Canada and The Great Depression

Part A: Causes

Canada was vulnerable to economic collapse in 1929 for a number of reasons:

• The decade of the “roaring twenties” fostered an unrealistic optimism in the economy

• Credit levels soared to all-time highs• Widespread stock market speculation and

“buying on margin”• Over-dependence on the United States as a

trading partner

Part B Government’s Response:

Prior the Depression of the 1930s, governments did not significantly intervene in the lives of citizens or in the marketplace. The tenets of classical liberalism guided the actions of national decision makers. The tenets were:

• that governments should leave people alone to work out their own destinies within the society;

• that the marketplace should be relatively unregulated and social issues such as poverty and unemployment should be the concerns of private charities and churches, not government; and,

• that the marketplace should be the vehicle to secure the economic well-being of the society.

Therefore, the Depression fundamentally changed how people viewed

government. Many felt that the social and economic catastrophes brought about by the Depression were made

more severe by government's unwillingness to intervene actively.

Initially, Prime Minister Mackenzie King’s government

goes down to defeat in the 1930

election due to insensitivity to the

plight of depression victims

King was replaced by Conservative R.B.

Bennett; Bennett was a staunch

conservative who advocated

protectionism, tariffs on goods imported

into Canada to “protect” Canadian domestic markets.

Unfortunately for Canadians and the economy, Bennett

was seen as arrogant and out-of-step with

the times; look closely at this cartoon of Bennett’s cabinet; what does it tell us

about how Mr. Bennett was perceived?

Bennett’s trade barriers did nothing to heal the Canadian economy, reeling from the effects of the Depression. In fact, by the end of his term, he began negotiations

with the United States for reciprocal trade (reciprocity or “free trade”). This was

eventually accomplished by Mackenzie King when his Liberal Party returns to

power in 1935.

The On-To-Ottawa Trek

The On-To-Ottawa Trek was essentially a strike of relief-camp workers starting in British Columbia in June of 1935; relief camps had been established by the government but the conditions were poor and the pay…poorer…as low as twenty cents per day

Beginning in Vancouver, a massive mob of former relief camp “inmates” begin the journey to be heard by the government in Ottawa by illegally “hitching” rides on the railroads; this was known as “riding the rods”

But the trekers were arrested in Regina on orders from R.B. Bennett and a riot ensued. One policeman was killed and hundreds arrested. They never did reach Ottawa. Examine the cartoon; who is it sympathetic to? How do you know?

Prime Minister Bennett never recovered from the bad politics he had created; his reputation had been ruined by his government’s ineffectual policies in dealing with the Depression as the “Bennett Buggy” in the picture attests. What were “Bennett Buggies”?

Nevertheless, R.B. Bennett did contribute to the changing nature of government in Canada as a result of the Depression:

Late in his term, Bennett proposed a package of reforms to address the hardships of the Great Depression. Old Age Pensions, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage and more regulations on business were amongst Bennett's proposals. It was seen as too little, too late. Many of the reforms were implemented, but not by him. In 1935, voters returned William Lyon Mackenzie King to power. He served as PM until his retirement in 1948.

While Mackenzie King’s Liberals enact most of those social programs suggested by Bennett it was actually this man who was responsible for the advent of the “welfare state” in Canada!

James Shaver Woodsworth was a methodist minister

who had been involved in the

Winnipeg General Strike in 1919; he becomes the most important “social

democrat” in Canadian history

As a Mission worker, Woodsworth had the opportunity to see first hand the appalling circumstances in which many of his fellow citizens lived, and began writing the first of several books decrying the failure to provide workers with a living wage and arguing for the need to create a more egalitarian and compassionate state.

Woodsworth and others form a new socialist political party called the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in Regina in 1933 as a response to the need for reform as a result of the Depression

Platform of the Regina Manifesto

The CCF “Regina Manifesto” called for the following social programs:

• Full legal right to collective bargaining and the right to form unions

• Minimum wage laws• Maximum work week• Safe working conditions• Sick pay and accident insurance• Old age pensions• Worker’s compensation• Unemployment insuranceQuestion: which of these do you think is most important?

Which of these have you already benefited from in your working life?

Quote from the original CCF platform:

"No C.C.F. Government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and Put into operation the full programme of socialized planning which will

lead to the establishment in Canada of the Cooperative Commonwealth."

Question: what do you think they meant by “cooperative commonwealth”?

While the CCF was successful at the provincial levels of government in some provinces, it never formed the federal government, mostly due to the federal Liberal Party’s adoption of many of its

policies when the CCF began to capture an increasing share of the popular vote in

elections.

. Woodsworth died in Vancouver in early 1942, and his ashes were scattered in the

Strait of Georgia.

Woodsworth's daughter, Grace MacInnis followed in his footsteps as a CCF

politician.

The New Deal

Mackenzie King’s approach would involve closer relations with the United States and the President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Roosevelt’s “new deal” platform was very popular and would become the model for Canada’s own “new deal” which consisted of more government involvement in the economic affairs of the nation.

Roosevelt was a social reformer like

Woodsworth. Physically disabled and sensitive to the plight of the poor, he began massive public

works projects to ease the problems of

unemployment

Other “Left-Wing” Leaders Emerge

William “Bible-Bill” Aberhart. Alberta premier and social reformer who introduces the idea of “social credit”, an economic strategy that involves giving money to the public to stimulate the economy. It became known as “funny money”

Maurice Duplessis forms the Union Nationale in Quebec and begins the process of nationalizing Quebec; Duplessis’s goal was to gain more control over Quebec’s economy for francophone interests. However, Duplessis was no social democrat…his policies were cruel and de-humanizing and he had little sympathy for worker’s rights.

Duplessis is an early warning of the great struggle Canada will have in dealing with national unity in the decades to follow. But the 30’s was still a time of British Imperialism in most of Canada. Question: how is this evident in Canada’s flag of the time?

Domestic History of The Depression

But the Depression wasn’t really about

politics at all…it was about people! Many of our senior citizens

lives today were shaped by their Depression era

experiences.

Still others have indelible memories of their poverty. One elderly woman avoided plum jam and sausage

throughout her adult life because it was the cheap relief fare her family lived on during the 1930s. She watched

her father search in vain for work for seven years. Another woman, every time she sees an orange,

remembers the one Christmas gift she and her sister received. Another recalls how she hated the dresses her mother made out of flour sacks. No amount of scrubbing

or dyeing would remove the telltale stencil — "Quaker Flour" — that marked her as poor.

A young girl living in a village somewhere in the dust bowl saw her older brothers take to "riding the rods." Then, her older sister left home to work in Regina. When she was about 15 the girl went to live with an aunt, helping her in the house for room and board. She then moved on to another aunt on a farm for a year and then on another farm for $8 a month plus room and board.

Entertainment in the 30’s

But it wasn’t all bad during the Depression; Canadians found time for leisure and even some consumer goods like this “Foster Hewitt” hockey game. Question: who was Foster Hewitt?

Foster Hewitt was the voice of Hockey Night In Canada on CBC radio for many years.

Kid’s could buy hockey cards for a penny. Question: which team did Eddie Shore become famous with?

Perhaps this will help…

And…five babies born together capture the attention of the world!

They were the Dionne Quintuplets

During the 20’s and 30’s a racing schooner captured the imagination of Canadians by winning race after race. Can you name her?

The Bluenose…and the picture shows its importance to Canadian culture from another era

But…in the end it was this that ended the Great Depression in Canada and the United States!