not hesitate to point out that consumers would buy useless objects simply because they were new and cheap, also stated the following : “If there is a priority for the legislator, it is certainly that of ensuring that the consumer, who is himself creator of goods, be able to access them without being exploited.[135]” Guay was not relying on the opposition between the (male, active) producer and the (female, passive) consumer. It is rather the fact that consumers were also producers that seemed key to him. Second, MNAs for the PQ in particular were concerned with the wasteful aspects of consumerism. The problem with consumerism was not simply that the goods that were produced were useless and of bad quality or that too much money was being spent on pushing them. Rather, the issue was that these false needs distracted from real needs : education, health care, public transit and other public concerns. If every gun that is made is a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, so is every Presto Hot Dogger.[136]

This concern with systemic issues explains the ease with which these MNAs and NGOs criticized consumers’ choices : in a way, these issues absolved consumers, even those who used credit irresponsibly to purchase luxury goods. It was acceptable to present the hungry family who owned a car as a failure, because it was a system-wide failure rather than a personal one. It also suggested that having only the power of a consumer, despite being a worker, was a loss and an injustice. Workers were deprived from the opportunity of shaping their world as they saw fit and of using their labour toward their common advancement and emancipation. This logic was expressed most clearly by Claude Charron, who adapted critical theorist Herbert Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man during the debates : the fact that a working-class man might drive the same car as an MNA, the fact that both the owner of the Expos and one of their fans could watch the same game together, was not proof that class distinction had been abolished, but rather that “the needs and satisfactions that serve the preservation of the Establishment are shared by the underlying population[137]”. What was consumed mattered because it revealed who chose what would be produced ; the goods were useless not because consumers did not know how to spend their money, but because capitalism forced them to produce goods that were not those they would have produced had they been in charge. This position betrays an ambiguous reaction to the disappearance of the notion of class from norms of consumption. If, on the one hand, it may be difficult to wish the return to a time where poorer members of society were told not to expect ever owning a car[138], on the other hand, those who believed the working class could aspire to more economic and political power regarded the new, single consumption norm of the large middle class with suspicion. To fight for more economic rights, the working class had to at least recognize itself as such.

These different views of the consumers’ interests explain the FACEF’s staunchly pro-consumer suggested amendments. While the majority believed cooling-off periods should be imposed in areas where pressure selling and fraud were prevalent, the FACEF, driven by the belief that it was difficult to objectively assess what one needed under consumer capitalism, asked that all credit contracts for and the sale of all automobiles, both new and used, be subject to a ten-day cooling-down period[139]. It would also have extended the cooling-down period for door-to-door sales from five to fifteen days, explaining that this period should serve as an easy alternative to rescinding the sales contract because of a product defect[140]. While a majority of MNAs seemed to agree that freedom of choice mattered and that it was not the government’s role to protect consumers from themselves[141], the FACEF insisted that the province resume imposing a maximum interest rate, as it had in the past[142]. It would have widened the scope of application of the law to contracts of amounts of more than $10 and door-to-door sales of more than $10 (as opposed to $50 and $25, respectively) as well as to sales of land parcels in cases of solicitation[143]. It suggested the OPC produce standard forms that merchants could use and that would set out the penal and civil consequences of breaching the new law[144].

2.3 Information, awareness, education

Despite these differences, all parties involved stressed that the CPA should do more than provide legal remedies and have a social dimension : suggestions that consumer protection laws and home economics be taught in high schools and CEGEPs, that the bill be adapted to be easily understood by laypeople or that information bureaus be set up, were very popular ones[145]. The CAC agreed with the FACEF and the CCQ that the law should be given a truly social dimension and that the OPC and the CPC should be used to that effect[146]. It believed that consumers and the grassroots organizations that represented them should have a strong voice at the CPC[147]. Similarly, they agreed that the OPC should not only respond to complaints, but proactively disseminate information and help consumers[148]. The bill was amended by the addition of the OPC’s list of duties : to protect and educate consumers, in addition to informing them, as the bill would have required, and to subsidize and contribute to the development of consumer protection services and bodies, rather than simply promoting their establishment[149].

According to some, however, this apparent consensus hid a divergence in the imagined reach and significance of giving the consumer protection act a “true” social dimension. The Family Service Association of Montreal would stress, rather cryptically, that consumer education “is not the same as consumer information. Consumer education involves not only the sharing of information but how you will plan that information, and we would feel that this aspect should be emphasized.[150]” Its insistence on what may seem to be pure semantics was very similar to the PQ MNAs’ insistence that the law be not a simple act, but a code. Colleagues pointed out that a different title or structure would not in itself help consumers, with one MNA claiming that the party’s insistence on make sweeping changes to solve all problems at once was simply the result of its political inexperience[151], and another stating that it betrayed either naivety or a lack of knowledge[152]. Nevertheless, the PQ argued until the very end that the law should at least contain a preamble listing consumers’ fundamental rights[153].

