Canada in the World Wars and Interwar Years
Encyclopedia
During the World War
s and Interwar Years Canada
experienced economic gain, more freedom for women and new technological advancements.
was assassinated, setting off a chain of events leading to World War I
. At the time, Canadians were more concerned with events within their own country than European affairs, specifically in the Balkans
where crises and wars had been brutal perennials for generations. The summer of 1914 brought a second year of drought turning wheat fields into parched deserts while the two new transcontinental railways the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern fell further into debt, sending the thousands of men who had helped build them into unemployment. Canada was facing its worst depression since the 1890s. Canadians hoped the Great Power
s of Europe could keep the peace as they had done many times before in earlier disputes of the century. Besides, so far Britain
had no reason to join in the squabble forming on the main continent, leaving no obligation for Canada to join if war did break out between Russia
, France
, Germany
and Austria-Hungary
. News of war did not make a stir in Canada until Germany invaded Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan
, and the British delivered an ultimatum to Kaiser Wilhelm
: withdraw from Belgium by August 4 or Britain would be at a state of war with Germany.
On July 29, 1914, Britain warned its colonies to take precautions in case of war. Most recent wars had begun with surprise attacks such as the Russo-Japanese War
. Soldiers and Canada's few sailors manned Halifax
fortifications and brought guns to command the St. Lawrence river. In Victoria, British Columbia
Premier Richard McBride
signed a cheque for $1,150,000 and bought two submarines from a Seattle shipyard, so at least British Columbia's coast was not completely defenceless. On August 2 armed militia mounted guard on bridges, canals, tunnels and railway stations in preparation. In Ottawa
, the Minister of Militia, Colonel Sam Hughes
, had dreamed for years of leading Canadians to war and had for a long time preached and prepared for war with Germany and now had only to wait on London
to make the first move, much to his irritation, but was persuaded by the octogenarian quartermaster general Major-General Donald Alexander Macdonald
to be patient. On August 4 8:55 P.M., Canada got the news and Hughes was ecstatic: Britain was at war with Germany.
Canada was then automatically at war, as she did not yet have control over her foreign policy — not that there were many dissenters. The war was initially popular even among French Canadians, including Henri Bourassa
, who historically looked afoul at the British Empire. Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier
created a 'party truce' for as long as Canada was in danger and had those dissenters in the liberal caucus hold their tongues. When asked what Canada 'must do' by the press, Laurier responded "When the call comes, our answer goes at once, and it goes in the classical language of the British answer to the call of duty, 'Ready, aye, ready!'" Prime Minister
Robert Borden
called a meeting of Parliament on August 18, and without division of significant debate, MPs approved an overseas contingent of 25,000 men with Canada bearing the full cost: a war appropriation of $50 million and a Canadian Patriotic Fund
to support the families of men who would fight in Europe
. The Cabinet spent many hours trying to devise adequate emergency legislation, resulting in the War Measures Act
, decreeing the Cabinet would have the authority to do whatever it deemed necessary for the security, defence, peace, order and welfare of Canada.
In no way was Canada prepared for this scale of war. Its economy
could not support it for more than a few months before being hit hard by its cost, as was with other participants. No one expected it to last longer than a few months though, many claiming it would be over by Christmas. Mass recruiting for the war effort began on August 6 with hundreds of telegrams notifying Militia colonel to begin recruiting men between the ages of 18 and 45. Hordes of British immigrants and the unemployed answered the call. Ontario
, hard hit by the depression, accounted for third of the recruits, while two thirds of the recruits were British born. Few recruits came from the Maritimes and just over 1,000 were French. The cities of Toronto
, Winnipeg
and Montreal
sent enough men each for two battalions. By September 4 there were 32,000 men and 8,000 horses in camp, far more than had been expected. There was an immediate demand for equipment, uniforms and weapons. The Ross Rifle Company worked overtime as did the textile mills and clothing factories. With a force of 32,000 equipped and ready, it soon became apparent that Embarkation from the docks would be a nightmare. Extra ships had to be chartered to carry the additional men. Battalions were marched on to ships only to be marched back off when they didn't fit. Units ignored orders and schedules and crowded the docks not wishing to wait. When it was all done, the last of 30 ships had cleared the harbour, leaving 863 horses, 4,512 tons of baggage, vehicles and ammunition behind, for which another ship had to be called in to pick up.
The first Canadian casualties of the war occurred before these troops arrived in Europe. Sir Christopher Cradock's
squadron was sunk at the Battle of Coronel
off the coast of Chile
, claiming four midshipmen who became Canada's first war dead. By the time that the First Contingent reached England on October 14 it became apparent the war would not be over by Christmas. Germany's initial rapid successes in Belgium and France had come to halt and both sides were starting to dig into their positions.
Canadians fought at Ypres
, the Somme
, Passchendaele, and other important battles, originally under British command, but eventually under a unified Canadian command. From a Canadian point of view the most important battle of the war was the Battle of Vimy Ridge
in 1917, during which Canadian troops captured a fortified German hill that had eluded both the British and French. Vimy, as well as the success of the Canadian flying ace Billy Bishop
, helped give Canada a new sense of identity.
With mounting costs at home, Sir Thomas Whyte introduced the first income tax
in Canada as a "temporary" measure. The lowest bracket was 4% and highest was 25%.
More than 620,000 Canadians served in the war. Of these, more than 60,000 died and more than 155,000 were wounded.
After three years of a war that was supposed to have been over in three months, Canada was suffering from a shortage of volunteers. Prime Minister Robert Borden
had originally promised not to introduce conscription, but now believed it was necessary to win the war. The Military Service Act was passed in July, but there was fierce opposition, mostly from French Canadians (led not only by Bourassa, but also by Wilfrid Laurier
), as well as Quakers, Mennonites, and other pacifists
. Borden's government almost collapsed, but he was able to form a Union
government with the Liberal opposition (although Laurier did not join the new government). In the 1917 election
, the Union government was re-elected, but with no support from Quebec. Over the next year, the war finally ended, with very few Canadian conscripts actually participating.
, a French munitions ship in Halifax harbour. The crash set the Mont-Blanc on fire; its holds were full of benzol, picric acid, and TNT. In twenty minutes it exploded with a force stronger than any man-made explosion before it, destroying most of Halifax and the surrounding towns. Out of a population of 50,000, 1600 people were killed and over 9,000 injured; hundreds were blinded by flying glass. The city was evacuated and dropped out of the war effort, focusing primarily on economic survival.
, which killed over 50 000 people by 1919, almost the same number that had been killed in the war.
The move from a wartime to a peacetime economy, combined with the unwillingness of returned soldiers to accept pre-war working conditions, led to another crisis. In 1919, the One Big Union
was formed by trade union syndicalists
with the intent of improving conditions for all workers, not just in a single workplace, industry, or sector. The OBU had some influence on the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919
, which business and political leaders saw as an outbreak of Bolshevism
, especially since the Soviet Union
had recently been formed. The army was sent in to break the strike and the entire Winnipeg police force
was fired and replaced with a much larger and better paid force of armed special constables. Although the Winnipeg strike is the best known, it was part of a larger strike wave that swept the country. Special constables, vigilante "citizens" organizations, and replacement workers were mobilized in strikebreaking throughout the country in this period.
Meanwhile, in western Canada, and to some extent in the Maritimes, populist
reformers were pushing for increased provincial rights and a focus on agriculture, rather than the industrial focus of Central Canada
. They formed the Progressive Party of Canada
, which supported Mackenzie King
when the Liberals had a minority government in 1925-26. King eventually lost support, however, because of the trade tariffs issue, as well as a liquor smuggling scandal. When his request that parliament be dissolved was rejected by the Governor General of Canada
(see King-Byng Affair
), he was forced to resign in 1926, but was re-appointed after his party won the election later that year
, after which, at an Imperial Conference
, King advocated for the redefining of the role of the Governor General and the gain of increased independence for Canada in the Balfour Declaration of 1926.
