The Decline of Reform: British Columbia Politics in the 1930s

Abstract

Of all Canadian governments, the Liberal administration of Thomas Dufferin Pattullo (1933-41) offered probably the most vigorous response to the social and economic problems of the Depression. By the end of the 1930s, however, the reform impulse had been killed by the parsimony of the federal government and Pattullo’s unwillingness to compromise. The passing of the reform impulse helps explain the polarization so characteristic of British Columbia politics.