1. Tumultuous Times in Canadian Politics Chapter 11
Unit 3 - From Boom to Bust:
Canada in the 1920s and 1930s

2. Challenges to Canadian Political Systems
1920s and 1930s challenged Canadian political systems
Liberals and Conservatives needed to address Canada’s new realities – economic recessions, economic recoveries, depression, regional economic disparities, social reform movements seeking changes to traditional gender roles and labour practices and working conditions
Challenges to Canadian Political Systems

3. William Lyon Mackenzie King at the helm of political change
Mackenzie King assumes leadership of Liberal Party after death of Laurier in 1919 – a skilled negotiator, cautious and moderate
Important political ties – grandson of William Lyon Mackenzie – reformer in politics prior to Confederation
Mackenzie King’s ideology mirrored Laurier’s in that both men believed in Canadian national unity ahead of other political goals
William Lyon Mackenzie King at the helm of political change

4. Mackenzie King Canada’s longest serving Prime Minister
Greatly influenced public policy in the late 1920s, late 1930s and the early 1940s
Surrounded himself with capable Cabinet Ministers to seek informed advice.
Political opponent in the 1920s – Arthur Meighen (Conservative Prime Minister during Mackenzie King’s Opposition Role )
Mackenzie King

5. Mackenzie King- a Man of Contradictions
Two personas – public and private
Avid diarist – recorded events and thoughts
Mackenzie King- a Man of Contradictions

6. Political Agendas Begin to Shift
Political agendas and policies for both Liberal and Conservatives favoured central Canada and wealthy powerful business leaders
Growing regional disparities in Western and Maritime Canada and a sense of political alienation gives rise to protest movements and the establishment of regional political parties – Social Credit, Union Nationale, Progressive Party, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), Maritime Rights Movement, The Communist Party of Canada
Political Agendas Begin to Shift

7. Progressive Party (grassroots/local community/western focus)
1921 – emerged to represent the interests of farmers, becomes official Opposition Party at the federal level,
major political platform was to reduce tariffs for farmers but divisive on issues such as public control of railways, utilities and grain marketing – limited effectiveness in building national party
Mackenzie King lures some Progressives to the Liberals by lowering tariffs on farm machinery and reducing freight costs for grain shipments
By 1932 the remaining Progressives joined with farm and labour groups to create the Cooperative Commonweath Federation (CCF)
Progressive Party (grassroots/local community/western focus)

8. Maritime Rights Movement
– launched in New Brunswick by a group of influential businessmen and professionals ( A. P Peterson) to provide a strong voice to the the economically disadvantaged Maritime region and to demand federal government subsidies for the region, increased international trade in the seaports of Halifax and St. John, NB and higher tariffs on steel and coal imports in order to protect the local industries
Maritime Rights Movement

9. Maritime Rights Movement (con’t)
Workers left the Maritimes in search of jobs
Depopulation of the area led to less representation in the House of Commons to voice concerns of Maritime region
Increasing representation in Western Canada and “louder voices” influenced Mackenzie King in favouring their needs
Higher tariffs were not granted to the help Maritime resources (coal, iron, steel manufacturing industries
Cheaper American coal, iron, steel flooded into the Canadian market
Mackenzie King’s Liberal government did not support Maritime demands for subsidies and tariffs to ‘equalize the regional disparity with Central and Western Canada.
Maritime Rights Movement (con’t)

10. Government Response to the Depression
Initially – Mackenzie King believed the crash was “temporary” - was common occurrence after a period of economic prosperity to be followed by a recession
“Business cycles”: alternating cycles of economic upswings and downturns
Provincial government requests for subsidies to help deal with rising unemployment were denied by Mackenzie King’s government
Government Response to the Depression

11. R. B. Bennett comes to power
Conservative Opposition Leader and businessman, R. B. Bennett, accuses Mackenzie King of not dealing with the Depression, and wins federal election in July 1930 and serves as Prime Minister from 1930 to 1935.
Bennett believed that he could turn the economy around by helping businesses grow by raising tariffs on international imports and growing the domestic market, which in turn would provide jobs.
R. B. Bennett comes to power

12. Conservative response to Depression – 1930-35
Industries that depended on exporting their products: wheat, forestry, mining, fishing were not helped by high tariffs
Bennett’s government believed that Canadian high tariffs would force foreign countries to lower their tariffs because of their need for “basic” products – policy backfired
Only Britain had lowered tariffs on Canadian products by 1935 – international trade remained stagnant and lower prices on goods was not enough to restart the economy – unemployment and under employment existed – money still not available to buy goods
Conservative response to Depression –

13. Change in thinking – What is the role of government?
Canadians began to believe that the government had important roles to play in the welfare of the society through the implementation of imaginative public policy to deal with the issues.
Change in thinking – What is the role of government?

