June8

14 J u n e 8 ' 1 7 C o r o n a t i o n / S t e t t l e r , A b . A g r i c u l t u r e
E C A r e v i e w
Small farms and a poorly chosen word
Part six of a series about the history of
the Special Areas.
Most people living in our region
know that the Special Areas was created
due to hard times in the 1930s.
The weather was certainly a factor
in creating the so-called dirty thirties.
But another event, often overlooked,
played an equally significant role in
the Special Areas saga. The groundwork
for the circumstances that led to
the creation of the Special Areas was
largely laid by Ottawa.
For years, Canada’s federal government
desperately wanted to turn
prairie Canada into quarter- and halfsection
farms, even though it was
widely known that many parts of
Alberta and Saskatchewan could never
sustain small dryland farming.
Ottawa was single-minded about it,
sacrificing arriving homesteaders to
the elements, telling them that
summer fallow would solve their moisture
problems.
As a result of the policy, homesteaders
in many regions endured
years of chronic crop failure, hardship
and heart-wrenching poverty that
forced the overwhelming majority of
them to abandon their homesteads.
By 1918, in excess of 600 homesteaders
north of the Red Deer River
had already abandoned their farms. By
the mid-1920s, an area spanning millions
of acres had lost more than 80 per
cent of its population, leaving early
municipalities and school boards in
financial ruin.
Quickly planted towns experienced a
short season of life, then faded rapidly.
A good number of them died. Many
people don’t realize that in the region
that became known as the Special
Areas, roughly half the population had
already left before the Special Areas
Act was passed.
“
Other parts of
Alberta suffer[ed] the
same trouble as the
Special Areas.
- HANSON COMMISSION
In 1938-39, the Special Areas Board
was created to address a problem that
had been going on for 25 years or more.
The task of the Special Areas and
the Special Areas Board was to oversee
the continued depopulation of the
region, and step in where local municipalities
had become financially
destitute.
The Special Areas was supposed to
Let Justice Be Done: The Alberta
Provincial Police, 1917-1932
Map of APP locations.
FEATURE
“
For a brief period in the early twentieth
century, Alberta had its own
provincial police force similar to
those still found today in Ontario and
Quebec.
Despite building a reputation as one
of the most efficient police organizations
of its kind in the world, the
Alberta Provincial Police (APP) is
mostly forgotten today, leaving
behind only faint traces of its accomplishments
a century later.
When the Royal North West
Mounted Police served notice in
November, 1916 that they would be
withdrawing from their policing
responsibilities by the end of the year,
the Provincial Government had to act
fast to establish a provincial police
force.
What resulted was the Alberta
Provincial Police – known colloquially
as the “blue-coated Mounties”.
Thousands of men (and a small
number of women) would serve, and
five would give their lives in the line
of duty.
The responsibilities undertaken by
APP officers within each detachment,
like their predecessors in the RCMP,
were wide-ranging and included
investigations involving
murder, sexual assault,
neglected children,
arson, illegal hunting,
property theft, prostitution,
public health, stray
animals, and censorship
of movies.
The Liquor Act and its
establishment of prohibition
proved to be one of
the most difficult aspects
of law enforcement in the
province; prohibition was
extremely unpopular,
and the public was generally
unwilling to help the
APP in its enforcement of
the law.
Turn to Prohibition, Pg 16
be temporary, like a bankruptcy
receiver, which is why the Alberta government
in the ‘50s and ‘60s set up not
one, but two government commissions
to investigate.
The second of these, called the
Hanson Commission, carefully pointed
out that there is absolutely nothing
unique or extraordinary about our
region.
It said: “Other parts of Alberta
suffer[ed] the same trouble as the
Special Areas. Probably the only
unique thing about the Special Areas
is that settlement on a half-section
basis… and establishment of municipalities
had been completed before it
was [fully] realized the area was
unsuited to small grain farms.”
The Commission went on to say:
“[The Special Areas Board] was actually
a… treatment to cure an ill and as
such must have an end when the ill is
cured…. When the necessary adjustments
are completed, it is expected that
the Act will be replaced… to allow for
the rehabilitated community to take its
place along with other communities in
the province.”
The Commission further said: “It is
unfortunate that the name ‘Special
Areas’ was applied because the conditions
which created the problem
exist[ed] over much of southeastern
Alberta… “
It clearly stated that there is nothing
BRAD DELEFF
403-575-5680
bradley.deleff@hotmail.com
Box 424, Consor, AB T0C 1B0
special about our region, and further
indicated that we are not permanently
handicapped or otherwise less able to
govern and manage our own affairs
than people living elsewhere in
Alberta.
Consequently, the Commission said:
“It is in the interests of good citizenship
that residents of the Special
Areas assume responsibility of
self-government…”
This commentary is by the Hard
Grass Landowners Council and is prepared
by an editorial committee whose
members include: Bruce Beasley,
Richard Bailey, Murray Sankey, and
Pat Rutledge.
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