Radio
first appeared in Canada in the 1920s, but most Canadian-owned stations had weak signals compared with American stations. A decade later, the country had 60 different radio stations but 40% of Canadians could only tune in American stations. Many of the Canadian stations that did exist simply rebroadcast American radio shows to Canadian audiences, and little funding was available for Canadian content. The most notable exceptions were religious radio shows, such as "Back to the Bible Hour," produced by Alberta's premier, William Aberhart
. Pressure from Graham Spry
and the Canadian Radio League encouraged Mackenzie King to request a Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting
. The commission's report called for a national radio station to encourage national sentiment, and in 1932, the government of R.B. Bennett established the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, transformed into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
four years later.
that began in 1929. While the decline started in the United States, it quickly spread to Canada. The first industry affected was wheat farming, which saw a collapse in prices. This impoverished the economies of the Prairie provinces, but as wheat was then Canada's largest export it also hurt the rest of the country. With the collapse of the construction industry, lumbering was even worse hit, as there were few alternative jobs in the lumbering region. This was soon followed by a deep recession in manufacturing, first caused by a drop-off in demand in the United States, and then by Canadians also not buying more than bare essentials. The auto industry that prospered so greatly in the 1920s was badly hit. Construction came to a halt. People who lost jobs because of layoffs and closures had a very hard time finding a new ones--especially older men and teenagers. Unemployment
rose to 25 per cent.
said that everyone should believe the crisis would pass and he refused to send federal aid to any Tory-run Provinces, a decision which he never lived down. Additionally, he introduced only moderate relief efforts. The Liberals lost the 1930 election
to Richard Bedford Bennett and the Conservatives. Bennett, a successful Western businessman, campaigned on high tariffs and large scale spending, but as deficits increased he became wary and cut back severely on Federal spending. With falling support and the depression only getting worse Bennett attempted to introduce policies based on the New Deal
of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
(FDR) in the United States, but this was largely unsuccessful. The government became a focus of popular discontent, even though its policies were largely the same as those of other Western governments. Canadian car owners who could no longer afford gasoline reverted to having their vehicles pulled by horses and dubbed them Bennett Buggies
. Bennett's perceived failures during the Great Depression led to the re-election of Mackenzie King's Liberals in the 1935 election
.
Although the United States began to see rapid improvements as a result of FDR's policies, Canada saw far less growth. Nevertheless, by 1936 the worst of the Depression was over. Mackenzie King implemented some relief programs such as the National Housing Act and National Employment Commission, and also established the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
(1936) and Trans-Canada Airlines (1937, the precursor to Air Canada
). However, it took until 1939 and the outbreak of war for the Canadian economy to return to 1929 levels.
The Progressive
and United Farmers
Parties had achieved some success in the 1920s, but during the 1930s, their members generally joined other parties, like the Social Credit movement
and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.
In Alberta
, a Christian radio broadcaster named William "Bible Bill" Aberhart
became interested in politics partly because the Great Depression
had been especially harsh on Albertan farmers. Particularly, he was drawn to the "social credit
" theories of Major C. H. Douglas
, a Scottish engineer. From 1932 to 1935, Aberhart lobbied for the governing political party, the United Farmers of Alberta
, to adopt these theories. The basis of social credit is that the difference in production cost and individuals' purchasing power should be supplemented through government grants. When these efforts failed, Aberhart helped found the Social Credit Party of Alberta
, which won the 1935 provincial election
by a landslide with over 54% of the popular vote.
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
(CCF) was founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist
, farm, co-operative and labour
groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction
. The CCF aimed to alleviate the suffering of the Great Depression
through economic reform and public "co-operation". Many of the party's first Members of Parliament
(MPs) were former members of the Ginger Group
of left-wing Progressive
and Labour MPs. In its first election in 1935
, seven CCF MPs were elected to the House of Commons
. Eight were elected in the following election in 1940
.
The period also saw the rise of the openly fascist National Unity Party (NUP) and the Communist Party of Canada
, which was declared illegal under Section 98
of the Criminal Code of Canada
from 1931 to 1936. The party continued to exist, but was under the constant threat of legal harassment, and was for all intents and purposes an underground organization until 1936. The party greatly contributed in the mobilisation of volunteers to fight in the Spanish Civil War
. The NUP and, again, the Communist Party were banned in 1940.
The depression had crippled the economy and left one in nine Canadians on relief. Nor did relief come free; the Bennett government had asked the Canadian Department of National Defense
to organize work camps where the labour of unemployed single men was used to construct roads and other public works with little remuneration. The poor working conditions in the camps led to serious unrest, including a major strike in Vancouver in April 1935. The strikers’ demands included adequate first aid
equipment in the camps, the extension of the Workmen’s Compensation Act
to include camp workers, and that workers in camps be granted the right to vote in Federal elections
. Public support was enormous, and the action snowballed into a bigger movement when the men decided to take their grievances to the federal government. In June 1935, hundreds of men boarded boxcars headed East in what would come to be known as the “On to Ottawa Trek”.
The protest was halted, however, before it could reach the capital. In Regina
, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
(RCMP) confined the protesters in a local stadium. Only the eight leaders of the protest were actually allowed to proceed to Ottawa, where they were granted a meeting with Prime Minister
R.B. Bennett. Bennett attacked the group as radicals, and eventually had the delegation hustled out of his office. Upon returning to Regina to unite with the rest of the protesters, they organized large public rallies, which broke out into riots when the Federal government deployed police to break up the rallies and arrest the leaders. Two people were killed as a result of the riot and many more injured. When the trek was over the government provided free transportation back to the camps. These camps were soon abolished following Bennett's electoral defeat, and new, less extensive, relief work schemes were devised on farms and in forestry camps in conjunction with provincial governments, and pay rates changed from twenty-cents a day to five dollars a month.
and was granted full membership. But the Borden and King governments made it clear that “Canada lived ‘in a fireproof house far from inflammable materials’ and felt no automatic obligation to the principle of collective security”. Very much like the United States, after the great war Canada turned away from international politics. Instead, King focused his attention on good relations with the United States and on greater independence from Great Britain, moving into a position of near isolation. Thus, in 1922 King refused to support the British to enforce a peace settlement during the Chanak Crisis
, when revolutionary Turkey
attacked and drove out the Greek in Asia Minor. At an Imperial Conference in 1923 it was agreed that no resolution was binding unless approved by each dominion parliament. Canada then for the first time signed a treaty (the 1923 Halibut Treaty
with the US) without British participation, and it proceeded to establish its own embassy in Washington. Further steps to independence were the Balfour Declaration of 1926 and the Statute of Westminster
in 1931.
Canadians were all the more preoccupied with domestic economic problems and chose to remain neutral throughout the 1930s. Japan’s invasion of Manchuria raised little concern in Canada, as did Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 or Italy
’s invasion of Ethiopia
in 1935. The Canadian government declared its neutrality on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
in 1936 where Francisco Franco
lead a military uprising, supported with military hardware and tens of thousands of troops by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy against the legitimate Spanish government. Nevertheless, many Canadians volunteered to fight for the Spanish Republic
in the International Brigades and couldn’t be deterred by the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1937, outlawing participation by Canadians in foreign wars. Eventually, 1,546 Canadians participated, mainly in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
(also called “Mac-Paps”) of which 721 were killed. Except for France, no other country gave as great a proportion of its population as volunteers in Spain than Canada.
Despite of its expressed neutrality, in 1936, Canada began a modest program of rearmament and in 1937, King let Britain know that Canada would support the Empire in case of a war in Europe. He visited Germany in June 1937 and met with Adolf Hitler
. Like many other political leaders of the time, King was seduced by Hitler's charm and rehearsed simplicity and he supported the policy of "appeasement" of Germany. King and other leaders remained quiet when Hitler annexed Austria
in 1938 and Bohemia
in 1939.
