Canada in the World Wars and Interwar Years

Recruitment poster for the Voltigeurs (Quebec City) invoking duty to the British Empire and to Canada, assistance to France, and French-Canadian military achievements

After three years of a war that was supposed to have been over in three months, Canada was suffering from a shortage of volunteers. Prime Minister Robert Borden had originally promised not to introduce conscription, but now believed it was necessary to win the war. The Military Service Act was passed in July, but there was fierce opposition, mostly from French Canadians (led not only by Bourassa, but also by Wilfrid Laurier), as well as Quakers, Mennonites, and other pacifists. Borden's government almost collapsed, but he was able to form a Union government with the Liberal opposition (although Laurier did not join the new government). In the 1917 election, the Union government was re-elected, but with no support from Quebec. Over the next year, the war finally ended, with very few Canadian conscripts actually participating.

Halifax, Nova Scotia, was the main staging point for convoys making trans-Atlantic crossings. On December 6, 1917, a Belgian relief ship collided with the SS Mont-Blanc, a French munitions ship in Halifax harbour. The crash set the Mont-Blanc on fire; its holds were full of benzol, picric acid, and TNT. Twenty minutes later it exploded with a force stronger than any man-made explosion before it, destroying most of Halifax and the surrounding towns. Out of a population of 50,000, 1600 people were killed and over 9,000 injured; hundreds were blinded by flying glass. The city was evacuated and dropped out of the war effort, focusing primarily on economic survival.[3]

Crowd gathered outside old City Hall during the Winnipeg General Strike, June 21, 1919

The move from a wartime to a peacetime economy, combined with the unwillingness of returned soldiers to accept pre-war working conditions, led to another crisis. In 1919, the One Big Union was formed by trade union syndicalists with the intent of improving conditions for all workers, not just in a single workplace, industry, or sector. The OBU had some influence on the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, which business and political leaders saw as an outbreak of Bolshevism, especially since the Soviet Union had recently been formed. The army was sent in to break the strike and the entire Winnipeg police force was fired and replaced with a much larger and better paid force of armed special constables. Although the Winnipeg strike is the best known, it was part of a larger strike wave that swept the country. Special constables, vigilante "citizens" organizations, and replacement workers were mobilized in strikebreaking throughout the country in this period.[4][5]

Meanwhile, in western Canada, and to some extent in the Maritimes, populist reformers were pushing for increased provincial rights and a focus on agriculture, rather than the industrial focus of Central Canada. They formed the Progressive Party of Canada, which supported Mackenzie King when the Liberals had a minority government in 1925–26. King eventually lost support, however, because of the trade tariffs issue, as well as a liquor smuggling scandal. When his request that parliament be dissolved was rejected by the Governor General of Canada (see King-Byng Affair), he was forced to resign in 1926, but was re-appointed after his party won the election later that year, after which, at an Imperial Conference, King advocated the redefining of the role of the Governor General and the gain of increased independence for Canada in the Balfour Declaration of 1926.

The history of broadcasting in Canada begins in the early 1920s, as Canadians were swept up in the radio craze and built crystal sets to listen to American stations. Main themes in the history include the development of the engineering technology; the construction of stations across the country and the building of networks; the widespread purchase and use of radio and television sets by the general public; debates regarding state versus private ownership of stations; financing of the broadcasts media through the government, licence fees, and advertising; the changing content of the programming; the impact of the programming on Canadian identity; the media's influence on shaping audience responses to music, sports and politics; the role of the Québec government; Francophone versus Anglophone cultural tastes; the role of other ethnic groups and First Nations; and fears of American cultural imperialism via the airwaves. In the late 20th century, Radio was largely overwhelmed by television, but still maintained a niche. In the 21st century, the central question is the impact of the Internet and smartphones on traditional broadcasting media.[6][7]

Most Canadian-owned stations had weak signals compared with American stations. In the 1930s there were 60 Canadian stations but 40% of Canadians could only tune in American stations.[8] Many stations simply rebroadcast American radio shows. Little funding was available for Canadian content. The most notable exceptions were religious radio shows, such as "Back to the Bible Hour," produced by Alberta's premier, William Aberhart, and the increasingly popularity of broadcast hockey games.[9]

Pressure from Graham Spry and the Canadian Radio League encouraged Mackenzie King to request a Royal Commission on Radio Broadcasting. Its report called for a national radio network to encourage national sentiment. In 1932, the government of R.B. Bennett established the Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, transformed into the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation in 1936.[10] CBC set up a French language network in Quebec and adjacent Francophone areas. Although the French language service had little competition from American stations, it proved quite conservative in technology and programming. It was closely aligned with powerful newspaper and Church interests and became a propaganda forum for the traditional elites of Quebec. It did not promote separatism or a sense of Québec nationalism.[11][12][13][14]

