Mothers, Read This
EVERY MOTHER in Newfoundland should vote for Confederation.
Never mind what the politicians say. Never mind what the
newspapers say. Never mind what the men say.
If you have children YOU SHOULD VOTE FOR THEM.
Once we get Confederation we know that NEVER AGAIN WILL
THERE BE A HUNGRY CHILD IN NEWFOUNDLAND.¹

The words you have just read came from a paper called The Confederate. It was put out by the group of people who wanted Newfoundland to join Canada. Their leader was Joseph R. Smallwood. In 1948, Newfoundland voters had to make an important choice. The choice was for Newfoundland to be a country on its own or a province of Canada. There would soon be a vote.

The message in The Confederate is what we call propaganda. It uses strong words to try to make people think and act a certain way. This propaganda was telling the mothers of Newfoundland: vote for us; we will give you the best deal.

The mothers of Newfoundland voted. They, and other voters, helped Confederation win by a small margin. The mothers would not forget the promise made by Smallwood. They would expect their children not to be hungry again.

The year 1948 is not so long ago. But the election promise seems strange. It seems odd that a group of people could build an election campaign on a promise to end child hunger. This tells us something about Newfoundland at the time. It tells us that there were hungry children. It tells us that these children lived in families who, at times, could not meet their needs.

The promise to end child hunger has never been fulfilled. There are still hungry children in Newfoundland and Labrador, and all over Canada. But there are many more services to help people today than there were in 1948.

The promise printed in The Confederate was part of a much larger promise. The promise was that, if Newfoundland joined Canada, people would get better social benefits. Social benefits are things like unemployment insurance (UI), medical care, social assistance, and pensions. We call all of these things the social safety net. We think of a net because these services are there to keep people safe when times are hard. The safety net stands between people and desperation. Its job is to catch them when they fall. We need a social safety net because people cannot always make a decent living. We also need it to protect children, the aged and others who cannot work.

Before Confederation, there was not much of a social safety net in Newfoundland. After Confederation, Newfoundlanders got some benefits just because they became citizens of Canada. Canada had been building a social safety net for some time. People could not wait to get the benefits from Canada.