Canadian Patriotic Fund

The Canadian Patriotic Fund (1914–1919) was a private fund-raising organization incorporated in 1914 by federal statute and headed by Montreal businessman and Conservative Member of Parliament Sir Herbert Brown Ames.

[2] The Irish poet Michael A. Hargadon, who was a reporter with the Montreal Star, wrote a poem entitled To Those They Left Behind which was widely published in newspapers and magazines across Canada, and helped raise several million dollars in contributions towards the Canadian Patriotic Fund.

An earlier version of the Fund had operated during the Second Boer War for the same purpose, after being announced by Lord Minto, the Governor General of Canada, on January 12, 1900, as a way of coordinating the efforts of numerous smaller organizations that had been competing against each other.

[5] Abuse of the system has been reported, including recipients being cut off arbitrarily based on the moral judgements of volunteers, who were often middle- and upper-class citizens.

[5][6] Some women were denied benefits for being seen to spend their money frivolously, or for being suspected of extramarital affairs while their soldier husbands were away.