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The Great Depression
Black Tuesday
• October 29, 1929 –
stock market crashes
and takes with it many
peoples homes, money
and dreams.
• Many people had
borrowed money from
banks to buy stocks and
could not repay debts.
• People everywhere in
dire problems.
A “Bear” Market
Causes of Great Depression
1. Over Production and Over Expansion
2. Canada’s Dependence on a Few primary
Products
3. Canada’s Dependence on the United States
4. High Tariffs Choked Off International Trade
5. Too Much Credit Buying
Over-Production and Over-Expansion
• With booming economy, many industries
reach high levels of production.
• Large profits spent expanding
• But Canadians can only afford SO much –
and stockpiling begins in warehouses
• Soon, owners panic, lay off workers and slow
production
• Wages just not high enough to buy
everything produced!
Canada’s Dependence on a Few Primary Products
• Canada’s Economy depended on a few staple
products
• As long as world demand for these staple
products was high, Canada was prosperous
• As Depression hits world, demand for
Canadian goods drops
• Also, over production causes costs to decline
• Causes problems in agriculture and industry
Canada’s Dependence on U.S.A.
• Canada buys 65% of imports from Americans
• USA largest buyer of Canadian products
• When USA gets sick, Canada also suffers
• “When the United States sneezed, the rest of
the world got pneumonia.”
• As industries collapse in USA, no need to buy
raw materials in Canada
High Tariffs Choked Off
International Trade
•1920’s, Europeans recovering from
devastating war and need many of
surplus manufactured goods of North
America
•Tariffs developed and emphasized to
encourage buying domestically
•Tariffs choke off international trade
Too Much Credit Buying
• Just like the Stock Market Game……
The 1930s
• Few people were prepared for
the depression; by 1933, over
1/3 of Canadians did not have
work
• By 1933 more than 1.5 million
Canadians needed relief
• By 1936, 2/3 of graduates could
not find a job
• There was no money for food,
clothing, and other necessities.
Items bought on credit were
being recalled
• Many people lived near starvation and suffered from
malnutrition
• People couldn’t afford to buy new clothes…worn out
clothes were patched; old flour sacks were used to
make dresses, underwear, and shoes in the winter
• No unemployment insurance; no welfare system; no
gov’t supported medical care; no family allowance
• Those without money were depending on the
government for relief
• Unfortunately, there was no system for relief…in the
past, charities and city councils dealt with relief;
however, with so many unemployed they could not
handle it alone
The PM
William Lyon Mackenzie King was the LIBERAL
Prime Minister at the beginning of the Great
Depression and remains Canada’s longest serving PM
of all time.
Mackenzie King talks to the people
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Despite demands for help, the federal gov’t was slow
to react.
William Lyon Mackenzie King felt that the best
thing to do was wait out the depression…he thought
it would be short lived and that better times were
coming soon
He insisted that social welfare was the responsibility
of the provinces
States he will not give a “FIVE CENT PIECE” to any
non-liberal provincial government
Conservative Leader Bennett accuses King of
ignoring the plight of the people
R.B. Bennett
R.B. Bennett, in the 1930 election, kept the memory of the
“Five Cent Piece” Speech alive and used it to attack PM
Mackenzie King.
Bennett’s Platform
• Promised to find work for all who are willing
to work
• Promised the provinces $20 million in
emergency funds for relief payments
• Promised to deal with foreign trade policies
that were impeding Canadian exports
• Promised to “blast our way” into the world
markets
• Hoped to boost Canada’s manufacturing by
raising tariff on imports
R.B. Bennett – Canada’s Next
Conservative P.M.
• Bennett said all the right things
• Unfortunately, when he came into power,
his policies did not help the economic
crisis
• His emergency funds and highest
protective tariffs in Canada’s history eased
the pain, but did not cure the symptoms
Problems with Relief
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No uniform way to distribute the money
Distribution of funds given to Municipalities to
decide how to deal with the large numbers of needy
Should you have to live in a city a certain amount of
time to get relief?
Who qualifies as needy?
