Solutions To The Great Depression

1. Solutions To The Great Depression Creation of New Political Parties

2. The Communist Party of Canada • The party was founded in Guelph, Ontario. • Members were committed to a workers’ revolution overthrow democratic governments based on the capitalist system, private ownership of wealth. • Communists wanted to eliminate private ownership of business and property.

3. The Communist Party of Canada • They supported the idea that everyone should share equally in the profits of their labour, a philosophy that gained support in those tough economic times. • The collapse of the stock market in 1929 and rapid rise of unemployment suddenly gave Canadian Communists a chance to recruit new supporters. • They blamed blamed big business, the banks, and capitalism for the Great Depression.

4. The Communist Party of Canada • Prime Minister Bennett despised Communism. • On August 11, 1931, he ordered the RCMP to arrest Tim Buck and seven other Canadian Communist leaders. • They were charged with trying to plot the overthrow of the government by illegal and violent means.

5. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation • The CCF party was formed in 1932. • The CCF’s roots were in Western labour and farmers’ groups. • CCF members wanted to dismantle the free enterprise economic system, which they believed had caused the Depression. • They wanted to introduce socialism- an economic system based on government control of the economy so that all people could benefit equally.

6. The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation • The Regina Manifesto, which was approved by the membership in 1933, declared that the CCF would eliminate the domination and exploitation of one class by another and, through economic planning, provide all people with a genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality. • The CCF’s first leader was J.S. Woodworth, who had been a leader of the Winnipeg General strike. • In 1961, CCF party evolved into the New Democratic Party

7. The Social Credit Party • A successful Western movement, led by William Aberhart. • Aberhart, who was often called the “Bible Bill,” was an evangelical minister who wanted the Alberta government to give out payments of $25 a month a “social credit” to every Albertan.

8. The Social Credit Party • Aberhart believed the Depression would end if people had more money to spend. • The $25 credit was appealing to people living in poverty, and Social Credit formed the government of Alberta in 1935. • The party governed Alberta and British Columbia for many years between 1935 and 1992, and also gained a foothold in Quebec. • In the 1970s, internal disputes divided the party, and it gradually disappeared.

9. The Union Nationale • In Quebec, Maurice Duplessis brought together rebellious factions of both liberals and Conservatives to form the Union Nationale. • This new provincial party focused on issues that concerned francophones and attracted voters because of its reform agenda, which included

10. The Union Nationale • Higher minimum wages and provincially owned hydroelectric system. • In 1936, the Union Nationale formed the government in Quebec and Duplessis became premier. He remained in power for most of the time between then and his death in 1959.