R. B. Bennett and Herbert Hoover: both in power during the worst of the Depression, and both refused to give significant help to the unemployed. In the US, men who’d fought in ww1 at least had serious leverage; a “bonus” promised to them for their service.
Canadian publishing produces very few works of fiction about the gritty, brutal world of bare knuckles geopolitics. The result is a somewhat limited sense of national self; we’re perceived as a nice country, but also a naive one. Can Canadian fiction improve in this regard?