Up to 35,000 people listened to sales pitches from Prime Minister Robert Borden, Premier William Hearst, and other federal and provincial officials, who delivered speeches from stages scattered around the park.
They also came up with creative solutions: for example, Toronto had banned all large indoor public gatherings - so the official sales kickoff rally was held outdoors at Queen’s Park on October 27. Although many planned public events had to be cancelled for health reasons, national organizers used their power to convince municipal officials to make exceptions for drive-related rallies. As one of the first ads put it, “The measure of your love of freedom is your willingness to deny yourself so that the strength of the nation for war effort will be increased.” They were assured that their contributions would go to financing everything from wheat production in the Prairies to the production of airplanes and munitions.īut the campaign soon encountered a major obstacle: the Spanish flu pandemic, which struck the province in October. They were told to stop trying to keep up with their neighbours and to focus on making personal sacrifices to support the war effort. Beginning on September 7, a series of ads and strategically placed newspaper articles urged people to practise thrift and deny themselves all unnecessary purchases. Organizers of the drive - a mix of people from the government and the private sector - spent two months priming the public for it. Cities, towns, and counties were given sales targets: those that reached them were rewarded with an “honour flag.”
Buyers could choose between $50, $100, $500, and $1,000 denominations - a range of roughly $726 to $14,532 today - and opt to pay through an instal ment plan. Available in five- and 15-year maturities, they offered annual interest returns of 5.5 per cent. The 1918 bonds were sold between October 28 and November 16. As the war wound down, though, they became a tougher sell - so the Victory Loan campaign of 1918 stressed the idea that purchases would give soldiers either a final boost on the battlefield or the means to come back home again. And between 19, it ran five loan drives intended to convince the public to buy bonds. In 19 17, for example, it implemented the personal income tax. How do you pay for a war? The Canadian government financ ed its participation in the First World War in a number of way s.
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