Conservative Party of Canada (historical)

The name Conservative Party of Canada has been used twice in Canadian history. For the current party founded 2003, please see the article Conservative Party of Canada.

Bennett and the Great Depression

Meighen was replaced as Tory leader by R.B. Bennett, a millionaire Calgary businessman in 1927. He led the Conservatives to power in the 1930 election as a result with the inability of the Liberal government (or any government in the western world) to deal with the Great Depression. Bennett promised to end the economic crisis in three days by implementing the old Conservative policy of high tariffs and imperial preference.

Related Topics:
R.B. Bennett - 1930 election - Great Depression

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Richard Bedford Bennett

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When this policy failed to generate the desired result Bennett's government had no alternative plan. The party's pro-business, pro-bank inclinations provided no relief to the millions of unemployed who were now becoming increasingly desperate and agitated. The Conservatives seemed indecisive and unable to cope and rapidly lost the confidence of Canadians becoming a focus of hatred, ridicule and contempt. Car owners who could no longer afford gasoline reverted to having their vehicles pulled by horses and dubbed them "Bennett buggies".

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R. B. Bennett faced pressure for radical reforms from within and without the party:

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• The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, formed in 1932, prepared to fight its first election on a socialist program.
• The Social Credit movement was gaining supporters in the west and shocked the country by winning the Alberta provincial election and forming government in September, 1935.
• Bennett's own government suffered a defection as his Trade minister, Henry Herbert Stevens, left the Conservatives to form the Reconstruction Party of Canada when Bennett refused to enact Stevens' plans for drastic economic reform and government intervention in the economy to deal with the crisis.

Bennett attempted to prevent social disorder by evacuating the unemployed to relief camps far away from the cities but this only exacerbated social tensions leading to the On to Ottawa Trek of unemployed protesters who intended to ride the rails from Vancouver to Ottawa (gathering new members along the way) in order to bring their demands for relief to Bennett personally. The trek ended in Regina on July 1, 1935 when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, on orders from the Prime Minister, attacked a public meeting of 3,000 strikers leaving one dead and dozens injured.

Related Topics:
Relief camps - On to Ottawa Trek - Royal Canadian Mounted Police

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Bennett had in desperation attempted to save his government by reversing its laissez-faire policies and, belatedly, implementing "Bennett's New Deal" based on the New Deal of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Bennett proposed progressive income taxation, a minimum wage, a maximum for work week hours, unemployment insurance, health insurance, an expanded pension program, and grants to farmers. The Conservatives' conversion to the concept of a welfare state came too late, and the Tories were routed in the October 1935 election, winning only 40 seats to 173 for Mackenzie King's Liberals.

Related Topics:
Laissez-faire - New Deal - Franklin Delano Roosevelt - Welfare state - October 1935 election

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The Bennett years left the Conservatives in the worst shape they had ever been - not only did enmity towards the Tories continue in Quebec as a legacy of the Conscription Crisis of 1917, - but they were now reviled in the west for their perceived insensitivity to the needs of farmers in the Dust Bowl and westerners turned to Social Credit or the CCF making the Tories their fourth choice. The Conservatives would have to wait twenty years before their fortunes in western Canada revived.

Related Topics:
Conscription Crisis of 1917 - Dust Bowl

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