Poverty during the Great Depression

During the Great Depression, unemployment in Canada had reached 27 per cent of the workforce, as high as in the United States. On the prairies drought, crop failures, and soil erosion continued, turning southern Saskatchewan especially into a dust bowl. The government’s budgetary deficit stood at $150 million, and more than a million and a half Canadians were dependent on direct relief. The work camps for unemployed single men that had been set up in 1932 under the aegis of the Department of National Defence were becoming hotbeds of discontent.

The pervasive feeling during the depression was helplessness. The lack of any vestige of hope exacerbated the climate of fear: fear induced by watching the old and familiar crumbling; fear that next month, especially next winter, there would not be enough to eat or the wherewithal to keep warm. Even for those on fixed incomes it was a distressing time, having to cope with tramps at the kitchen door and watching the freight trains going by with men riding to unknown destinations and for unknown purposes.