With the rise of anti-Semitism
in Germany and the growing trickle of refugees arriving in the country, Canada began to actively restrict Jewish immigration by 1938. Frederick Charles Blair
, the country’s top immigration bureaucrat, raised the amount of money immigrants had to possess to come to Canada from $5,000 to $15,000. As well, immigrants had to prove they were farmers, which no Jew coming from central Europe was. Senator Cairine Wilson
was one of the country's leading voices against fascism and one of the few non-Jews lobbying for the refugees but she was unable to get Mackenzie King to intervene. He himself shared the anti-Semitism of many Canadians; in his diary he wrote: "We must seek to keep this part of the continent free from unrest and from too great an intermixture of foreign strains of blood."
“Through government inaction and Blair’s bureaucratic anti-Semitism, Canada emerged from the war with one of the worst records of Jewish refugee resettlement in the world. Between 1933 and 1939, Canada accepted only 4,000 of the 800,000 Jews who had escaped from Nazi-controlled Europe.”
The Canadian economy, like the economies of many other countries, improved in an unexpected way with the outbreak of the Second World War. When Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, Mackenzie King was finally convinced that military action would be necessary, but advised George VI
, King of Canada, to wait until September 10, after parliament had debated the matter, to declare war (unlike World War I, when Canada was automatically at war as soon as Britain was). Ultimately, more than one million Canadians served in armed forces.
, were unsuccessful. The bulk of Canadian land forces remained undeployed until the landings in Sicily and Italy in 1943. In 1944, Canadian forces successfully captured Juno Beach
during the Battle of Normandy
, and by the autumn, an entire field army under Canadian command was instrumental in liberating the Netherlands, for which the Dutch still fondly remember Canadians today.
With over a million Canadians serving in the Armed Forces during the war, enormous new employment opportunities appeared for women in workplaces previously unknown to them. To encourage women to work in factories, machine shops, and other heavy industries, the Canadian government offered free child-care and tax breaks. Elsie MacGill
, an aeronautical engineer who supervised the production of Hawker Hurricane
aircraft for the Canada Car and Foundry
Company became a celebrated war hero known as "Queen of the Hurricanes."
built in 1936 in Newfoundland
was leased by Britain to Canada for 99 years because of its urgent need for the movement of fighter and bomber aircraft to Britain. Canada gave Britain gifts totalling $3.5 billion during the war; Britain used it to buy Canadian food and war supplies.
With rising pressure from the people, on June 21, 1940, King passed the National Resources Mobilization Act (NRMA) which gave the government the power to "call out every man in Canada for military training for the defence of Canada", and only Canada. Conscripts could not be sent overseas to fight. English Canadians, expectedly, were displeased and took to calling these soldiers "zombies" who they stereotyped as French Canadians who were "sitting comfortably" while their countrymen died.
On April 27, 1942, Mackenzie King held a national plebiscite to decide on the issue, having made campaign promises to avoid conscription (and, it is thought, winning the election on that very point. The majority of English Canadians voted in favour of the conscription, while the majority of French Canadians did not. Nevertheless, the final result was a yes, which granted King the permission to bring in a conscription law if he wanted. However, the issue was put off for another two years, until November 1944 when King decided on a levy of NRMA troops for overseas service. There were riots in Quebec and a mutiny
by conscripts based in Terrace, British Columbia
. An aged Henri Bourassa also spoke out against the decision.
Some 13,000 NRMA men eventually left Canada, but only 2,463 reached units in the field before the end of the fighting. 69 died in battle.
When Canada declared war on Japan in December 1941, members of the non-Japanese population of British Columbia, including municipal government offices, local newspapers and businesses called for the internment of the Japanese. In British Columbia
, some claimed that Japanese residents who worked in the fishing industry were charting the coastline for the Japanese navy
, and many of their boats were confiscated. The pressure from the public was so great that early in 1942 the government gave in to the pressure and began the internment of both Japanese nationals and Japanese Canadian
citizens. Most of the nearly 22,000 people of Japanese
descent who lived in Canada, were naturalized or native-born citizens. Those unwilling to live in internment camps faced the possibility of deportation to Japan.
Unlike Japanese American internment
, where families were generally kept together, Canada initially sent its male evacuees to road camps in the British Columbian interior, to sugar beet
projects on the Prairie
s, or to internment in a POW camp in Ontario
, while women and children were moved to six inland British Columbia towns. There, the living conditions were so poor that the citizens of wartime Japan even sent supplemental food shipments through the Red Cross. During the period of detention, the Canadian government spent one-third the per capita amount expended by the U.S. on Japanese American evacuees.
World war
A world war is a war affecting the majority of the world's most powerful and populous nations. World wars span multiple countries on multiple continents, with battles fought in multiple theaters....
s and Interwar Years Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
experienced economic gain, more freedom for women and new technological advancements.
World War I
On June 28, 1914, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-HungaryAustria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
was assassinated, setting off a chain of events leading to World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. At the time, Canadians were more concerned with events within their own country than European affairs, specifically in the Balkans
Balkans
The Balkans is a geopolitical and cultural region of southeastern Europe...
where crises and wars had been brutal perennials for generations. The summer of 1914 brought a second year of drought turning wheat fields into parched deserts while the two new transcontinental railways the Grand Trunk Pacific and the Canadian Northern fell further into debt, sending the thousands of men who had helped build them into unemployment. Canada was facing its worst depression since the 1890s. Canadians hoped the Great Power
Great power
A great power is a nation or state that has the ability to exert its influence on a global scale. Great powers characteristically possess military and economic strength and diplomatic and cultural influence which may cause small powers to consider the opinions of great powers before taking actions...
s of Europe could keep the peace as they had done many times before in earlier disputes of the century. Besides, so far Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
had no reason to join in the squabble forming on the main continent, leaving no obligation for Canada to join if war did break out between Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
and Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
. News of war did not make a stir in Canada until Germany invaded Belgium as part of the Schlieffen Plan
Schlieffen Plan
The Schlieffen Plan was the German General Staff's early 20th century overall strategic plan for victory in a possible future war in which the German Empire might find itself fighting on two fronts: France to the west and Russia to the east...
, and the British delivered an ultimatum to Kaiser Wilhelm
Kaiser Wilhelm
Kaiser Wilhelm is a common reference to two German emperors:* Wilhelm I, German Emperor , King of Prussia; became the first Kaiser of a united Germany...
: withdraw from Belgium by August 4 or Britain would be at a state of war with Germany.
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
. Soldiers and Canada's few sailors manned Halifax
City of Halifax
Halifax is a city in Canada, which was the capital of the province of Nova Scotia and shire town of Halifax County. It was the largest city in Atlantic Canada until it was amalgamated into Halifax Regional Municipality in 1996...
fortifications and brought guns to command the St. Lawrence river. In Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria, British Columbia
Victoria is the capital city of British Columbia, Canada and is located on the southern tip of Vancouver Island off Canada's Pacific coast. The city has a population of about 78,000 within the metropolitan area of Greater Victoria, which has a population of 360,063, the 15th most populous Canadian...
Premier Richard McBride
Richard McBride
Sir Richard McBride, KCMG was a British Columbian politician and is often considered the founder of the British Columbia Conservative Party. McBride was first elected to the provincial legislature in the 1898 election, and served in the cabinet of James Dunsmuir from 1900 to 1901...
signed a cheque for $1,150,000 and bought two submarines from a Seattle shipyard, so at least British Columbia's coast was not completely defenceless. On August 2 armed militia mounted guard on bridges, canals, tunnels and railway stations in preparation. In Ottawa
Ottawa
Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario...
, the Minister of Militia, Colonel Sam Hughes
Sam Hughes
For other people of the same name see Sam Hughes Sir Samuel Hughes, KCB, PC was the Canadian Minister of Militia and Defence during World War I...
