 | Canada''s Greatest Wartime Muddle: National Selective Service and the Mobilization of Human Resources during World War II Subjects: Canada. National Selective Service; Industrial mobilization -- Canada -- History -- 20th century; Draft -- Canada; World War 1939–1945 -- Manpower -- Canada; In this exhaustively researched and carefully documented account, Michael Stevenson argues that National Selective Service (NSS) - the agency responsible for controlling the nation's military and civilian mobilization apparatus - failed in its attempts to regulate Canadian society. He challenges traditional views that Prime Minister Mackenzie King handled the conscription issue by creating a comprehensive, centralized, and efficient human resource mobilization strategy, carefully supervised by government bureaucrats in Ottawa. Stevenson argues instead that a fractured, de-centralized, and widely unpopular mobilization program often prevented NSS officials from channelling eligible men into Canada's system of compulsory training for home defence or allocating workers to essential industrial jobs. |
