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The On-To-Ottawa Trek
Single Men and the Relief Camps
The Unemployed!
The Great Depression was the hardest on young single men
Why? They were the first to
be let go when jobs needed to be cut.
1. Older married men needed the work more
2. Unemployed women would be supported by their families
Options What did these young
single men do?
1. They rode the rails looking for work in other Canadian cities. Were called drifters
2. Arrived in new cities needing food, shelter and work.
There was no food, shelter or work for these newcomers once they arrived
Think
1. Have you ever been treated badly by people because they are either afraid of you or have judged you?
2. How might you feel if you were one of these men?
3. Why?
Fear Authorities feared
these men might turn violent
1. What if these men organized together with the help of communist?
2. What if they wanted to have a communist revolution???
Government Response To stop a revolution
before it started
Set up unemployment relief camps in remote areas. – Intended to move the ‘trouble makers’ out of the way and out of the cities, to where they could do no harm.
Conditionsi) Run by the Department
of National Defense
ii) Worked 8 hr/day, 6 days/week
iii) Built roads, dug ditches, planted trees
iv) Were paid $0.20 day
v) cabins: 24m x 7m, slept 88 men, 2 per bunk
Think1. How might you feel if
you were one of these men?
2. Why?
3. Would sending you off to a work camp where the conditions were horrible silence you, or make you more likely to protest against your government?
Relief Camp Worker’s Protest
April, 1935 1,500 men from BC
work camps went on strike – Went to Vancouver to demonstrate
May 1st 20,000 striking men and
their supporters paraded in Vancouver
Relief Camp Worker’s Protest May 1st, 20,000 striking
men and their supporters paraded in Vancouver
Strike lasts 2 months
Suggested the strikers take their message to Ottawa to the PM himself
Relief Camp Worker’s Protest
The On-to-Ottawa Trek was born
The On-To-Ottawa Trek Workers had no money
– had to ride the rails to Ottawa
June 3, 1000 strikers climbed on the boxcars of a CPR freight train
CPR employees were sympathetic to the strikers – everybody had had enough and it was time Ottawa knew it!!
Government Response P.M. Bennett was
terrified – the trek had to be stopped!
2,000 Trekkers arrived in Regina – rounded up in the exhibition grounds
8 leaders were given permission to carry on to Ottawa to meet with P.M. Bennett
Trekker’s Response The Regina Riot Bennett and the Trek
leaders met
The meeting was not a success – nothing was resolved
Bennett was called a ‘liar’, Trekkers were called ‘criminals’
Trek leaders returned to Regina determined the trek would continue
The Regina Riot 1935 July 1 – Trekkers held a
meeting in Regina’s Market Square
Bennett ordered RCMP and city police to break up the crowd – they came waving batons
Trekkers resisted. Riot lasted until that night
1 killed, several injured, 130 arrested
Trekkers gathered at Exhibition Grounds
Rioters Converging on an Injured Man
The Regina Riot 1935 The On-To-Ottawa Trek
was over
Trekkers disbanded; many returned to Vancouver at the government’s expense
Relief camps were shut down within the year
The problems of the unemployed continued
Strikers boarding a train after Regina Riot
King or Chaos
1935 Election
Significance
1. Once again – our right to assemble and freedom of speech had been shut down by the government
2. From now on, we will expect more and demand more from our government.
3. Government response – the creation of the welfare state