, had dreamed for years of leading Canadians to war and had for a long time preached and prepared for war with Germany and now had only to wait on London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
to make the first move, much to his irritation, but was persuaded by the octogenarian quartermaster general Major-General Donald Alexander Macdonald
Donald Alexander Macdonald
Donald Alexander Macdonald, PC was a Canadian politician.Born in 1817 in St. Raphael's, Ontario, Donald Alexander Macdonald studied at St Raphael's College under the first Catholic Bishop of Ontario, Alexander Macdonell...
to be patient. On August 4 8:55 P.M., Canada got the news and Hughes was ecstatic: Britain was at war with Germany.
Canada was then automatically at war, as she did not yet have control over her foreign policy — not that there were many dissenters. The war was initially popular even among French Canadians, including Henri Bourassa
Henri Bourassa
Joseph-Napoléon-Henri Bourassa was a French Canadian political leader and publisher. He is seen by many as an ideological father of Canadian nationalism....
, who historically looked afoul at the British Empire. Liberal leader Wilfrid Laurier
Wilfrid Laurier
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, GCMG, PC, KC, baptized Henri-Charles-Wilfrid Laurier was the seventh Prime Minister of Canada from 11 July 1896 to 6 October 1911....
created a 'party truce' for as long as Canada was in danger and had those dissenters in the liberal caucus hold their tongues. When asked what Canada 'must do' by the press, Laurier responded "When the call comes, our answer goes at once, and it goes in the classical language of the British answer to the call of duty, 'Ready, aye, ready!'" Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Canada
The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...
Robert Borden
Robert Borden
Sir Robert Laird Borden, PC, GCMG, KC was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as the eighth Prime Minister of Canada from October 10, 1911 to July 10, 1920, and was the third Nova Scotian to hold this office...
called a meeting of Parliament on August 18, and without division of significant debate, MPs approved an overseas contingent of 25,000 men with Canada bearing the full cost: a war appropriation of $50 million and a Canadian Patriotic Fund
Canadian Patriotic Fund
The Canadian Patriotic Fund was a private fund-raising organization incorporated in 1914 by federal statute and headed by Montreal businessman and Conservative Member of Parliament Sir Herbert Brown Ames....
to support the families of men who would fight in Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
. The Cabinet spent many hours trying to devise adequate emergency legislation, resulting in the War Measures Act
War Measures Act
The War Measures Act was a Canadian statute that allowed the government to assume sweeping emergency powers in the event of "war, invasion or insurrection, real or apprehended"...
, decreeing the Cabinet would have the authority to do whatever it deemed necessary for the security, defence, peace, order and welfare of Canada.
In no way was Canada prepared for this scale of war. Its economy
Economy of Canada
Canada has the tenth largest economy in the world , is one of the world's wealthiest nations, and is a member of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development and Group of Eight . As with other developed nations, the Canadian economy is dominated by the service industry, which employs...
could not support it for more than a few months before being hit hard by its cost, as was with other participants. No one expected it to last longer than a few months though, many claiming it would be over by Christmas. Mass recruiting for the war effort began on August 6 with hundreds of telegrams notifying Militia colonel to begin recruiting men between the ages of 18 and 45. Hordes of British immigrants and the unemployed answered the call. Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, hard hit by the depression, accounted for third of the recruits, while two thirds of the recruits were British born. Few recruits came from the Maritimes and just over 1,000 were French. The cities of Toronto
Toronto
Toronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
, Winnipeg
Winnipeg
Winnipeg is the capital and largest city of Manitoba, Canada, and is the primary municipality of the Winnipeg Capital Region, with more than half of Manitoba's population. It is located near the longitudinal centre of North America, at the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers .The name...
and Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
sent enough men each for two battalions. By September 4 there were 32,000 men and 8,000 horses in camp, far more than had been expected. There was an immediate demand for equipment, uniforms and weapons. The Ross Rifle Company worked overtime as did the textile mills and clothing factories. With a force of 32,000 equipped and ready, it soon became apparent that Embarkation from the docks would be a nightmare. Extra ships had to be chartered to carry the additional men. Battalions were marched on to ships only to be marched back off when they didn't fit. Units ignored orders and schedules and crowded the docks not wishing to wait. When it was all done, the last of 30 ships had cleared the harbour, leaving 863 horses, 4,512 tons of baggage, vehicles and ammunition behind, for which another ship had to be called in to pick up.
The first Canadian casualties of the war occurred before these troops arrived in Europe. Sir Christopher Cradock's
Christopher Cradock
Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher "Kit" George Francis Maurice Cradock KCVO CB was a British officer of the Royal Navy. He was born at Hartforth, Richmond, North Yorkshire...
squadron was sunk at the Battle of Coronel
Battle of Coronel
The First World War naval Battle of Coronel took place on 1 November 1914 off the coast of central Chile near the city of Coronel. German Kaiserliche Marine forces led by Vice-Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee met and defeated a Royal Navy squadron commanded by Rear-Admiral Sir Christopher...
off the coast of Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
, claiming four midshipmen who became Canada's first war dead. By the time that the First Contingent reached England on October 14 it became apparent the war would not be over by Christmas. Germany's initial rapid successes in Belgium and France had come to halt and both sides were starting to dig into their positions.
Canadians fought at Ypres
Ypres
Ypres is a Belgian municipality located in the Flemish province of West Flanders. The municipality comprises the city of Ypres and the villages of Boezinge, Brielen, Dikkebus, Elverdinge, Hollebeke, Sint-Jan, Vlamertinge, Voormezele, Zillebeke, and Zuidschote...
, the Somme
Somme
Somme is a department of France, located in the north of the country and named after the Somme river. It is part of the Picardy region of France....
, Passchendaele, and other important battles, originally under British command, but eventually under a unified Canadian command. From a Canadian point of view the most important battle of the war was the Battle of Vimy Ridge
Battle of Vimy Ridge
The Battle of Vimy Ridge was a military engagement fought primarily as part of the Battle of Arras, in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France, during the First World War. The main combatants were the Canadian Corps, of four divisions, against three divisions of the German Sixth Army...
in 1917, during which Canadian troops captured a fortified German hill that had eluded both the British and French. Vimy, as well as the success of the Canadian flying ace Billy Bishop
Billy Bishop
Air Marshal William Avery "Billy" Bishop VC, CB, DSO & Bar, MC, DFC, ED was a Canadian First World War flying ace, officially credited with 72 victories, making him the top Canadian ace, and according to some sources, the top ace of the British Empire.-Early life:Bishop was born in Owen Sound,...
, helped give Canada a new sense of identity.
With mounting costs at home, Sir Thomas Whyte introduced the first income tax
Income tax
An income tax is a tax levied on the income of individuals or businesses . Various income tax systems exist, with varying degrees of tax incidence. Income taxation can be progressive, proportional, or regressive. When the tax is levied on the income of companies, it is often called a corporate...
in Canada as a "temporary" measure. The lowest bracket was 4% and highest was 25%.
More than 620,000 Canadians served in the war. Of these, more than 60,000 died and more than 155,000 were wounded.
The conscription crisis of 1917
Robert Borden
Sir Robert Laird Borden, PC, GCMG, KC was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as the eighth Prime Minister of Canada from October 10, 1911 to July 10, 1920, and was the third Nova Scotian to hold this office...
had originally promised not to introduce conscription, but now believed it was necessary to win the war. The Military Service Act was passed in July, but there was fierce opposition, mostly from French Canadians (led not only by Bourassa, but also by Wilfrid Laurier
Wilfrid Laurier
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, GCMG, PC, KC, baptized Henri-Charles-Wilfrid Laurier was the seventh Prime Minister of Canada from 11 July 1896 to 6 October 1911....
