Transcript The Depression of the 1930’s

The Depression of the 1930’s
The Depression Sets In
RB Bennett had just taken over as PM of
Canada
 Bennett promise to end unemployment
 He would use tariffs to blast onto the
world market
 Spent 20 million on the provinces for
make work projects

Depression Sets In
By 1933 the depression was worsening
still
 Hundreds and thousands of farms and
businesses were ruined
 Mines, mills and factories from coast to
coast were shutting down
 A quarter of all Canadians were out of
work
 In 1928 farmers had purchased 17,000
tractors, in 1932, 832 were bought

The railway
For Canada, railways had represented
growth and development
 In the 1930’s they represented despair
 Thousands of men rode the train back and
forth across Canada in search of work
 Transients were considered bums or
hobo’s

Government Relief Camps
The provinces could not cope with
unemployed workers
 Major General AGL McNaughton, head of
the Canadian Army came up with the idea
of relief camps
 He calculated that for $1 a day including
20 cents pay a man could be housed, fed
and put to work with simple tools

Government Relief Camps
At first everyone welcomed the idea
 The mood soon changed
 Liberals branded Bennett a dictator with
Army run camps characterizing his rule
 Some termed them slave camps
 Men felt like they were being cheated of
their lives and working for what reason

On to Ottawa Trek
In April, 1935 communist organizers
persuaded half the 7000 workers in BC to
strike for work and wages
 Having no success in Vancouver they
decided to lobby the federal government
 BC strikers would lead unemployed
people from Vancouver to Ottawa

On to Ottawa Trek
The 1200 young men who began the trip
grew at every stop
 The government viewed the trek as a start
of a revolution
 The government decided the trekkers
should be stopped in Regina

On to Ottawa Trek
Regina was chosen because it was the
location of RCMP headquarters
 The trek was halted and the leaders were
allowed to continue on to Ottawa
 Bennett was appalled
 Strikers in Ottawa remained peaceful for a
few days. Under the close eye of the
RCMP they remain calm in Regina also.

On to Ottawa Trek
Rallies were held in Regina’s Market
Square
 Suddenly violence erupted
 By midnight a policeman was dead and 80
people were injured
 Bennett later insisted that he had defeated
a communist revolution
 Led to the Bennett government being
defeated in the fall of 1935

Dust bowl
Bennett's tariffs helped out Manufacturers
but not farmers
 The 1930’s brought economic and natural
disaster to the parries'
 The drought of 1929 continued and by
1931 the topsoil of Southern Alberta and
Saskatchewan began to blow away in the
wind

Dust bowl
Dust clouds were blown so far they could
feel the dust on the ships in the Atlantic
Ocean
 In 1932, a plague of grasshoppers
devoured every green living thing
 The next year it was wheat rust and frost,
followed by drought and hail
 Farmers often lived off a bag of flour and a
few vegetables to serve an entire family

No Progress
In 1930, Canadians had voted for Bennett
because he had promised them a cure for
the depression
 By 1932 four provinces were bankrupt
 The liberals did not have the solution
either
 Canadians were looking for something
new to ease the suffering

Social Credit
In 1932, William Aberhart from Alberta
turned Social Credit into a political
movement
 Stated that it was the difference between
the price paid to the producer and the
price paid by the consumer which led to
poverty
 This difference would have to be made up
by the government.

Cooperative Commonwealth
Federation
Meant to replace the injustice of capitalism
 JS Woodworth was the leader
 Organized infighting Labor parties, along
with the progressives into the CCF
 Outlined its policies in a document known
as the Regina Manifesto
 Gained much popularity in Canada

New Deal
Introduced in US by Franklin Roosevelt
 Canadians were exposed to him via radio
 Even Bennett was impressed
 The New Deal of 1935 called for
unemployment insurance, minimum
wage, maximum hours, marketing boards
to raise farm prices and government
intervention

Election 1935
The liberals won the election of 1935 easily
following Bennett and the conservatives
inability to lift Canada from the
depression
 In 1938 King and the Liberals put the bank
of Canada under government control
 The economy was beginning to improve
under a new reciprocity agreement with
the United States
