page_title: C. D. Howe
section_title: Second World War
hierarchical_section_title: C. D. Howe / Politics / Second World War
caption_attribution_description: English: C.D. Howe (NFB image) The Hon. C.D. Howe speaks to a woman worker at an aircraft factory.
context_page_description: Clarence Decatur Howe, PC was a powerful Canadian Cabinet minister of the Liberal Party. Howe served in the governments of Prime Ministers William Lyon Mackenzie King and Louis St. Laurent continuously from 1935 to 1957. He is credited with transforming the Canadian economy from agriculture-based to industrial. During the Second World War, his involvement in the war effort was so extensive that he was nicknamed the "Minister of Everything".
  Born in Massachusetts, Howe moved to Nova Scotia as a young adult to take up a professorship at Dalhousie University. After working for the Canadian government as an engineer, he began his own firm, and became a wealthy man. In 1935, he was recruited as a Liberal candidate for the House of Commons of Canada by then Opposition leader Mackenzie King. The Liberals won the election in a landslide, and Howe won his seat. Mackenzie King appointed him to the Cabinet. There, he took major parts in many new enterprises, including the founding of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and Trans-Canada Air Lines.
context_section_description: With almost four years gone in his government's five-year term, in mid-1939 Mackenzie King considered an election and asked British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain in early August if he thought anything was likely to happen on the international scene. Chamberlain warned of unsettled conditions on the German—Polish border; Britain had promised to assist Polish independence in the event of war. Mackenzie King decided to wait to hold an election. On 1 September, Germany invaded Poland. Mackenzie King recalled Parliament into session beginning 7 September, and Canada declared war on Germany. Before adjourning on 13 September, Parliament passed legislation creating a Department of Munitions and Supply.
  It was some months before the department was established; in the meantime Howe supervised the War Purchasing Board. Howe worked to persuade many of his business contacts to work for him or for other government departments. Roberts suggests that no "political minister" could have done that, as many of Howe's recruits were Conservatives.  According to historian and author Michael Bliss, "[f]or Howe and other entrepreneurial spirits interested in the creative uses of government power, the war was a kind of ultimate megaproject, a great development job. Money didn't matter, production did."
  Mackenzie King had promised Robert Manion, the Leader of the Opposition, that he would not call an election without reconvening Parliament. On 25 January 1940, Mackenzie King convened Parliament and promptly announced that it would immediately be prorogued, much to Manion's anger. In the ensuing election, Howe had little trouble being re-elected, and 184 Liberals were returned to Ottawa, the greatest total by any party to that point. Manion, however, lost his seat.  Two weeks after the election, Germany invaded Norway and Denmark. Mackenzie King, in his diaries, noted his relief that the invasion had not taken place during the campaign, and appointed Howe as Minister of Munitions and Supply. Liking his job at Transport, Howe was reluctant to move, but the Prime Minister persuaded him.  The function of the new department was the complete mobilization of all Canadian resources to support the war effort.  Howe initially retained the Transport portfolio as well; on 8 July 1940, he turned over responsibility for that portfolio to Arthur Cardin, although Howe retained control of the CBC and Trans-Canada Air Lines.
  Howe's department, in which he was assisted by his "dollar-a-year men", top managers in Canadian business, loaned to the government by their companies for a token payment of one dollar a year—their firms maintained them on their payrolls. Even before the department was formally established, Howe's representatives were surveying the country for essential war needs, with the department soon accumulating huge reserves of strategic materials. During the Second World War, Howe established 28 Crown Corporations, which did everything from managing secret projects to manufacturing the machine tools the rest of Canadian industry needed to keep going. These corporations were not responsible to Parliament, but to Howe himself. Parliament received no word of their activities unless Howe mentioned them.
  With Canadian industry reorganized to supply the British war effort, Howe decided he needed to journey to Britain to discuss matters with the customers. He embarked on the S.S. Western Prince in December 1940. This was an intensely dangerous trip; Germany was attempting to blockade Britain and there were many German submarines in the North Atlantic. One of those submarines sank the Western Prince on 14 December. Howe survived the sinking and eight hours in a lifeboat. Gordon Scott, his aide, was killed trying to climb from the lifeboat to the rescuing ship. Howe professed coolness in the incident, but later told the Manchester Guardian that he considered every hour that he lived from that day onwards to be borrowed time.
  While on tour of British industrial plants, Howe was shown the Avro Lancaster four-engined heavy bomber, which he subsequently champi
caption: C.D. Howe speaks to a woman worker at an aircraft factory, March 1941
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