James Sutherland Brown - Service As DOC in British Columbia

Service As DOC in British Columbia

In July 1928, Brown was made a Temporary Brigadier on the General List. At the start of the next year he took up his final position, that of District Officer Commanding, Military District No. 11. This large district covered the province of British Columbia, including the Pacific coastal defense system, and the Yukon Territory. Brown's talents in logistics were applied again in the early 1930s during the Depression, when he was active in setting up and expanding an army-sponsored work camp system for unemployed men in British Columbia. He became increasingly critical of the federal government's response to the plight of the large numbers of unemployed men in British Columbia, whose resource-based economy was especially badly affected by the economic bad times. While Brown was very critical of socialism and organized labor movements, he strongly felt that the authorities in charge had an obligation to provide basic services, including modest cash wages, to the unemployed in a way that matched the seriousness of the situation in the short term while avoiding dependence in the longer term.