Class, politics, and economic policy at a critical juncture: Canada and the Anglo-American “family of nations” in the Great Depression of the 1930s

Abstract

Canada had a conservative response to the world-historical crisis of the 1930s. This paper argues that the underlying reason for Canada’s conservatism was the absence of a rapprochement between farmers and workers at the national level. The Conservatives and the Liberals were the only national parties that could arrange such a rapprochement at the time, yet with their ideological rigidity and political timidity, they passed up the opportunity. For comparison, this paper also refers to four cases from the Anglo-American “family of nations,” examining responses by the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, and New Zealand.