Charitable Donations to Spain

These tickets and envelope were part of the “Let No Spanish Child Go Hungry This Christmas” campaign to raise funds in Canada to support the children affected by the Spanish Civil War.  

The conflict left few Canadians indifferent. Despite support for or condemnation of the war by the media, public opinion makers, religious leaders and politicians, Canadians found ways to express their support for the contending sides. If some Canadians enlisted in the Republican forces, despite the decision by the Federal government in 1937 to prohibit enlistment in any foreign conflicts, this was not a viable option for most Canadians who supported the Spanish Republic. Donating money and goods was.  

In spring 1937, the Canadian League Against War and Fascism launched a “Food for Spain” Campaign. Rallies were held in different Canadian cities. The RCMP monitored these rallies as part of its surveillance campaign of communist activities in the country and sent weekly summary reports on Revolutionary Organizations and Agitation in Canada to Ottawa. In its April 7, 1937 report, the RCMP wrote that André Malraux, a French novelist who helped with the creation of the Spanish Republican Air Force, attended a meeting at Massey Hall in Toronto. In his speech, Malraux gave a list of supplies that were in great demand: anaesthetics and medical supplies. He even urged Canadian physicians to go to Spain, as Norman Bethune had done a few months earlier. Besides medical supplies, food was in dire need. Attendees learned that milk would be sent to Spain.  

Other campaigns to garner Canadian support to aid those displaced by the war were also launched. For example, the Canadian Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy and the Canadian Youth Committee to Aid Spain collaborated to raise money to feed Spanish children during the Christmas season. They advertised the campaign through a series of news bulletins. Each ticket cost either 25 cents to provide one meal or 10 cents to provide a quart of milk to a Spanish child. Contributors then collected one dollar’s worth of tickets in an envelope to be sent into the committee’s Toronto headquarters, who would then facilitate the purchase of the goods to go to children in Spain. Two of these envelopes were said to sustain a Spanish child throughout the Christmas week.  

These campaigns drew support from across the country. The “Food for Spain” Campaign, for example, seems to have been successful. In its 21 April 1937 weekly summary report on Revolutionary Organizations and Agitation in Canada, the RCMP reported that “some 48,000 tins of condensed milk and 100 cases of canned vegetables and fruit” left the country for Spain. Other campaigns were organized in 1938 and 1939, demonstrating the level of Canadian engagement during the war in Spain.