It is unquestionable that the PQ and the FACEF, on the one hand, and the Liberals and the CAC, on the other hand, had different endpoints in mind. A PQ MNA explained that the Liberals’ law only allowed consumers to defend themselves, but they needed to go beyond defence and attack[154]. If workers now had rights as both workers and citizens, they ought to claim rights as consumers[155]. They should organize (and be organized pursuant to laws and the OPC) rather than resist alone[156] : “If only consumers organized, if only they became aware, in the least, of their strength, what huge influence they might have on the entire behaviour of the economic system in which we live ![157]”

In some instances, this difference in ambition related to a disagreement about means. While both the FACEF and the CAC questioned whether the Minister of Justice would be best placed to administer the law, the CAC suggested that a Ministry of Consumption be created[158], while the FACEF asked that the Prime Minister be given the task, so that the CPA could be used, as it ought to be, as a tool of economic control and development[159]. The CAC did not explain its reasoning, but when asked to defend the federal ministry by an MNA who believed most of its battles had been sterile, the CAC responded that its greatest victory was that it had raised consumer awareness[160]. Here, the diametrically opposed views of the point of consumer legislation were expressed in opposing suggestions[161].

Just as often, however, very similar means were proposed to reach ends of wildly different magnitudes. The rights that the PQ insisted should be included in the bill’s preamble were the right to security, to freedom of choice and to protection against fraud[162]. The right to security in this case entailed consumers’ right to assemble and organize to vindicate their rights and the right to participate in the creation of new laws and regulations that were relevant to them[163]. In addition to helping orient the interpretation of the law and introduce it in simple terms to laypeople[164], this preamble would clearly spell out consumers’ needs to orient further legislative actions[165]. None of these rights, however, were all that different from those that the CAC seemed to be attempting to vindicate in more specific rules.

A Cooprix advertisement published in La Presse in October 1970 (see Figure 1) perfectly encapsulates this jump from rather mundane concerns to bold ideals. The ad began by stating that the cooperative had lowered prices on grocery items, moved on to criticizing the selling practices of for-profit stores, then promoted its services to its member and called for the adoption of a consumer protection act, to finally end by inviting workers to build a cooperative economy. The jump from the first four invitations to the last might seem to strain credulity, but it can be explained, to a point, when one considers the FACEF’s holistic understanding of its own mission, and consults the list of other cooperatives found at the bottom of the ad. The two figures of the consumer are so blurred as to seem to be one when one apprehends them from within the law. But it is outside the law that the greater-than-life consumer will take shape, provided he is joined by others and properly organized.

Conclusion

The FACEF was not uninterested in legal reform, as its appearance before the Commission indicates, but neither did it believe it would necessarily be the most productive front to fight for consumer emancipation. When the Liberal Party announced in 1976 that it intended to modify the CPA, the FACEF publicly stated that it would not make representations to the National Assembly, citing two reasons : the fact that only 7 of its 120 recommendations to improve the 1970 version of the bill had been accepted and the OPC’s poor performance since its creation[166]. Then the newly elected PQ presented a new bill that would replace the old law entirely, dubbed by the opposition “la loi de la surprotection du consommateur[167]” (loosely translated as the consumer overprotection law). However, as the law became robust, the province also moved on to a new era of consumer protection ; from the “popular movement stage” in which many grassroots organizations advocated for changes in a variety of ways to an “organizational/managerial stage” and finally the current “mature, bureaucratic stage” in which protection schemes have been institutionalized and consumer activism is on the decline[168].

Yet understanding how the figure of the empowered, enlightened citizen was invoked and imagined in different stages remains fruitful : it can reveal what may have been lost as the province moved on to a new law and a different, more technocratic way of dealing with consumer issues. My argument is not that the FACEF’s conception is the only correct one or that the empowered consumer can only exist as he was imagined in the early 1970s. I do suggest, however, that the current elusiveness of the empowered consumer citizen, his less-than-real character, may stem from the fact that he is something of an artefact : the sole surviving fragment of a more holistic plan that could not be translated—and thus preserved—in the law. Those who were most invested in the creation of a cooperative economy, in which consumer choices would serve to empower workers who would, in turn, more effectively address consumers’ real needs also had very little trust that the consumer left alone could achieve much. They put forward a concept that is similar to the one discussed today, but they most likely never imagined that it could survive merely as an “abstract biped”, the theoretical backdrop to legal action.

Figure 1

Advertisement for Cooprix cooperatives, La Presse (October 20, 1970) C3

Advertisement for Cooprix cooperatives, La Presse (October 20, 1970) C3

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