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The On-to-Ottawa Trek was a long journey where thousands of unemployed men protested the dismal conditions in federal relief camps scattered in remote areas across Western Canada. The men lived and worked in these camps at a rate of twenty cents per day before walking out on strike in April 1935. After a two-month protest in Vancouver, British Columbia, camp strikers voted to bring their grievances to the federal government. The Great Depression crippled the Canadian economy and left one in nine citizens on relief. The relief, however, did not come free; the Bennett Government ordered the Department of National Defence to organize work camps where single unemployed men were used to construct roads and other public works at a rate of twenty cents per day. The poor working and living conditions led to general unrest in the camps. The Workers' Unity League helped the men organize the Relief Camp Workers' Union in 1933. A strike was held in December 1934 with the men leaving the various camps and protesting in Vancouver. They returned to the camps after a promise of a government commission to look into their complaints. When a commission was not appointed a second strike was approved by the members and a walkout was called on April 4, 1935. About 1,600 strikers headed for Vancouver. The strikers’ demands were wages of 50 cents an hour for unskilled work, union wages for skilled, and at least 120 hours of work a month; the provision of adequate first aid equipment in the camps; the extension of the Workmen’s Compensation Act to include camp workers; recognition of democratically elected workers' committees; that workers in camps be granted the right to vote in elections; and the camps be removed from the prevue of the Department of National Defence. Public support for the men was enormous but the municipal, provincial and federal governments passed responsibility between themselves. They then decided to take their grievances to the federal government. On June 3, 1935, hundreds of men began boarding boxcars headed east in what would become known as the “On-to-Ottawa Trek.” ==Meeting in Ottawa== The protesters reached Regina, Saskatchewan, on June 14 and met with two federal cabinet ministers in the government of Prime Minister R. B. Bennett on June 17. Robert Manion and Robert Weir invited eight elected representatives of the protest (including Arthur "Slim" Evans) to Ottawa to meet Bennett on the condition the rest of the protesters stay in Regina, where a large contingent of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police was located. The remaining trekkers continued to stay in the stadium located on Regina Exhibition Grounds, eating meals in local restaurants. The June 22nd Ottawa meeting turned into a shouting match, with Bennett attacking the group as radicals and accusing Trek leader Arthur "Slim" Evans of being an "embezzler." Evans in turn called the Prime Minister "a liar" before the delegation was escorted out of the building and on to the street. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「On-to-Ottawa Trek」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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