In 1930 in the first stage of the long depression, Prime Minister Mackenzie King believed that the crisis was a temporary swing of the business cycle and that the economy would soon recover without government intervention. He refused to provide unemployment relief or federal aid to the provinces, saying that if Conservative provincial governments demanded federal dollars he would not give them "a five cent piece."[16] His blunt wisecrack was used to defeat the Liberals in the 1930 election. The main issue was the rapid deterioration in the economy and whether the prime minister was out of touch with the hardships of ordinary people.[17][18] The winner of the 1930 election was Richard Bedford Bennett and the Conservatives. Bennett, a successful Western businessman, campaigned on high tariffs and large scale spending, but as deficits increased he became wary and cut back severely on Federal spending. With falling support and the depression only getting worse Bennett attempted to introduce policies based on the New Deal of President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in the United States, but this was largely unsuccessful. The government became a focus of popular discontent, even though its policies were largely the same as those of other Western governments. Canadian car owners who could no longer afford gasoline reverted to having their vehicles pulled by horses and dubbed them Bennett Buggies. Bennett's perceived failures during the Great Depression led to the re-election of Mackenzie King's Liberals in the 1935 election.

Although the United States began to see rapid improvements as a result of FDR's policies, Canada saw far less growth. Nevertheless, by 1936 the worst of the Depression was over. Mackenzie King implemented some relief programs such as the National Housing Act and National Employment Commission, and also established the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (1936) and Trans-Canada Airlines (1937, the precursor to Air Canada). However, it took until 1939 and the outbreak of war for the Canadian economy to return to 1929 levels.

William Aberhart addresses a rally (1937)

The Progressive and United Farmers Parties had achieved some success in the 1920s, but during the 1930s, their members generally joined other parties, like the Social Credit movement and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.

In Alberta, a Christian radio broadcaster named William "Bible Bill" Aberhart became interested in politics partly because the Great Depression had been especially harsh on Albertan farmers. Particularly, he was drawn to the "social credit" theories of Major C. H. Douglas, a Scottish engineer. From 1932 to 1935, Aberhart lobbied for the governing political party, the United Farmers of Alberta, to adopt these theories. The basis of social credit is that the difference in production cost and individuals' purchasing power should be supplemented through government grants. When these efforts failed, Aberhart helped found the Social Credit Party of Alberta, which won the 1935 provincial election by a landslide with over 54% of the popular vote.

CCF founding meeting, Calgary, 1932

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction. The CCF aimed to alleviate the suffering of the Great Depression through economic reform and public "co-operation". Many of the party's first Members of Parliament (MPs) were former members of the Ginger Group of left-wing Progressive and Labour MPs. In its first election in 1935, seven CCF MPs were elected to the House of Commons of Canada. Eight were elected in the following election in 1940.

The period also saw the rise of the openly fascist National Unity Party (NUP) and the Communist Party of Canada, which was declared illegal under Section 98 of the Criminal Code from 1931 to 1936. The party continued to exist, but was under the constant threat of legal harassment, and was for all intents and purposes an underground organization until 1936. The party greatly contributed in the mobilization of volunteers to fight in the Spanish Civil War. The NUP and, again, the Communist Party were banned in 1940.

Strikers from unemployment relief camps climbing on boxcars in Kamloops, British Columbia

The depression had crippled the economy and left one in nine Canadians on relief.[19] Nor did relief come free; the Bennett government had asked the Canadian Department of National Defense to organize work camps where the labour of unemployed single men was used to construct roads and other public works with little remuneration. The poor working conditions in the camps led to serious unrest, including a major strike in Vancouver in April 1935.[20] The strikers' demands included adequate first aid equipment in the camps, the extension of the Workmen's Compensation Act to include camp workers, and that workers in camps be granted the right to vote in Federal elections. Public support was enormous, and the action snowballed into a bigger movement when the men decided to take their grievances to the federal government. In June 1935, hundreds of men boarded boxcars headed East in what would come to be known as the "On to Ottawa Trek".

The protest was halted, however, before it could reach the capital. In Regina, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) confined the protesters in a local stadium. Only the eight leaders of the protest were actually allowed to proceed to Ottawa, where they were granted a meeting with Prime Minister R.B. Bennett. Bennett attacked the group as radicals, and eventually had the delegation hustled out of his office. Upon returning to Regina to unite with the rest of the protesters, they organized large public rallies, which broke out into riots when the Federal government deployed police to break up the rallies and arrest the leaders. Two people were killed as a result of the riot and many more injured. When the trek was over the government provided free transportation back to the camps. These camps were soon abolished following Bennett's electoral defeat, and new, less extensive, relief work schemes were devised on farms and in forestry camps in conjunction with provincial governments, and pay rates changed from twenty-cents a day to five dollars a month.[21]

One of Canada's major contributions to the war was the Commonwealth Air Training Plan, in which over 140,000 Allied pilots and air crews received training at bases in Canada. Canada is widely recognized for its key role in the Battle of the Atlantic. The first major land actions of the war, at Hong Kong and Dieppe, were unsuccessful. The bulk of Canadian land forces remained undeployed until the landings in Sicily and Italy in 1943. In 1944, Canadian forces successfully captured Juno Beach during the Battle of Normandy, and by the autumn, an entire field army under Canadian command was instrumental in liberating the Netherlands, for which many Dutch still fondly remember Canadians today.

