Never Forgotten / On To Ottawa Trek

June 3, 1935 (90 years ago today) striking labourers departed Vancouver for Ottawa, to protest conditions in work camps set up at the height of the Great Depression for single, unemployed men. The beneficiaries of the Unemployment Relief Scheme worked on road construction and other physically-demanding projects, usually in harsh, remote environments, in exchange for room-and-board and 20 cents a day.

In 1935, about 1500 men from various British Columbia camps went on strike in demand for better working conditions. After a few weeks of protests, and encouraged by many expressions of support from the community, they decided to go to Ottawa to lay their demands before the Prime Minister. It was the beginning of the On-to-Ottawa Trek, a journey that has served as a source of inspiration to the workers’ movement in Canada for more than eight decades.

Featuring hundreds of archival photographs and extracts from multiple historical sources, Never Forgotten / On to Ottawa Trek brings a fascinating chapter of BC and Canadian history back to life.

Filmmaker Juan Andrés Bello will be in attendance and joined in conversation afterwards by representatives from the BC labour sector.

The production was supported by the Workers’ History Museum, Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CPUW), BC Labour Heritage Centre, the London Arts Council and Library and Archives Canada (DigiLab). This event is supported by UWOFA–University of Western Ontario Faculty Association.