), as well as Quakers, Mennonites, and other pacifists
Pacifism
Pacifism is the opposition to war and violence. The term "pacifism" was coined by the French peace campaignerÉmile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress inGlasgow in 1901.- Definition :...
. Borden's government almost collapsed, but he was able to form a Union
Unionist Party (Canada)
The Unionist Party was formed in 1917 by Members of Parliament in Canada who supported the "Union government" formed by Sir Robert Borden during the First World War....
government with the Liberal opposition (although Laurier did not join the new government). In the 1917 election
Canadian federal election, 1917
The 1917 Canadian federal election was held on December 17, 1917, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 13th Parliament of Canada. Described by historian Michael Bliss as the "most bitter election in Canadian history", it was fought mainly over the issue of conscription...
, the Union government was re-elected, but with no support from Quebec. Over the next year, the war finally ended, with very few Canadian conscripts actually participating.
Halifax Explosion
Halifax, Nova Scotia, was the main staging point for convoys making trans-Atlantic crossings. On December 6, 1917, a Belgian relief ship collided with the Mont-BlancSS Mont-Blanc
The SS Mont-Blanc was a French freighter which exploded while carrying ammunition in Halifax Harbour on December 6, 1917 causing the Halifax Explosion which killed 2000 people. The explosion was caused by a collision with the Norwegian ship SS Imo...
, a French munitions ship in Halifax harbour. The crash set the Mont-Blanc on fire; its holds were full of benzol, picric acid, and TNT. In twenty minutes it exploded with a force stronger than any man-made explosion before it, destroying most of Halifax and the surrounding towns. Out of a population of 50,000, 1600 people were killed and over 9,000 injured; hundreds were blinded by flying glass. The city was evacuated and dropped out of the war effort, focusing primarily on economic survival.
Post-war society
During the war, the woman's suffrage movement gained support. The provinces began extending voting rights to women in 1916, and women were finally allowed to vote in federal elections in 1918. Canada was also faced with the return of thousands of soldiers, with few jobs waiting for them at home. They also brought back with them the Spanish FluSpanish flu
The 1918 flu pandemic was an influenza pandemic, and the first of the two pandemics involving H1N1 influenza virus . It was an unusually severe and deadly pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin...
, which killed over 50 000 people by 1919, almost the same number that had been killed in the war.
One Big Union (Canada)
The One Big Union was a Canadian syndicalist trade union active primarily in the Western part of the country. It was formally founded in Calgary on June 4, 1919 but lost most members by 1922. It finally merged into the Canadian Labour Congress in 1956.-Background:Towards the end of World War I, a...
was formed by trade union syndicalists
Syndicalism
Syndicalism is a type of economic system proposed as a replacement for capitalism and an alternative to state socialism, which uses federations of collectivised trade unions or industrial unions...
with the intent of improving conditions for all workers, not just in a single workplace, industry, or sector. The OBU had some influence on the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919
Winnipeg General Strike of 1919
The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919 was one of the most influential strikes in Canadian history, and became the platform for future labour reforms....
, which business and political leaders saw as an outbreak of Bolshevism
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
, especially since the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
had recently been formed. The army was sent in to break the strike and the entire Winnipeg police force
Winnipeg Police Service
The Winnipeg Police Service is the police force of the city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.-History:When Winnipeg became a city in 1873, an election was held to select the city's new Mayor and Aldermen. Those appointed decided to hire city officials, including a Chief Constable. On February 23,...
was fired and replaced with a much larger and better paid force of armed special constables. Although the Winnipeg strike is the best known, it was part of a larger strike wave that swept the country. Special constables, vigilante "citizens" organizations, and replacement workers were mobilized in strikebreaking throughout the country in this period.
Meanwhile, in western Canada, and to some extent in the Maritimes, populist
Populism
Populism can be defined as an ideology, political philosophy, or type of discourse. Generally, a common theme compares "the people" against "the elite", and urges social and political system changes. It can also be defined as a rhetorical style employed by members of various political or social...
reformers were pushing for increased provincial rights and a focus on agriculture, rather than the industrial focus of Central Canada
Central Canada
Central Canada is a region consisting of Canada's two largest and most populous provinces: Ontario and Quebec. Due to their high populations, Ontario and Quebec have traditionally held a significant amount of political power in Canada, leading to some amount of resentment from other regions of the...
. They formed the Progressive Party of Canada
Progressive Party of Canada
The Progressive Party of Canada was a political party in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba...
, which supported Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...
when the Liberals had a minority government in 1925-26. King eventually lost support, however, because of the trade tariffs issue, as well as a liquor smuggling scandal. When his request that parliament be dissolved was rejected by the Governor General of Canada
Governor General of Canada
The Governor General of Canada is the federal viceregal representative of the Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II...
(see King-Byng Affair
King-Byng Affair
The King–Byng Affair was a Canadian constitutional crisis that occurred in 1926, when the Governor General of Canada, the Lord Byng of Vimy, refused a request by his prime minister, William Lyon Mackenzie King, to dissolve parliament and call a general election....
), he was forced to resign in 1926, but was re-appointed after his party won the election later that year
Canadian federal election, 1926
The Canadian federal election of 1926 was held on September 14 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 16th Parliament of Canada. The election was called following an event known as the King-Byng Affair...
, after which, at an Imperial Conference
1926 Imperial Conference
The 1926 Imperial Conference was the sixth Imperial Conference held amongst the Prime Ministers of the dominions of the British Empire. It was held in London from 19 October to 22 November 1926...
, King advocated for the redefining of the role of the Governor General and the gain of increased independence for Canada in the Balfour Declaration of 1926.
Radio
Old-time radio
Old-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...
first appeared in Canada in the 1920s, but most Canadian-owned stations had weak signals compared with American stations. A decade later, the country had 60 different radio stations but 40% of Canadians could only tune in American stations. Many of the Canadian stations that did exist simply rebroadcast American radio shows to Canadian audiences, and little funding was available for Canadian content. The most notable exceptions were religious radio shows, such as "Back to the Bible Hour," produced by Alberta's premier, William Aberhart
William Aberhart
William Aberhart , also known as Bible Bill for his outspoken Baptist views, was a Canadian politician and the seventh Premier of Alberta between 1935 and 1943. The Social Credit party believed the reason for the depression was that people did not have enough money to spend, so the government...
. Pressure from Graham Spry
Graham Spry
- Further reading :*Babe, Robert. "Graham Spry" in Canadian Communications Thought: Ten Foundational Writers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-7949-0.*McChesney, Robert W. , Canadian Journal of Communication 24....
and the Canadian Radio League encouraged Mackenzie King to request a Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting
Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting
The Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting, otherwise known as the Aird Commission, was chaired by John Aird and examined Canada's broadcasting industry. The report released its findings in 1929 when it concluded that Canada was in need of a publicly funded radio broadcast system...
. The commission's report called for a national radio station to encourage national sentiment, and in 1932, the government of R.B. Bennett established the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, transformed into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
four years later.
The Great Depression
Canada was hard hit by the worldwide Great DepressionGreat Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
that began in 1929. While the decline started in the United States, it quickly spread to Canada. The first industry affected was wheat farming, which saw a collapse in prices. This impoverished the economies of the Prairie provinces, but as wheat was then Canada's largest export it also hurt the rest of the country. With the collapse of the construction industry, lumbering was even worse hit, as there were few alternative jobs in the lumbering region. This was soon followed by a deep recession in manufacturing, first caused by a drop-off in demand in the United States, and then by Canadians also not buying more than bare essentials. The auto industry that prospered so greatly in the 1920s was badly hit. Construction came to a halt. People who lost jobs because of layoffs and closures had a very hard time finding a new ones--especially older men and teenagers. Unemployment
Unemployment
Unemployment , as defined by the International Labour Organization, occurs when people are without jobs and they have actively sought work within the past four weeks...
rose to 25 per cent.
