What was R.B. Bennett's New Deal?

R.B. Bennett's New Deal was a federal legislative programme of social and economic reforms introduced by Conservative Prime Minister Richard Bedford Bennett between January and March 1935 in response to the Great Depression. The programme included unemployment insurance, minimum wages, maximum hours, progressive taxation, agricultural marketing boards, and other reforms inspired by Franklin D. Roosevelt's American New Deal. Most of Bennett's New Deal laws were declared ultra vires (beyond federal jurisdiction) by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in January 1937, frustrating the legislative effort.

Bennett (July 3, 1870 to June 26, 1947) had been Prime Minister since the August 7, 1930 federal election. His government had initially responded to the Depression with traditional Conservative policies including raised tariffs (the 1930 and 1932 Imperial Conference agreements created British Empire tariff preferences), federal relief grants to provinces and municipalities, and the 1932 to 1936 federal relief camps for single unemployed men. By 1934 these policies had failed to revive the economy and had produced widespread hardship and political unrest.

Bennett's New Deal was announced in five radio broadcasts from January 2 to 11, 1935, at the time the most extensive use of radio for political communication in Canadian history. The subsequent legislative programme included the Employment and Social Insurance Act (creating federal unemployment insurance), the Limitation of Hours of Work Act, the Minimum Wages Act, the Weekly Rest in Industrial Undertakings Act, the Natural Products Marketing Act (creating federal agricultural marketing boards), and other measures. The Acts were passed in February to April 1935.

The constitutional fate of the New Deal was unfortunate. The succeeding Liberal government of William Lyon Mackenzie King (which won the October 14, 1935 election by a landslide of 173 seats to 39) referred the constitutionality of the New Deal laws to the Supreme Court of Canada, which split on the laws (January 1936). The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London ruled on January 28, 1937 that the federal government lacked jurisdiction over labour and social matters under section 91 of the British North America Act of 1867. The unemployment insurance, minimum wage, and hours laws were struck down. The Privy Council interpreted the BNA Act narrowly, treating most labour and social welfare matters as within provincial jurisdiction under section 92(13) (property and civil rights). The 1940 Constitution Act amendment to section 91 (passed by the British Parliament with provincial consent) finally added federal jurisdiction over unemployment insurance, permitting the Mackenzie King government's 1940 Unemployment Insurance Act. Bennett retired to England in 1939 and was created Viscount Bennett in 1941.