14. Bennett creates “RELIEF CAMPS” for “transients” (single, homeless men who travelled the country in search of work)
Relief Camps were built within the Canadian wilderness run by the Department of National Defence, men were given food, shelter, army style clothing and paid 20 cents a day for building bridges and roads, cutting trees and digging ditches.
Provided limited hope and savings for the future but provided the essentials for life.
Relief Camps Emerge

15. Bennett hopes to win re-election in – introduces the “New Deal” to include laws and promises to:
Regulate working hours
Provide a minimum wage
Improve working conditions
Provide insurance against illness, industrial accidents and unemployment
(modeled after American President Franklin Roosevelt’s “New Deal”
Bennett’s NEW DEAL

16. Bennett’s NEW DEAL results in defeat at the polls
Most Canadian voters believed that his strategy was a desperate effort to garner votes
Some of the New Deal proposals were passed by Parliament, but struck down by the federal courts, who believed that “social welfare/policy” was a provincial responsibility
Bennett lost the election to Mackenzie King
Bennett’s NEW DEAL results in defeat at the polls

17. Slang for getting government vouchers for food, boots, clothing, coal, shelter
Embarrassing for hardworking people to ask for relief - “pogey”
Relief payments were purposely lower than the lowest paying job to discourage people from applying
Many Canadians lived close to starvation, malnutrition and disease was common, especially among children
“Living on Pogey”

18. Bennett ousted from office 1935
ON-TO-OTTAWA TREK – summer 1935
Relief Camp workers organized a protest movement to demand for work with wages and climbed into railway box cars or began marching towards Ottawa
Bennett not sympathetic to the protesters and ordered the RCMP to stop the marchers in Regina
Riots broke out in Regina July 1, 1935
Bennett’s decision to use the police to quash the demonstration may have cost him the election – Mackenzie King returned as Prime Minister
Bennett ousted from office 1935

19. Mackenzie King returns to power 1935
Government continues Conservative policies of giving aid to the Prairie provinces and passed the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act to help develop farming methods, seed vacant land, and relocate families to better farming areas in the mid to northern parts of the Prairies
Mackenzie King returns to power 1935

20. “Laissez-faire” economic policies
Government avoided making policies in influencing the economic recovery, and preferred a hands off approach – let the economy work it self out
Trends in during the “Bennett years”: Bennett Buggies, Bennett Blankets, Bennett Barnyards, Bennett coffee, Bennettburghs
“Laissez-faire” economic policies

21. Disillusionment with lack of government initiatives and policies
Leads to the rise new political parties
Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (Regina Manifesto) the forerunner of the NEW DEMOCRATIC PARTY, leader, former Methodist preacher, J.S. Woodsworth (pooling, sharing and marketing resources through cooperatives to benefit the citizens not the government)
Support garnered from farming and labour groups in an effort to implement employment laws
Disillusionment with lack of government initiatives and policies

22. Communist Party Of Canada
Small and active party: Tim Buck
Staged rallies and organizing workers and unemployed persons
“red menace” (associated with red communist flag of Soviet Union) and feared by the Canadian government
Communist party outlawed in Buck was jailed
Party never really a threat to the government of Canada
Communist Party Of Canada

23. Agnes Macphail “I want for myself what I want for every woman – “’abosolute equality’” first woman to be elected to parliament from Ontario 1921, and the only woman to be elected until 1935
Dealt with gender discrimination (page )
“a woman’s place is any place she wants to be”
Women and Politics 1920s

24. 1935 rise in Alberta under high school principal and radio preacher, William Aberhart
ideology: believed that there were plenty of goods for sale in Canada but no money in people’s pockets to buy them
Advocated for “social credits” to help the people, but was criticized by economists by not thinking about where the money would actually come from
Then Social Credit Party dominated Alberta and British Columbia politics until the early 1990s
Social Credit Party

25. 1936 – Union Nationale under Maurice Duplessis – main focus was to prevent federal government intrusions on provincial matters and to instill Quebec nationalism in its citizens – pushed for Quebec autonomy ad self government – (a separatist or not?)
Political success rested with the support of farmers – cheap loans, better roads, and hydro electric projects
Anti Communist policies – THE PADLOCK LAW gave the Quebec government the power to lock the doors of and lock down any organization that was suspected of having Communist connections
Gained support of the Roman Catholic Church and employers and alienated unions and labour groups
Duplessis Years: intimating, threatening approach – until (except )
Union Nationale

26. Women in Politics: Person’s Case 1929
The FAMOUS FIVE:
Emily Murphy – the first woman judge in the British Empire
Irene Parlby – the first woman Cabinet Minister in Canadian Parliament
Nellie McClung – Member of Alberta legislature
Henrietta Edwards and Louise McKinney – suffragists and prohibitionists
Women in Politics: Person’s Case 1929

27. Inclusion of all women as persons to be able to sit in the federal Senate
Granted by the British Privy Council – the highest appeal court available to Canadians at the time
Woman’s movement lost momentum and regained it in the 1960s
Women are persons 1929