From 'The Beaver' :Canada's History Magazine August/September 2006 Issue
1) From the 'Currents' column. An history of the development of Winnipeg Beach and the railroads that used to run to it, giving people of lower incomes an affordable "getaway". The resort on Winnipeg Beach was opened in 1903 by the CPR, and a railway station, dance pavilion, midway, hotels, livery, and pier were built soon after. By 1910 almost 40,000 people were travelling by rail to the beach for holiday weekends. The Moonlight Express used to travel to the beach every summer night except Sundays, and couples could go to the beach for dancing and return late in the evening. In 1916 the Canadian Northern Railway opened a line to compete to Victoria Beach and built its own dance pavilion and resort. At the time most working class families could afford the fair. Even in the 1950s it cost only 50 cents for a return fair. It's sad that there aren't such vacation opportunities available to people of limited means in our own time of "progress".
2)There's an article 'Who Will Sell Prairie Grain' on the history of the Canadian Wheat Board. This institution had TWO birthdays. On July 31, 1919 the federal Conservative government of Arthur Meighen established the first Canadian Wheat Board. Unlike the subsidized price established in the USA by the United States Grain Corporation the Wheat Board bought Canadian farmers' wheat at a "base price", looked for the best selling price and then distributed the surplus to producers. This difference-"orderly marketing" versus "subsidy" has persisted to this day in the agricultural policies of Canada as opposed to the USA.
The advantage of orderly marketing to the small farmer is that, at harvest time, they delivered their grain en-mass because they had little leeway in terms of their debts. The price at harvest time naturally dropped because of the increase in supply. The CWB could hold grain for the futures market and thereby provide a larger return to the producer by eliminating the middlemen of the grain exchanges. In the USA the middlemen continued their profiteering.
During the Depression the federal Conservative government of R.B. Bennett passed the 'Canadian Wheat Board Act'. This is the second birthday. The CWB has decided to celebrate this date, July 5th, as its 70th birthday last year. The Board was originally created as a voluntary marketing agency even though small farmers wished it to be compulsory. The Liberal government of Mackenzie King, elected in October 1935, tried to abolish the Board but backed down in the face of protests from Western Canada. The Board became compulsory during the Second World War (September, 1943) when it became apparent that orderly marketing was also in the interest of a government financially pressed by wartime commitments to supply Britain.
In 1945 the CWB became the sole marketing agency for oats and barley as well as wheat. further attempts to abolish the CWB failed miserably despite heavy public relations campaigns by such "items" as the Winnipeg Grain Exchange. The modern opposition to the CWB began with the Palliser Wheat Growers Association, later renamed the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Association. The opposition grew during a period of depressed prices due to a world wheat oversupply. Today small farmers (more like medium-size farmers given the changes in rural Canada over the last few decades) continue to support the Wheat Board through their organizations such as the National farmers' Union while 'industrial agriculture' embodied in very large farms (probably realistically) believe that they can market their grain at a better price than the CWB can because their financial picture doesn't demand immediate delivery.
3)Another article in this issue, 'Back in the USSR' tells the sad history of Canadian and American radicals who believed the false dream of the workers' paradise after the Bolshevik Revolution and emigrated to the USSR to establish agricultural communes. Even Doukhobors were conned by the new Soviet government, and needless to say the promises to them such as exemption from military service were soon negated. Most members of this movement rapidly decided to try and make their way back to the "land of exploitation", and the Canadian government actually expedited their return because of the propaganda value of their disillusionment. This reverse colonization, mostly undertaken by Canadians of Ukrainian and Russian backgrounds virtually ended in 1926. As Stalin consolidated power the returnees were exterminated during the purges.