 At the time of his national tour one estimate found over “70,000 mostly single, young, unemployed, homeless men in Canada.”

McNaughton proposed the idea of relief camps to provide men with work to fill their days, food, clothing, medical attention, and some compensation to ease tensions.McNaughton's relief camps were expected to provide the basic necessities for single men in return for manual labour.This proposed system resembled the English Poor Laws in which the poor received helped in exchange for labour and rehabilitation.