In 1947, kids in Morrisburg lined up on Main Street for the Chocolate Bar Strike (also known as the Candy Bar War) to object to a 60 percent price hike for chocolate bars—from the pre-war pricing of five cents to a whopping eight cents. They joined the national youth-led movement that started in Ladysmith, B.C., and swept across the country.
Their concerted efforts had an effect. Local store owners across Canada signalled a dip in chocolate sales (some accounts say as much as 80 percent!), the media reported sympathetically about their cause, and manufacturers were forced to try to quell the discontent. Rowntree’s and Willard’s, two major bar manufacturers, even took out ads blaming the rising price of cocoa and sugar, increasing labour costs, and the burden of federal wartime taxes.
When a youth labour group in Toronto—organizers of one of the protests—was accused of being influenced by communists, Cold War hysteria set in and dissolved public support.
Sadly, the kid-led movement slowly fizzled out and they were forced to surrender to the inevitable demands of inflation.
