History Comic Strip - Relief Camps
Storyboard Text
- During the 1930s, many people were out of work because of the depression. However, single young men were hit the hardest due to companies hiring men with families over them in order to help out the families. So in October 1932, P.M. Bennett created a nationwide system of camps to house and provide work for single, unemployed, homeless Canadian males.
- No work!!!
- I can't be much worse off than I am now!
- I heard about a "relief camp" set up for us... wanna join me?
- Car for sale! 100$ lost it all in stock crash
- Camps were located in remote rural areas like Northern Ontario, and interior BC. There was free transportation to the camps, which provided clothes, food, health care, a small allowance, and shelter! This could be a dream come true...
- You're able to sign up if you're healthy, 18+, single, and can leave your family
- I am! Let's make tracks*
- *Make tracks - slang for leaving your place of residence to go somewhere better.
- NEXT!!!
- Sign up HERE!
- RULES:Run by the Department of National Defense1. All workers MUST work a 44-hour workweek, 6 days a week.2. A SMALL health care plan is set up for workers3. $0.20 day4. MUST sleep in cabins: 24m x 7m, slept 88 men, 2 per bunk5. If you leave the camp for any reason other than to take a job, you WILL NOT be permitted back at the camp6. NO committees of campers can be formed 7. ALL complaints must be reported individually.8. Votes will be taken away while working at the camp.
- ...but the conditions were not what they expected! The men had little rights, and could not form unions or committees to address the situation
- This is NOT what we signed up for!!!!
- The exchange of food clothing and shelter was not equal to the intense manual work. Rationed food, ragged clothes, minimal health care, and cramped living spaces were their reality. The workers learned that the conditions were almost worse than back home.
- The labour was manual. Tree planting, digging ditches, building roads, and clearing forests for little pay, little rest, and next to no health care. The workers had no protection.
- The government was criticized for establishing the camps rather than addressing the need for reasonable work and wages. The workers had had enough! Their need for change sparked the On-To-Ottawa Trek of 1935.
- Fair wages for fair work!!!
- Ride the rails boys! Lets go to Ottawa!
- Lets bring these complaints straight to Bennett since we are not allowed to here!
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