Government reaction
Prime Minister Mackenzie KingWilliam Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...
said that everyone should believe the crisis would pass and he refused to send federal aid to any Tory-run Provinces, a decision which he never lived down. Additionally, he introduced only moderate relief efforts. The Liberals lost the 1930 election
Canadian federal election, 1930
The Canadian federal election of 1930 was held on July 28, 1930 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 17th Parliament of Canada...
to Richard Bedford Bennett and the Conservatives. Bennett, a successful Western businessman, campaigned on high tariffs and large scale spending, but as deficits increased he became wary and cut back severely on Federal spending. With falling support and the depression only getting worse Bennett attempted to introduce policies based on the New Deal
New Deal
The New Deal was a series of economic programs implemented in the United States between 1933 and 1936. They were passed by the U.S. Congress during the first term of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. The programs were Roosevelt's responses to the Great Depression, and focused on what historians call...
of President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
(FDR) in the United States, but this was largely unsuccessful. The government became a focus of popular discontent, even though its policies were largely the same as those of other Western governments. Canadian car owners who could no longer afford gasoline reverted to having their vehicles pulled by horses and dubbed them Bennett Buggies
Bennett buggy
A Bennett buggy was a term used in Canada during the Great Depression to describe a car which had its engine and windows taken out and was pulled by a horse...
. Bennett's perceived failures during the Great Depression led to the re-election of Mackenzie King's Liberals in the 1935 election
Canadian federal election, 1935
The Canadian federal election of 1935 was held on October 14, 1935 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 18th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King won a majority government, defeating Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's Conservative Party.The central...
.
Although the United States began to see rapid improvements as a result of FDR's policies, Canada saw far less growth. Nevertheless, by 1936 the worst of the Depression was over. Mackenzie King implemented some relief programs such as the National Housing Act and National Employment Commission, and also established the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, commonly known as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada, is a Canadian crown corporation that serves as the national public radio and television broadcaster...
(1936) and Trans-Canada Airlines (1937, the precursor to Air Canada
Air Canada
Air Canada is the flag carrier and largest airline of Canada. The airline, founded in 1936, provides scheduled and charter air transport for passengers and cargo to 178 destinations worldwide. It is the world's tenth largest passenger airline by number of destinations, and the airline is a...
). However, it took until 1939 and the outbreak of war for the Canadian economy to return to 1929 levels.
New parties
Progressive Party of Canada
The Progressive Party of Canada was a political party in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba...
and United Farmers
United Farmers of Canada
The United Farmers of Canada was a radical farmers organization. It was established in 1926 as the United Farmers of Canada as a merger of the Farmers' Union of Canada and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association...
Parties had achieved some success in the 1920s, but during the 1930s, their members generally joined other parties, like the Social Credit movement
Canadian social credit movement
The Canadian social credit movement was a Canadian political movement originally based on the Social Credit theory of Major C. H. Douglas. Its supporters were colloquially known as Socreds...
and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.
In Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
, a Christian radio broadcaster named William "Bible Bill" Aberhart
William Aberhart
William Aberhart , also known as Bible Bill for his outspoken Baptist views, was a Canadian politician and the seventh Premier of Alberta between 1935 and 1943. The Social Credit party believed the reason for the depression was that people did not have enough money to spend, so the government...
became interested in politics partly because the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
had been especially harsh on Albertan farmers. Particularly, he was drawn to the "social credit
Social Credit
Social Credit is an economic philosophy developed by C. H. Douglas , a British engineer, who wrote a book by that name in 1924. Social Credit is described by Douglas as "the policy of a philosophy"; he called his philosophy "practical Christianity"...
" theories of Major C. H. Douglas
C. H. Douglas
Major C. H. Douglas MIMechE, MIEE, , was a British engineer and pioneer of the Social Credit economic reform movement.-Education and engineering career:...
, a Scottish engineer. From 1932 to 1935, Aberhart lobbied for the governing political party, the United Farmers of Alberta
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
, to adopt these theories. The basis of social credit is that the difference in production cost and individuals' purchasing power should be supplemented through government grants. When these efforts failed, Aberhart helped found the Social Credit Party of Alberta
Social Credit Party of Alberta
The Alberta Social Credit Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada, that was founded on the social credit monetary policy and conservative Christian social values....
, which won the 1935 provincial election
Alberta general election, 1935
The Alberta general election of 1935 was the eighth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on August 22, 1935 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta....
by a landslide with over 54% of the popular vote.
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...
(CCF) was founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
, farm, co-operative and labour
Labour movement
The term labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labour...
groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction
League for Social Reconstruction
The League for Social Reconstruction was a circle of Canadian socialist intellectuals officially formed in 1932, though it had its beginnings during a camping retreat in 1931. These academics were advocating radical social and economic reforms and political education. Industrialization,...
. The CCF aimed to alleviate the suffering of the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
through economic reform and public "co-operation". Many of the party's first Members of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
(MPs) were former members of the Ginger Group
Ginger Group (Canada)
The Ginger Group was not a formal political party in Canada, but a faction of radical Progressive and Labour Members of Parliament who advocated socialism. The group is said to have taken its name from Ginger Goodwin, a United Mine Workers organizer. Ginger was shot dead outside Cumberland, British...
of left-wing Progressive
Progressive Party of Canada
The Progressive Party of Canada was a political party in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba...
and Labour MPs. In its first election in 1935
Canadian federal election, 1935
The Canadian federal election of 1935 was held on October 14, 1935 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 18th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King won a majority government, defeating Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's Conservative Party.The central...
, seven CCF MPs were elected to the House of Commons
Canadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
. Eight were elected in the following election in 1940
Canadian federal election, 1940
The Canadian federal election of 1940 was the 19th general election in Canadian history. It was held March 26, 1940 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 19th Parliament of Canada...
.
The period also saw the rise of the openly fascist National Unity Party (NUP) and the Communist Party of Canada
Communist Party of Canada
The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament, Ontario...
, which was declared illegal under Section 98
Section 98
Section 98 of the Criminal Code of Canada was a law enacted after the Winnipeg General Strike banning "unlawful associations." It was used in the 1930s against the Communist Party of Canada....
of the Criminal Code of Canada
Criminal Code of Canada
The Criminal Code or Code criminel is a law that codifies most criminal offences and procedures in Canada. Its official long title is "An Act respecting the criminal law"...
from 1931 to 1936. The party continued to exist, but was under the constant threat of legal harassment, and was for all intents and purposes an underground organization until 1936. The party greatly contributed in the mobilisation of volunteers to fight in the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
. The NUP and, again, the Communist Party were banned in 1940.
On to Ottawa Trek
Department of National Defence (Canada)
The Department of National Defence , frequently referred to by its acronym DND, is the department within the government of Canada with responsibility for all matters concerning the defence of Canada...
to organize work camps where the labour of unemployed single men was used to construct roads and other public works with little remuneration. The poor working conditions in the camps led to serious unrest, including a major strike in Vancouver in April 1935. The strikers’ demands included adequate first aid
First aid
First aid is the provision of initial care for an illness or injury. It is usually performed by non-expert, but trained personnel to a sick or injured person until definitive medical treatment can be accessed. Certain self-limiting illnesses or minor injuries may not require further medical care...
equipment in the camps, the extension of the Workmen’s Compensation Act
Workers' compensation
Workers' compensation is a form of insurance providing wage replacement and medical benefits to employees injured in the course of employment in exchange for mandatory relinquishment of the employee's right to sue his or her employer for the tort of negligence...
to include camp workers, and that workers in camps be granted the right to vote in Federal elections
Elections in Canada
Canada holds elections for several levels of government: nationally , provincially and territorially, and municipally. Elections are also held for self governing First Nations and for many other public and private organizations including corporations and trade unions...