To get relief, people often had to prove that they
could not pay their rent, and that their phone, water
and electricity services had been stopped. Ontario
made them turn in their driver’s licenses. Some
unmarried and widowed women, or those with
husbands in jail, could not qualify for money
More Problems with Relief…
• In some provinces, a family with 2 children
was expected to live on food vouchers that
amounted to less than $10/month
• Many suffered from scurvy and TB as a
result of poor diet
• Many were forced to line up to receive
bread and soup from private charities
• Anyone on relief in Saskatchewan who
was caught buying alcohol automatically
lost their relief
Relief Camps or Slave Camps?
In 1932, Bennett’s government set up relief camps
across the country for single, unemployed men. Men
worked 8 hours a day cutting brush, moving rocks,
and building roads for food, shelter and 20 cents a day.
“Riding the Rods”
• Thousands of people did
what was known as
“Riding the Rods/Rails”
trying to find jobs in
other cities
• They would hop on
freight trains as they
pulled out of the
station…they couldn’t
afford the fares
• Although it was illegal,
there were not enough
police to stop them
Difficult Times
• Times were so bad that people couldn’t
afford to buy new clothes and worn-out
clothes were patched and re-patched
• Old flour sacks were used to make
dresses and underwear
• Some people tied flour sacks around their
feet in winter because they had no
overshoes
• Some children used old socks for mittens
The On-to-Ottawa Trek
In June of 1935 many British Columbian men fed up with life
in relief camps boarded freight trains bound for Ottawa to
protest to government. The men wanted clear economic
reforms, such as minimum wages and a genuine system of
social and unemployment insurance.
The Regina Riot
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Bennett sends the RCMP to stop the Trek, calling it a
“Communist uprising”.
When confronted, a riot ensues
Dozens injured and a police officer killed
• Bennett asked the people to be patient
• He believed the government could not spend
more money than it collected in taxes
• Believed the government should not borrow
money to give to the poor
• Bennett believed that the rich and the
fortunate should give money to help the
poor…Bennett, himself, gave thousands of
dollars to many who wrote him
People blame Bennett
• “Bennett buggies”
• “Bennett boroughs” (shacks where the unemployed camped
around cities)
• “Bennett coffee” (roasted wheat or barley, a cheap substitute
for the real thing)
• “Bennett blankets” (newspapers used as covers by the
homeless)
• “Bennett barnyard” (abandoned farm)
Ways to forget…
• Many people looked for a
way to forget their
hardships
• 1930s were the “golden age”
of Hollywood. For 25 cents
people could see a movie
• Films, radio shows, songs,
and magazines provided a
brief escape from reality
• Children were given a great deal of attention because
many Canadians could not afford to start a family of
their own
• On May 28, 1934, the Dionne Quintuplets were the
first quintuplets in the world to survive and they
became the wonder of the world
• Over a million people came to their hometown to see
them. They were Canada’s biggest tourist attraction
Grey Owl
• An Englishman who was half
Native
• Decided to live the life of a
Native and then began to
publish writings that heralded
himself as pure Indian
• He wrote books and gave
talks in England about his
experiences in the
wilderness
• Eventually, his true heritage
was revealed and it caused a
huge scandal in Canada
Movies
• Great film extravaganzas
such as Gone with the
Wind, Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs, and Mickey
Mouse were popular box
office attractions
• Gangster films and horror
films, like Frankenstein,
were also popular – good
always winning over evil
Radio
• Radio also provided an escape
• People listened to big
American bands and radio
shows
• Most popular shows came
from the U.S. including “Jack
Benny” and “The Lone Ranger”
• Tremendous power of radio
was seen on Oct. 30, 1938
when Orson Welles broadcast
“War of the Worlds”
• Millions of listeners actually
believed that the earth had
been invaded by creatures
from mars
It’s 1935 and there’s still a
depression…
PM Bennett knew that Canadians were
growing increasingly angry with the gov’t
over the economy. The depression was
dragging on and it seemed as if the gov’t
was doing nothing about it.
Bennett accused of creating Band-Aid
solutions or solutions that made things
seem better short term but in fact did
nothing to help the larger problems
The New Deal
In 1935, just before the election, Bennett
introduced radical reforms – his “New
Deal” which calls for more minimum
wages, limited working hours, fair
treatment of employees, control of prices
so that businesses cannot make unfair
profits, and social and unemployment
insurance.
Hmm…Sounds like familiar stuff….