The Great Depression

Canadas Economic State, 1920s

Image of prosperous 20s Roaring? Reality: boom and bust roller coaster Late 1920s resource boom Growing American inuence now largest investor; by 1926 Canadas most important trading partner Womens increasing role in the economy

Economy (continued)

New consumer products automobiles Communications airplanes; telephones Middle- and upper-class consumption

Bombardier rst snowmobile, 1923

Regional Variations

Maritimes and Prairies left out of the boom?

Coal and steel in decline Low wheat prices for much of decade vagaries of international markets; expansion and borrowing of First World War & when prices good in parts of 1920s

The Collapse
Black Tuesday 29 October 1929

Causes of the Great Depression

Not caused by a crisis of capitalism, but became one! overproduction; stock speculation Protectionism ( using tariffs) Canada retaliated

Decline in international trade severely hurts Canada (2nd worst off in world, after US) SO NOT AN OVERNIGHT PROBLEM CAUSED BY STOCK MARKET CRASH!

Effects of the Great Depression

Stocks, production, wages, GNP, imports, exports, all decline but unemployment increases to 20-25% nationally (1933)

Hardest Hit The Prairies

Compounding factors: natural disasters (drought, grasshoppers, etc.)

The Political Response - King

Do nothing! Balance the budget and slash spending Not a five cent piece to any Conservative provincial government But had to face election

1930 Election
Fought on leadership issue R.B. Bennett (Conservative) makes tariffs and unemployment the key issues Five cent piece comment thrown in Kings face Bennett victorious largely on rural vote!

The Political Response R.B. Bennett

Leadership of Conservatives one man show Also personal altruism

Bennetts Policies

Simply not enough Unemployment Relief Act (1930) - $20M for relief (mostly administered by provinces and municipalities) To 1938: $350M federal on relief; $650 M provincial and municipal! crushing burden! Response: balance budgets by cutting services

Relief going on the pogey

Humiliation Failure Food vouchers Private charity Relief work Work Camps

Line up for a soup kitchen, Toronto

On to Ottawa Trek (1935)

Regina Riot, 1 July 1935

THIRD PARTIES
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (1932)
Leader: J.S. Woodsworth 1933 Regina Manifesto Socialist (but not communist, nor doctrinaire) 9% of popular vote in 1935

Social Credit
William Bible Bill Aberhart 1935 sweeps to power in Alberta Each citizen to have a credit to achieve prosperity

Reconstruction Party (1935)

H.H. Stevens 8% of popular vote in 1935 (taken from Conservatives)

Communism and Fascism

Communist march,Vancouver, c.1933 Canadian fascist paraphernalia

Also Intolerance

KKK to Canada

The Atlantic Coast

NEWFOUNDLAND The threat of bankruptcy Britain will not allow From dominion to colonial status [Prerequisite to Confederation?] MARITIMES Vote Liberal But social and economic reforms cannot be achieved for lack of $

Quebec
Scandals and corruption Maurice Duplessis The Union Nationale The Padlock Law (1937)

The Padlock Law

The Act prohibited the "use [of a house] or allow any person to make use of it to propagate communism or bolshevism by any means whatsoever" as well as the printing, publishing or distributing of "any newspaper, periodical, pamphlet, circular, document or writing, propagating communism or bolshevism." A violation of the Act subjected such property to being ordered closed by the Attorney General "padlocked" - against any use whatsoever for a period of up to one year, and any person found guilty of involvement in prohibited media activities could be incarcerated for three to thirteen months.

Ontario
Mitch Hepburns Liberals Schisms with federal Liberals Provincial Rights and the Unholy Alliance with Duplessis

British Columbia
T.D. Duff Pattullo (Liberal) The little New Deal: work and wages state health-insurance plan reduced taxes for lower incomes unemployment insurance public works But lacks the $ to put it into effect!

Bennetts New Deal

Borrows from FDRs New Deal in US sweeping social reform platform announced on radio The capitalist system has failed promised laws to control big business to increase income and business taxes to reduce farm debts to introduce minimum wages, the 8 hour day unemployment insurance, health insurance better old age pensions Key: Govt now promising to do things within provincial jurisdiction under BNA Act! but most declared ultra vires (beyond the power)

What people remembered

Bennett buggies, Bennett boroughs,

THE ELECTION OF 1935: KING OR CHAOS

Public does not go for Bennetts deathbed repentance (New Deal promises)

Liberal Policies

Relief for farmers Prairie Farm Rehab. Act Lower tariffs Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1936) Trans-Canada Airlines (1937) Crown Corp. National Economic Commission advocates Keynesian approach (decit nancing) Royal Commission on Dominion Provincial Relations (est. 1935) Rowell-Sirois report

The Rowell-Sirois Commission

A Canadian Royal Commission looking into the Canadian economy and federal-provincial relations. It was called in 1937 and reported in 1940. It was called as a result of the Great Depression. The attempts to manage the Depression by the government illustrated grave aws with the Canadian constitution. While the federal government had most of the revenue gathering powers, the provinces, unexpectedly, had to make the greater expenditures ~health care, education, and welfare. By 1937 they were all massive expenditures, however. The Commission recommended that the federal government take over control of unemployment insurance and pensions. It also recommended the creation of equalization payments and large transfers of money from the federal government to the province each year.

A Low, Dishonest Decade?

Bennett cannot blast into foreign markets The Manchurian Crisis (1931) - no coherent stand against Japan The Riddell Incident (1935) - how to deal with Mussolinis Italy? Sanctions? - WLMK repudiates Riddell no sanctions WLMK sees League as place for conciliation, not arbitration

Isolationism and Appeasement

North American Nation Neville Chamberlain & appeasement WLMK on Hitler - Saw what he wanted to see

WLMK to Germany, 1937

Assessing Kings approach

low and dishonest a weak and sleazy performance of delay and moral corruption? Or was indecision the price that had to be paid for internal Canadian unity?

Royal Visit, Spring 1939

The Road to War

Hitlers lebensraum living space", i.e. land and raw materials Jewish refugees None is too many September 1939 Poland Another world war CATASTROPHE OF THE WAR ENDED THE CATASTROPHE OF THE DEPRESSION