Census figures from 1971 confirm their low levels of educational attainment. While 37.5% of all adult Canadians had 8 or fewer years of schooling, the rates for sub-groups disproportionately inhabiting the surplus population include Native Indians in rural areas, 72.8%; Innuit in rural areas, 92.8%; French-speaking in Canada, 54.9%; residents of Newfoundland, 49.4%, rural Manitoba, 48%, rural Saskatchewan, 44.4%.31

Many members of this ill-educated surplus population stayed behind in the Prairies, Atlantic Canada, rural Quebec and other hinterland areas to cling to what remained of declining opportunities in unskilled primary sector employment and marginal farming, often inhabiting what were becoming rural slums. However, many more joined what became an historic rural to urban trek in search of employment, directed toward what were becoming urban ghettoes in Toronto. Winnipeg, Montreal and Vancouver. 32 Here they were joined by recent immigrants from countries like Greece. Portugal and Italy, who had themselves been displaced from traditional forms of agricultural labour and subsistence activities by the capitalist penetration of rural areas in their homelands, and had been lured to Northern Europe and North America to supplement internal labour supplies.33 Like the internal migrants, a large proportion were unskilled and ill-educated.

However, these surplus labourers found few openings in the traditionally high pay urban manufacturing sector. Unlike the situation in other Western countries, the Canadian manufacturing sector had been to a significant extent been taken over by U.S.-based multi-national corporations, and these maintained branch plants here. A significant proportion of branch plant profits were flowing southward rather than financing manufacturing growth in Canada. As well, much of the more highly skilled and highly paid production work was being conducted at parent companies in the U.S. or broken into simpler operations and performed where labour costs were cheaper, both in North America and the Third World. Thus, while markets for manufactured goods grew rapidly in Canada after World War II, employment opportunities in manufacturing were stagnating.34 Those manufacturing industries which were prospering in Canada, such as auto manufacturing, steel and petro-chemical production, were becoming increasingly automated, and could absorb relatively few new workers.

However, many jobs did become available in the 1950's and early 1960's in low-wage industries. In fact, the rapid development of personal service occupations (e.g. retail trade, security services, hospital work, building maintenance, etc.) and low-wage manufacturing jobs (e.g'. food processing, textiles, the garment industry, etc.) was in large part made possible by the availability of so many impoverished surplus workers, forced to accept employment on any terms. 35