Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
different needs (Finkel
1979
: 87-88). Finally, employers in seasonal industries
were concerned about the medium term implication of insurance programs
from the standpoint of labor supply.
In sum, during the early years of Bennett's government the political land-
scape included both important labor organization mobilization and divisions
among employers about the pertinence of a national insurance program. In
this context, the transients issue was gaining in social and political impor-
tance. According to Whitton's estimates (1933; cfr. Struthers
1983
) there were
up to 100,000 seasonal workers in the West on whom unemployment was
(and would continue to be) especially concentrated. This large subset of sea-
sonal dependent population, not being settled residents, highlighted the issue
of which layer of government should take care of them. Municipalities and
provinces looked at Ottawa and demanded a response to the added relief bur-
den of the transients.
Bennett's initial response was rather traditionalist; aligning with employers
(important among his supporters), he opposed a new insurance system. He
insisted on a sharp divide between relief and insurance, putting aside the latter
on the grounds that it would require a constitutional reform of the British
North America Act (BNA). He agreed to increase funds to cover the cost of
transients' relief until July 1933. At the same time he adopted a strict policy
of “provincial self-reliance” in dominion-provincial financial relations, con-
straining the provinces' capacity to take debt to $1 million per year. Finally, he
expanded the “back to the land” strategy by launching the National Defense
Relief Camps, a system of concentration camps for “single, unskilled men and
recent immigrants” in which these would work for the government in exchange
for meals, shelter, and money received as relief. The explicit goal was to expel
the specter of socialism by drawing transients out of the cities.
At the same time, the central government's lack of initiative prompted
regional leaders to develop their own alternatives. The most interesting exam-
ple in this regard was the success of the Social Credit Movement. A predomi-
nantly rural province devoted to farming, Alberta rested on a highly specialized
economy. Farmers and political elites alike traditionally felt that the national
policies designed in Toronto and Ottawa undermined their provincial econ-
omy. A platform mixing religious fundamentalism, antiindustrialism, a uni-
versal basic income of $25, and the cancellation of all farmers' debt emerged
in 1932 and seized the provincial premiership in 1935. W. Aberhart's party
would be reelected in 1940 and stay in power in Alberta until 1968 (Barr
1974
;
Calderola
1979
; Finkel
1989
). The Social Credit Movement was notorious for
its close defense of Alberta's farming sector and constitutes the most prominent
example of a highly specialized region acting to protect its autonomy during
the political process leading up to the Unemployment Insurance Act.
The post-Depression landscape in the United States shares some features
of the Canadian experience, but it offers important differences as well. As
in Canada, significant developments in unemployment policy took place at
the industry and state levels prior to the Depression. Likewise, a number of
radical political proposals also emerged in the United States, raising the level of
