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Between 1933 and 1965, increasing participation by organized labour in private charity, and, in particular the federated appeals, was part of a conscious remaking of class relationships and their social meanings. Engineered during and after World War II by labour and social work leaders, this exercise entailed redescribing “charity” to minimize conflicts over material relief and to emphasize the “feminine” aspects of social service. It also involved having working-class people serve as peers in the leadership structure of social agencies. More than just a pragmatic alliance founded on a shared policy agenda, this labour-social work co-operation was an exercise in reconciling, in an egalitarian way, cultural differences of class with community belonging.

To pay for the Second World War, the federal government had to tax more Canadians more heavily. In 1942, the amount of tax-exempt personal income was reduced and the rates of taxation were increased. The public responded with perplexity and concern about how the newly taxable, often low-income Canadians were going to pay their taxes. In these protests, and over the course of the next thirty years, the treatment in tax law of individuals as members of families was a focus of debate and changing legal accommodation. Issues such as alimony, family maintenance payments, dependants' deductions, and family businesses presented the tax authorities with puzzles about how to collect an adequate public revenue in ways consistent with common sense beliefs about family relationships. The problem remains unsolved in income tax law because there are conflicting beliefs about and interests at stake in the economic and social meanings of family relationships.

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