Women began to play a more significant part in war efforts, joining the armed forces for the first time (aside from nursing) by means of the Canadian Women's Army Corps, the Royal Canadian Air Force Women's Division, and the Royal Canadian Naval Women's Service (Wrens).[28] Although women were still not allowed to enter combat, they performed a number of other roles in clerical, administrative, and communications divisions. A total of 45,423 women enlisted during the course of the war, and one in nine served overseas.[28][29]

With over a million Canadians serving in the Armed Forces during the war, enormous new employment opportunities appeared for women in workplaces previously unknown to them. To encourage women to work in factories, machine shops, and other heavy industries, the Canadian government offered free child-care and tax breaks. Elsie MacGill, an aeronautical engineer who supervised the production of Hawker Hurricane aircraft for the Canada Car and Foundry Company became a celebrated war hero known as "Queen of the Hurricanes."[30]

Monument to the Canadian soldiers who fought in World War II, in Ottawa.

The Gander Air Base now known as Gander International Airport built in 1936 in the Dominion of Newfoundland was leased by the UK to Canada for 99 years because of its urgent need for the movement of fighter and bomber aircraft to the UK.[31] Canada gave the United Kingdom gifts totalling $3.5 billion during the war; the UK used it to buy Canadian food and war supplies.[32]

As in World War I, the number of volunteers began to run dry as the war dragged on. Mackenzie King had promised, like Borden, not to introduce conscription, though his position was somewhat ambiguous: as he declared to the House of Commons on June 10, 1942: "Not necessarily conscription but conscription if necessary."

With rising pressure from the people, on June 21, 1940, King passed the National Resources Mobilization Act (NRMA) which gave the government the power to "call out every man in Canada for military training for the defence of Canada", and only Canada. Conscripts could not be sent overseas to fight. English Canadians, expectedly, were displeased and took to calling these soldiers "zombies" who they stereotyped as French Canadians who were "sitting comfortably" while their countrymen died.

On April 27, 1942, Mackenzie King held a national plebiscite to decide on the issue, having made campaign promises to avoid conscription (and, it is thought, winning the election on that very point). The majority of English Canadians voted in favour of the conscription, while the majority of French Canadians did not. Nevertheless, the final result was a yes, which granted King the permission to bring in a conscription law if he wanted. However, the issue was put off for another two years, until November 1944 when King decided on a levy of NRMA troops for overseas service. There were riots in Quebec and a mutiny by conscripts based in Terrace, British Columbia. An aged Henri Bourassa also spoke out against the decision.

Some 13,000 NRMA men eventually left Canada, but only 2,463 reached units in the field before the end of the fighting. 69 died in battle.

A R.C.N. officer questions Japanese-Canadian fisherman while confiscating their boat.

When Canada declared war on Japan in December 1941, members of the non-Japanese population of British Columbia, including municipal government offices, local newspapers and businesses called for the internment of the Japanese. In British Columbia, some claimed that Japanese residents who worked in the fishing industry were charting the coastline for the Japanese navy, and many of their boats were confiscated. The pressure from the public was so great that early in 1942 the government gave in to the pressure and began the internment of both Japanese nationals and Japanese Canadian citizens. Most of the nearly 22,000 people of Japanese descent who lived in Canada were naturalized or native-born citizens.[33] Those unwilling to live in internment camps faced the possibility of deportation to Japan.

Unlike Japanese American internment, where families were generally kept together, Canada initially sent its male evacuees to road camps in the British Columbian interior, to sugar beet projects on the Prairies, or to internment in a POW camp in Ontario, while women and children were moved to six inland British Columbia towns. There, the living conditions were so poor that the citizens of wartime Japan even sent supplemental food shipments through the Red Cross.[34] During the period of detention, the Canadian government spent one-third the per capita amount expended by the U.S. on Japanese American evacuees.[34]

• Granatstein, J.L. "'What is to be Done?' The Future of Canadian Second World War History" Canadian Military Journal (2011) 11
• Shaw, Amy. "Expanding the Narrative: A First World War with Women, Children, and Grief," Canadian Historical Review (2014) 95#3 pp 398–406. online