The Great Depression, Labour Heritage Moment Video
The Great Depression of the 1930s severely impacted British Columbia, leading to a widespread economic collapse and mass unemployment across Canada. Many young men traveled to the West Coast, seeking refuge from the hardship in the milder climate.
This video is part of our Labour Heritage Moments series.
Bob Smeal, who would later become president of the BC Federation of Labour, was one of these individuals, leaving home at age 14. He rode freight trains for free, experiencing homelessness, starvation, loneliness, and cold.
Smeal described the profound uncertainty of not knowing when his next meal would come, often going without food for days. He recounted sleeping in boxcars, using newspapers and brown paper for warmth, night after night, unable to wash or eat properly.
In 1934, Smeal joined the On-to-Ottawa Trek in Vancouver, a movement of thousands of single unemployed men attempting to present their grievances to politicians. He was present at the Regina Riot, where police dispersed the Trek and ordered the men back to the West Coast. The government, unwilling to take responsibility for the failures of capitalism, blamed the working-class, claiming the unemployed were unwilling to work.
Smeal recalled politicians, clergy, and the press asserting that the unemployed “won’t work”. He recounted an instance in Vancouver where a line for snow shoveling jobs, paying 40 cents an hour, would form at 10 PM and stretch for two city blocks, with men waiting all night until 8 AM. Smeal himself stood in such a line all night, only for half the snow to turn to rain by 6 AM, making the wait futile. Despite such efforts, they were still accused of not wanting to work.
These experiences, like Bob Smeal’s, were instrumental in fueling the significant union organizing drives of the 1940s and contributed to the development of a highly militant labour movement in British Columbia.