On-to-Ottawa Trek
The On-to-Ottawa Trek was a result of the unrest of unemployed single men in federal relief camps. Federal relief camps were brought in under Prime Minister R. B. Bennett’s government as a result of the Great Depression. The Great Depression crippled the Canadian economy and left one in nine citizens on relief. The relief, however, did not come free; the Bennett Government ordered the Department of National Defence to organize work camps where single unemployed men were used to construct roads and other public works at a rate of twenty cents per day. The men in the relief camps were living in poor conditions with very low wages. The men decided to unite and in 1933, and led by Arthur "Slim" Evans the men created Workers' Unity League (WUL). The Workers' Unity League helped the men organize the Relief Camp Workers' Union.
A strike was held in December 1934 with the men leaving the various camps and protesting in Vancouver, British Columbia. After a two-month protest, they returned to the camps after a promise of a government commission to look into their complaints. When a commission was not appointed a second strike was approved by the members and a walkout was called on April 4, 1935.
About 1,000 strikers headed for Ottawa. The strikers' demands were: wages of 50 cents an hour for unskilled work, union wages for skilled, at least 120 hours of work a month, the provision of adequate first aid equipment in the camps, the extension of the Workmen's Compensation Act to include camp workers, recognition of democratically elected workers' committees, that workers in camps be granted the right to vote in elections, and the camps be removed from the purview of the Department of National Defence. Public support for the men was enormous, but the municipal, provincial and federal governments passed responsibility between themselves. They then decided to take their grievances to the federal government. On June 3, 1935, hundreds of men began boarding boxcars headed east in what would become known as the "On-to-Ottawa Trek."
The protesters reached Regina, Saskatchewan, on June 14. Three days later, on June 17, the protesters met with two federal cabinet ministers in the government of Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, Robert Manion and Robert Weir. Robert Manion and Robert Weir invited eight elected representatives of the protest (with Arthur "Slim" Evans as their leader) to Ottawa to meet Bennett on the condition the rest of the protesters stay in Regina, where a large contingent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was located. The remaining trekkers continued remain in the stadium located on Regina Exhibition Grounds, "with food and shelter supplied by townspeople and the Saskatchewan government."
The June 22nd Ottawa meeting turned into a shouting match, with Bennett accusing Trek leader Arthur "Slim" Evans of being an "embezzler." Evans, in turn, called the Prime Minister "a liar" before the delegation was finally escorted out of the building and on to the street
References
ليست هناك تعليقات:
إرسال تعليق