The federal government has announced its intention to designate a National Historic Site to commemorate the On-to-Ottawa Trek of 1935. Sometime in early June, Heritage Canada will unveil a plaque and cairn in Regina, likely in Victoria Park, telling the magnificent story of the Trek.

The On-to-Ottawa Trek came out of the hardship and desperation of the Great Depression.
With close to a third of the workforce unemployed, the Canadian government, led by millionaire Conservative prime minister R.B. Bennett, decided to set up "relief camps" to get jobless men off the streets and out of the reach of "agitators."

Bennett established over a hundred of these work camps, most of them in remote areas of northern Ontario and the interior of B.C. The relief camps were under the control of the Canadian military, and living conditions were harsh and primitive. All work was done by hand with picks, shovels and wheelbarrows. Pay was 20 cents a day. There were no radios and little reading material. The relief camp workers were not even eligible to vote in elections. They began referring to themselves as inmates of slave camps and some began organizing the Relief Camp Workers Union to fight for real jobs, real wages and a decent life.

Strike starts
In the early spring of 1935, the RCWU called the camp inmates from the Rockies to the Pacific out on strike. Many of the strikers converged on Vancouver in early April and held large demonstrations, parades and protests calling for implementation of their slogan "Work and Wages."

Vancouver unions and supportive citizens kept the strikers going with food and money.

The strikers’ call for federal assistance was ignored, so they decided to take their protest to the nation’s capital, riding the rails as they were used to doing. On June 3, 1935, more than a thousand unemployed young men left Vancouver on top of a CPR freight train thus starting the famous On-to-Ottawa Trek. They were led by Arthur "Slim" Evans, a veteran trade union organizer and labour militant.

Riding the rails
Through Kamloops, Revelstoke, Golden, Calgary, Medicine Hat, Swift Current and Moose Jaw the Trek rolled on. An advance party managed to scrounge food for the growing band of jobless men. The Trekkers slept in public parks or baseball diamonds.

Bennett ordered the RCMP to halt the Trekkers, now two thousand strong, at Regina on June 14. He feared a revolution if the protesters got to Ottawa.

In Regina, the Trekkers were housed in the barns and display buildings at the Exhibition Grounds and issued meal tickets for local lunch counters and cafes. Donations of food also came in from Regina citizens.
An eight-member delegation from the RCWU was allowed to travel to Ottawa and meet with R.B. Bennett, whom they unsuccessfully lobbied for job creation measures. The meeting ended in a yelling match.

Regina Riot
On the evening of July 1, 1935, a large meeting of citizens sympathetic to the Trek was held in downtown Regina. The police and RCMP used the gathering to arrest the Trek leaders.

This provocation initiated the Regina Riot. Scarcely any windows were left unbroken in downtown businesses, dozens were wounded by police bullets and one plain clothes police officer was killed.

Within days the Trekkers returned to their camps or homes and the Trek was over.

But the effects were lasting. In the fall, the Bennett government was decisively trounced in a general election. The camps were closed soon after. Before long the new federal government started planning an unemployment insurance system, and governments also started paying social assistance to single unemployed people.
The Trekkers deserve to be recognized for the bold stand they took against oppression and injustice 66 years ago this spring.