Canadian General Election, 1930

Report Outline
Present Poltical Situation in Canada
Campaign of the Liberal Government
Campaign of the Conservative Party
Prospects of the General Election

Present Poltical Situation in Canada

Canada is in the throes of a spirited election campaign. On July 28 the voters of the Dominion will decide whether the Liberal government headed by Mackenzie King, or the Conservative party led by Richard B. Bennett, will direct the affairs of Canada at Ottawa during the next five years.

The 16th Canadian Parliament was dissolved on May 30 and writs were issued for a general election to be held on July 28. On June 9 Mr. Bennett, leader of the Opposition in the House of Commons, opened the campaign at Winnipeg on behalf of the Conservative party. It was opened on behalf of the Liberal party by Premier King at Brantford, Ontario, on June 16. During the last six weeks the two party leaders, as well as members of the Liberal ministry, have been stumping the Dominion from Nova Scotia to British Columbia, speaking to large audiences and having their addresses broadcast by radio. The campaign is exciting great interest throughout the country. Candidates, nominated by local conventions of the people, are standing in each of the 245 constituencies or “ridings” into which Canada is divided. And the press everywhere is devoting much news space and editorial comment to the issues and conduct of the campaign.

This Canadian campaign and its outcome have special interest for Americans because of the international questions involved and the domestic repercussions these questions are producing. In the field of Canadian-American relations the questions of the countervailing duties against the Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act, of Dominion economic independence of the United States, and of the development of the St. Lawrence waterway are at issue. In the field of Anglo-Canadian affairs the questions of closer trade relations within the Empire, of preferential duties on British imports, of national status, and of Canadian representation at the coming imperial conferences are at stake. On the internal side the problems of unemployment and immigration, of budgets and surpluses, and the past record of the Liberal reAgime are the issues of the election.