. Public support was enormous, and the action snowballed into a bigger movement when the men decided to take their grievances to the federal government. In June 1935, hundreds of men boarded boxcars headed East in what would come to be known as the “On to Ottawa Trek”.
The protest was halted, however, before it could reach the capital. In Regina
Regina, Saskatchewan
Regina is the capital city of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. The city is the second-largest in the province and a cultural and commercial centre for southern Saskatchewan. It is governed by Regina City Council. Regina is the cathedral city of the Roman Catholic and Romanian Orthodox...
, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police , literally ‘Royal Gendarmerie of Canada’; colloquially known as The Mounties, and internally as ‘The Force’) is the national police force of Canada, and one of the most recognized of its kind in the world. It is unique in the world as a national, federal,...
(RCMP) confined the protesters in a local stadium. Only the eight leaders of the protest were actually allowed to proceed to Ottawa, where they were granted a meeting with Prime Minister
Prime Minister of Canada
The Prime Minister of Canada is the primary minister of the Crown, chairman of the Cabinet, and thus head of government for Canada, charged with advising the Canadian monarch or viceroy on the exercise of the executive powers vested in them by the constitution...
R.B. Bennett. Bennett attacked the group as radicals, and eventually had the delegation hustled out of his office. Upon returning to Regina to unite with the rest of the protesters, they organized large public rallies, which broke out into riots when the Federal government deployed police to break up the rallies and arrest the leaders. Two people were killed as a result of the riot and many more injured. When the trek was over the government provided free transportation back to the camps. These camps were soon abolished following Bennett's electoral defeat, and new, less extensive, relief work schemes were devised on farms and in forestry camps in conjunction with provincial governments, and pay rates changed from twenty-cents a day to five dollars a month.
Canadian foreign policy in the Interwar Years
At the end of World War I Canada was a founding member of the League of NationsLeague of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
and was granted full membership. But the Borden and King governments made it clear that “Canada lived ‘in a fireproof house far from inflammable materials’ and felt no automatic obligation to the principle of collective security”. Very much like the United States, after the great war Canada turned away from international politics. Instead, King focused his attention on good relations with the United States and on greater independence from Great Britain, moving into a position of near isolation. Thus, in 1922 King refused to support the British to enforce a peace settlement during the Chanak Crisis
Chanak Crisis
The Chanak Crisis, also called Chanak Affair in September 1922 was the threatened attack by Turkish troops on British and French troops stationed near Çanakkale to guard the Dardanelles neutral zone. The Turkish troops had recently defeated Greek forces and recaptured İzmir...
, when revolutionary Turkey
Turkey
Turkey , known officially as the Republic of Turkey , is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe...
attacked and drove out the Greek in Asia Minor. At an Imperial Conference in 1923 it was agreed that no resolution was binding unless approved by each dominion parliament. Canada then for the first time signed a treaty (the 1923 Halibut Treaty
Halibut Treaty
The Halibut Treaty was a 1923 Canadian–American agreement concerning fishing rights in the northern Pacific Ocean.The treaty established the International Pacific Halibut Commission as a mechanism for the joint management of the Pacific halibut which, at that time, was in severe decline...
with the US) without British participation, and it proceeded to establish its own embassy in Washington. Further steps to independence were the Balfour Declaration of 1926 and the Statute of Westminster
Statute of Westminster 1931
The Statute of Westminster 1931 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Passed on 11 December 1931, the Act established legislative equality for the self-governing dominions of the British Empire with the United Kingdom...
in 1931.
Canadians were all the more preoccupied with domestic economic problems and chose to remain neutral throughout the 1930s. Japan’s invasion of Manchuria raised little concern in Canada, as did Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 or Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
’s invasion of Ethiopia
Ethiopia
Ethiopia , officially known as the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It is the second-most populous nation in Africa, with over 82 million inhabitants, and the tenth-largest by area, occupying 1,100,000 km2...
in 1935. The Canadian government declared its neutrality on the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...
in 1936 where Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco
Francisco Franco y Bahamonde was a Spanish general, dictator and head of state of Spain from October 1936 , and de facto regent of the nominally restored Kingdom of Spain from 1947 until his death in November, 1975...
lead a military uprising, supported with military hardware and tens of thousands of troops by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy against the legitimate Spanish government. Nevertheless, many Canadians volunteered to fight for the Spanish Republic
Second Spanish Republic
The Second Spanish Republic was the government of Spain between April 14 1931, and its destruction by a military rebellion, led by General Francisco Franco....
in the International Brigades and couldn’t be deterred by the Foreign Enlistment Act of 1937, outlawing participation by Canadians in foreign wars. Eventually, 1,546 Canadians participated, mainly in the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion
The Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion or Mac-Paps were a battalion of Canadians who fought as part of the XV International Brigade on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War. Except for France, no other country gave a greater proportion of its population as volunteers in Spain than Canada. The...
(also called “Mac-Paps”) of which 721 were killed. Except for France, no other country gave as great a proportion of its population as volunteers in Spain than Canada.
Despite of its expressed neutrality, in 1936, Canada began a modest program of rearmament and in 1937, King let Britain know that Canada would support the Empire in case of a war in Europe. He visited Germany in June 1937 and met with Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...
. Like many other political leaders of the time, King was seduced by Hitler's charm and rehearsed simplicity and he supported the policy of "appeasement" of Germany. King and other leaders remained quiet when Hitler annexed Austria
Austria
Austria , officially the Republic of Austria , is a landlocked country of roughly 8.4 million people in Central Europe. It is bordered by the Czech Republic and Germany to the north, Slovakia and Hungary to the east, Slovenia and Italy to the south, and Switzerland and Liechtenstein to the...
in 1938 and Bohemia
Bohemia
Bohemia is a historical region in central Europe, occupying the western two-thirds of the traditional Czech Lands. It is located in the contemporary Czech Republic with its capital in Prague...
in 1939.
With the rise of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
in Germany and the growing trickle of refugees arriving in the country, Canada began to actively restrict Jewish immigration by 1938. Frederick Charles Blair
Frederick Charles Blair
Frederick Charles Blair was the Director of the Government of Canada's Immigration Branch from 1936 to 1943. Blair developed and rigorously enforced strict immigration policies based on race and is most remembered for his successful effort to keep Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany out of Canada...
, the country’s top immigration bureaucrat, raised the amount of money immigrants had to possess to come to Canada from $5,000 to $15,000. As well, immigrants had to prove they were farmers, which no Jew coming from central Europe was. Senator Cairine Wilson
Cairine Wilson
Cairine Reay Mackay Wilson was Canada's first female senator.-Early life:Born Cairine Reay Mackay in Montreal, she was the daughter of Jane Mackay and Robert Mackay, a Liberal Senator and personal friend of Sir Wilfrid Laurier. She attended Elmwood School and was "head girl" in her graduating year...
was one of the country's leading voices against fascism and one of the few non-Jews lobbying for the refugees but she was unable to get Mackenzie King to intervene. He himself shared the anti-Semitism of many Canadians; in his diary he wrote: "We must seek to keep this part of the continent free from unrest and from too great an intermixture of foreign strains of blood."
“Through government inaction and Blair’s bureaucratic anti-Semitism, Canada emerged from the war with one of the worst records of Jewish refugee resettlement in the world. Between 1933 and 1939, Canada accepted only 4,000 of the 800,000 Jews who had escaped from Nazi-controlled Europe.”
World War II
George VI of the United Kingdom
George VI was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Commonwealth from 11 December 1936 until his death...
, King of Canada, to wait until September 10, after parliament had debated the matter, to declare war (unlike World War I, when Canada was automatically at war as soon as Britain was). Ultimately, more than one million Canadians served in armed forces.
