R. B. Bennett

Bennett was elected Prime Minister of Canada as the leader of the Conservative Party, defeating Mackenzie King. His election came at the onset of the Great Depression, and he promised to end the economic crisis with bold action.

Bennett hosted the Imperial Economic Conference in Ottawa, which resulted in a system of imperial preference tariffs. The agreements aimed to boost trade within the British Empire but had limited success in mitigating the Depression.

Bennett's government established the Bank of Canada as a central bank to regulate monetary policy and stabilize the financial system. The bank was initially privately owned but was nationalized in 1938.

Bennett introduced a series of progressive reforms modeled on Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, including unemployment insurance, minimum wage laws, and regulation of working hours. The reforms were largely blocked by the courts as unconstitutional and failed to revive the economy.

Bennett's Conservative government was decisively defeated in the 1935 federal election by Mackenzie King's Liberals. The defeat was largely due to the failure of his policies to alleviate the Great Depression and widespread public discontent.