Relief Camps of the Great Depression, Podcast Ep. 13
During the dirty ‘30s, thousands of single, unemployed men were forced into federally run relief camps: isolated, militarized work sites where they worked under punishing conditions for just 20 cents a day. In this episode of On the Line, we revisit the struggle of these marginalized workers, who ultimately organized a strike and launched one of Canada’s most iconic protest actions: the On-to-Ottawa Trek.
Publication date: February 7, 2022
Podcast length: 25:31
Hosted by: Rod Mickleburgh
Research and writing by: Patricia Wejr and Rod Mickleburgh
Additional research by: Donna Sacuta
Production by: John Mabbott
The decade between the stock market crash of 1929 and the outbreak of WWII in 1939 was the worst economic time in Canada’s history. Millions of Canadians were suddenly unemployed, and governments refused to provide any help to single men, who in desperation would hop on the boxcars looking for work. Many would find themselves, with their hopes dashed, at the end of line: Vancouver BC, the “Terminal City”.
With its relatively mild climate, Vancouver soon found itself the unemployed capital of Canada, with a growing population of hungry and frustrated men who just wanted “work and wages.”
In this environment, the Communist Party of Canada established the Workers’ Unity League, led by the legendary organizer Arthur “Slim” Evans. As numbers grew, the authorities became nervous. They worried that “the Reds” were fomenting revolution, and they schemed to get the unemployed men out of the city.
The solution they came up with was a network of work camps set up throughout the BC interior. It was only by going to one of these camps that single, unemployed men could receive any kind of assistance. They were crammed into bare-bones accommodation and fed meagre food for their hard labour clearing land, building roads, and other projects.
Far from quelling unrest, the camps fed it. Camps all over the province soon organized into Relief Camp Workers’ Unions, under the Communist-led Workers’ Unity League. Resistance followed, in the form of marches, hunger strikes, sit-ins, tin-canning, snake dances, a protest that led to Mayor McGeer reading “The Riot Act” and ultimately, the On-to-Ottawa Trek.