Military accomplishments
One of Canada's major contributions to the war was the Commonwealth Air Training Plan, in which over 140,000 Allied pilots and air crews received training at bases in Canada. Canada is widely recognised for its key role in the Battle of the Atlantic. The first major land actions of the war, at Hong Kong and DieppeDieppe Raid
The Dieppe Raid, also known as the Battle of Dieppe, Operation Rutter or later on Operation Jubilee, during the Second World War, was an Allied attack on the German-occupied port of Dieppe on the northern coast of France on 19 August 1942. The assault began at 5:00 AM and by 10:50 AM the Allied...
, were unsuccessful. The bulk of Canadian land forces remained undeployed until the landings in Sicily and Italy in 1943. In 1944, Canadian forces successfully captured Juno Beach
Juno Beach
Juno or Juno Beach was one of five sectors of the Allied invasion of German-occupied France in the Normandy landings on 6 June 1944, during the Second World War. The sector spanned from Saint-Aubin, a village just east of the British Gold sector, to Courseulles, just west of the British Sword sector...
during the Battle of Normandy
Operation Overlord
Operation Overlord was the code name for the Battle of Normandy, the operation that launched the invasion of German-occupied western Europe during World War II by Allied forces. The operation commenced on 6 June 1944 with the Normandy landings...
, and by the autumn, an entire field army under Canadian command was instrumental in liberating the Netherlands, for which the Dutch still fondly remember Canadians today.
Women
Women began to play a more significant part in war efforts, joining the armed forces for the first time (aside from nursing) by means of the Canadian Women's Army Corps, the Royal Canadian Air Force Women's Division, and the Royal Canadian Naval Women's Service (Wrens). Although women were still not allowed to enter combat, they performed a number of other roles in clerical, administrative, and communications divisions. A total of 45,423 women enlisted during the course of the war, and one in nine served overseas.With over a million Canadians serving in the Armed Forces during the war, enormous new employment opportunities appeared for women in workplaces previously unknown to them. To encourage women to work in factories, machine shops, and other heavy industries, the Canadian government offered free child-care and tax breaks. Elsie MacGill
Elsie MacGill
Elizabeth Muriel Gregory "Elsie" MacGill, OC , known as the "Queen of the Hurricanes", was the world's first female aircraft designer. She worked as an aeronautical engineer during the Second World War and did much to make Canada a powerhouse of aircraft construction during her years at Canadian...
, an aeronautical engineer who supervised the production of Hawker Hurricane
Hawker Hurricane
The Hawker Hurricane is a British single-seat fighter aircraft that was designed and predominantly built by Hawker Aircraft Ltd for the Royal Air Force...
aircraft for the Canada Car and Foundry
Canadian Car and Foundry
Canadian Car and Foundry also variously known as "Canadian Car & Foundry," or more familiarly as "Can Car," manufactured buses, railroad rolling stock and later aircraft for the Canadian market...
Company became a celebrated war hero known as "Queen of the Hurricanes."
Aid to Britain
The Gander Air Base now known as Gander International AirportGander International Airport
Gander International Airport is located in Gander, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and is currently run by the Gander Airport Authority. Canadian Forces Base Gander shares the airfield but is a separate entity from the airport.-Early years and prominence:...
built in 1936 in Newfoundland
Newfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
was leased by Britain to Canada for 99 years because of its urgent need for the movement of fighter and bomber aircraft to Britain. Canada gave Britain gifts totalling $3.5 billion during the war; Britain used it to buy Canadian food and war supplies.
The conscription crisis of 1944
As in World War I, the number of volunteers began to run dry as the war dragged on. Mackenzie King had promised, like Borden, not to introduce conscription, though his position was somewhat ambiguous: as he declared to the House of Commons on 10 June 1942: "Not necessarily conscription but conscription if necessary."With rising pressure from the people, on June 21, 1940, King passed the National Resources Mobilization Act (NRMA) which gave the government the power to "call out every man in Canada for military training for the defence of Canada", and only Canada. Conscripts could not be sent overseas to fight. English Canadians, expectedly, were displeased and took to calling these soldiers "zombies" who they stereotyped as French Canadians who were "sitting comfortably" while their countrymen died.
On April 27, 1942, Mackenzie King held a national plebiscite to decide on the issue, having made campaign promises to avoid conscription (and, it is thought, winning the election on that very point. The majority of English Canadians voted in favour of the conscription, while the majority of French Canadians did not. Nevertheless, the final result was a yes, which granted King the permission to bring in a conscription law if he wanted. However, the issue was put off for another two years, until November 1944 when King decided on a levy of NRMA troops for overseas service. There were riots in Quebec and a mutiny
Terrace Mutiny
The Terrace Mutiny was a revolt by Canadian soldiers based in Terrace, British Columbia during World War II. The mutiny, which began on November 24, 1944 and ended on November 29, 1944, was the most serious breach of discipline in Canadian military history...
by conscripts based in Terrace, British Columbia
Terrace, British Columbia
Terrace is a city on the Skeena River in British Columbia, Canada. The Kitselas people, a tribe of the Tsimshian Nation, have lived in the Terrace area for thousands of years. The community population fell between 2001 and 2006 from 12,109 with a regional population of 19,980 to 11,320 and...
. An aged Henri Bourassa also spoke out against the decision.
Some 13,000 NRMA men eventually left Canada, but only 2,463 reached units in the field before the end of the fighting. 69 died in battle.
Japanese internment
British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
, some claimed that Japanese residents who worked in the fishing industry were charting the coastline for the Japanese navy
Japanese Navy
Japanese Navy can refer to:* the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1869-1947* the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, 1947 – present...
, and many of their boats were confiscated. The pressure from the public was so great that early in 1942 the government gave in to the pressure and began the internment of both Japanese nationals and Japanese Canadian
Japanese Canadians
Japanese Canadians are Canadians of Japanese ancestry, and are mostly concentrated on the west coast, and central Canada, especially in and around Vancouver and Toronto. In 2006, there were 98,900 .- Generations :...
citizens. Most of the nearly 22,000 people of Japanese
Japanese Canadians
Japanese Canadians are Canadians of Japanese ancestry, and are mostly concentrated on the west coast, and central Canada, especially in and around Vancouver and Toronto. In 2006, there were 98,900 .- Generations :...
descent who lived in Canada, were naturalized or native-born citizens. Those unwilling to live in internment camps faced the possibility of deportation to Japan.
Unlike Japanese American internment
Japanese American internment
Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...
, where families were generally kept together, Canada initially sent its male evacuees to road camps in the British Columbian interior, to sugar beet
Sugar beet
Sugar beet, a cultivated plant of Beta vulgaris, is a plant whose tuber contains a high concentration of sucrose. It is grown commercially for sugar production. Sugar beets and other B...
projects on the Prairie
Prairie
Prairies are considered part of the temperate grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome by ecologists, based on similar temperate climates, moderate rainfall, and grasses, herbs, and shrubs, rather than trees, as the dominant vegetation type...
s, or to internment in a POW camp in Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, while women and children were moved to six inland British Columbia towns. There, the living conditions were so poor that the citizens of wartime Japan even sent supplemental food shipments through the Red Cross. During the period of detention, the Canadian government spent one-third the per capita amount expended by the U.S. on Japanese American evacuees.
See also
- History of CanadaHistory of CanadaThe history of Canada covers the period from the arrival of Paleo-Indians thousands of years ago to the present day. Canada has been inhabited for millennia by distinctive groups of Aboriginal peoples, among whom evolved trade networks, spiritual beliefs, and social hierarchies...
- History of the Canadian ArmyHistory of the Canadian ArmyThe Canadian Army as such originally only existed under that name from November 1940 to February 1968. However, the term has been traditionally applied to the ground forces of Canada's military from Confederation in 1867 to the present...
- Military history of CanadaMilitary history of CanadaThe military history of Canada comprises hundreds of years of armed actions in the territory encompassing modern Canada, and the role of the Canadian military in conflicts and peacekeeping worldwide. For thousands of years, the area that would become Canada was the site of sporadic intertribal wars...