Political Parties During The Great Depression

Political Parties During
The Great Depression

The negative impacts of the Great Depression developed concern, anger and confusion amongst the Canadian citizens due to the minimal help provided from the two traditional federal political parties. Support was needed financially and emotionally from the public and the Liberal and Conservative parties offered a limited amount hence the creation of two new political parties came into place. The CCF and the Social Credit Party were the two political parties who used the deplorable effects from the Great Depression as their main argument throughout their journey to coming into office provincially. The Great Depression was a huge factor in the formation of new political parties in terms of becoming

Liberal party’s leader, Prime Minister Mackenzie King lost the public’s interest when he committed to not look for solutions to this economic crisis. Prime Minister King’s excuse to why he did not aid the citizens was that to him, the role of working with economic problems was not a role the government should uphold. An immense amount of Canadian citizens were struggling and Prime Minister King’s response was not a response Canadian citizens expected nor were they pleased with. Thus the question came into mind, if the leader of the nation does not assist its citizens through this economic catastrophe who would? In the election of 1930, the Conservative party leader, R.B Bennett took former Prime Minister King’s position due to his disloyalty to Canadian citizens in terms of support and guidance. The Conservative party proposed to help the people who are out of the labor force because of the Great Depression. But Prime Minister R.B Bennett did not enroll programs like relief camps until two years after he came into office because of him being irresolute. Although Prime Minister R.B Bennett could not fulfill his campaign policies of working on developing unemployment insurance, he still did better than Prime Minister King in consideration of support. Prime Minister R.B Bennett set aside a substantial amount of money to

All of western Canada was struggling greatly not only from the loss of beneficial farmland due to the Dust Bowl, but also from the vast amount of people in relief camps because of the downfall of the economy. Relief camps were the last stop for a majority of citizens in Saskatchewan, specifically ⅔ of all Saskatchewanians were on relief. Prime Ministers King and R.B Bennett both loaned considerable amounts of money to help the relief camps, but loaning money to the relief camps was not the only needed solution. Canadian citizens were not only financially devastated but emotionally as well. Being laid off from their jobs in short notice created a barrier from buying the necessities, like food, which developed depression amongst the citizens. The solution to this problem was to provide more social help through social services, which was the main policy on the CCF platform. A small group of angered farmers and politicians came together (CCF) to propose the idea of democratic socialism. This idea interested many desolated citizens who desperately required social aid. Consequently, in the provincial elections in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation gained the position of Official