The Great Depression was a terrible point in Canadian history, and for most of the world. It was a point in time where thousands of people lost their jobs, and even lost their homes because of the depressed economy. Business was booming in the early 1920s, but when companies tried to expand, and therefore issued stocks, the economy was thrown off. Some investors sold their stocks for high prices, and as a result, everyone else followed. With less of a demand, stock prices became fractions of what they used to be, and on October 29, 1929, the New York Stock Exchange collapsed, followed by the Toronto and Montreal Stock exchanges. This collapse of the stock markets caused a depression like which the world had never seen before. It was …show more content…
The conservatives introduced the unemployment relief act, giving the provinces $20 million for work-creation programs. This, however, did not aid economy much. Also, Bennett tried to raise tariffs in order to protect Canadian industries and get into the world market. He raised the tariffs by an average of more than 50 percent, which did protect some businesses, but it actually caused more harm than good. These tariffs made other nations set up trade barriers against Canada. He introduced the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Act in 1935, which helped farmers build irrigation systems and reservoirs, but by this time, because of drought, poverty, and locusts, most families had already left their farms to go to other places. Finally, he created a national network of work camps for unemployed single men who needed work and shelter. These work camps allowed men to work for them (roads, clearing land, digging ditches, etc) for a pay of 20 cents a day. They were also given a place to stay and food to eat, but the food was terrible and the bunks were often bug infested. In spite of these conditions, 170 000 men spent time in these camps, which reflects the desperation that some of these people had.i With such poor conditions, there was really no doubt that people would begin to
The Great Depression was a huge economic downfall in North America and involved many other industrialized countries of the world. The Depression began in 1929 and lasted for about ten years. Millions of people lost their jobs along with many businesses going bankrupt. The common misconception of the Great Depression is people think that the stock market crash was the main cause for it. There were many causes for the Depression; unequal distribution of money during the 1920’s was the main cause of the Depression. This unequal distribution happened on many different classes of people. The imbalance of money is what created such an unstable economy. The stock market was doing much worse than people thought
29, 1929 the stock market crashed when panicked investors tried to sell all their shares at once. Now known as Black Tuesday, the crash marks the start of the Great Depression, one of the longest and most catastrophic economic downturns in the world. The depression caused by the crash affected Canada greatly, as businesses closed and unemployment rates went up. Prairie farmers were hit the hardest, having to move into cities after wheat prices dropped and the drought completely turned the soil into
The Great Crash also known as Stock market crash of 1929, happened in 1929 which was one of the biggest and important history of America. During this time in late October the stock market of the country crashed which lead to the beginning of great depression, and it has lasted for 10 years. Many countries got affected due to the great crash, especially all Western industrialized countries. “Black Tuesday (October 29), in which stock prices collapsed completely and 16,410,030 shares were traded on the New York Stock Exchange in a single day.” (“Stock”). After the crash, the country had tried to cope up from the loss, but it still continued to drop. “By 1932 stocks were worth only about 20 percent of their value in the summer of 1929. (“Stock”). Due to this depression, nearly half of the banks failed, businessman faced bankrupts and people have lost their
It had already been 7 years since the Great Depression hit Canada on October 29, 1929. The economic shock that it caused led to unemployment for many Canadians. And with the draught happening in the Prairies many people, mainly farmers, had suffered. The Great Depression had hit many countries worldwide, but not many had suffered severely as Canada did.
The Great Depression was the result of extensive drops in world merchandise prices and sudden declines in economic requirement and credit, leading to swift decrease in global trade and rising unemployment. The Depression started from October 29th in 1929, when was the “Black Tuesday”, and that was the day traders sold 12.9 million shares of stock in one time. After that, the stock market crash happened in New York, and the banks in Toronto were also becoming collapse. Canada was a country depends on trade, and they were very, very damaging. This resulted the retaliatory tariffs and a huge decline of trade around the world, which was extremely harmful to Canada.
I think the most important cause of the Great Depression was Canada’s dependence on its primary products. Canada’s economy heavily relied on staples, products such as wheat, fish, minerals, pulp, and paper. These were Canada’s most significant imports because these were the goods that the world needed the most. The more countries that needed these products, the more Canada’s economy would flourish. However, the war caused a lot of countries to be in debt which meant that they didn’t have enough money to buy goods from Canadians. In turn, Canada’s economy collapsed and many people faced hardships in Canada, especially those in the Maritimes. The Depression caused the prices of Canada’s goods to drop drastically and farmers couldn’t make enough
Canadian prosperity during the 1920s was based on weak foundations; industries started to overproduce and supply exceeded demand. Additionally, the stock markets were tangled in the same unstable practices as the United States; when the Wall Street Crash occurred, the effects spread over the border to Canada, which initially led to the Great Depression. Federal governments were hesitant to respond to the catastrophe caused by the Depression. There were boundless losses of jobs which completely changed the country by triggering the start of social welfare and causing a variation of political movements. Bennett proposed a New Deal in an attempt to solve the problems of the Depression but barely any of the measures taken had been passed. The
The Great Depression impacted millions of people globally. Canada was not an exception. However the lessons we learnt from it helped us better manage the impact of the 2008 recession. Canada suffered during the great depression, due to a lack of effective leadership that underestimated the impact of the situation at hand. After world war one, Canada was the fastest growing economy in the world.
Canadians responded ineffectively to the challenges of the Great Depression. To begin with, the government of Canada fail their promises about fixing the economic crisis. The millionaire Prime Minister R.B. Bennett opposed to spend federal money on relief programs for unemployed workers and push their responsibility to the provincial and municipal governments. The provincial and municipal governments also push their responsibilities around which fail to resolve anything. In addition, many single men with no jobs were offered to work in relief camps, but with low wage and poor living condition many men gathered in Vancouver and planned to jump on trains and bring their case to the Prime Minister in Ottawa. Bennett agreed to meet with some trekker
During the Great Depression, Canadian' had a little way to entertain themselves from movies, magazines, and radio. Mainly radio was popular, Canadians preferred U.S shows such as "The Lone Ranger." In 1936, the Canadian federal government created a public radio service called the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), to win back Canadian's audience into listening to Canadian music and
With all of these crazy thoughts going through my mind, I believe that my citizen's trust. Sometimes I actually believe that ironically it just may just have been the Great Depression that had helped my leadership.I am so grateful for this past 1930 election and am proud to be leading Canada through this dark time although I am a bit scared for if it doesn’t work out as planned. Currently, a third of Canada’s population is unemployed with no difference in Toronto either. Products from 1929 have dropped 40% and along with it wages and prices. I will soon let out the idea of relief camps where in exchange for room and board they will work as laborers. I am very optimistic about all of this but I don’t know what else I could
As the Great Depression continued to tighten its grip on America, nature turned against many already suffering Americans. The Dusty Bowl, also know as the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms that greatly damages the ecology and agricultural production of the United States and Canadian plains. Many farmers and ranchers were driven to the Great Plains by the American sense of expansion. The land they inhabited was used primarily for ranching till advances in agricultural mechanization and high grain prices caused by World War I, made agriculture more productive as ever; thus causing farmers to exploit the land in their attempt to make a large profit, setting up the region for an environmental catastrophe. As a result of over farming, a failure to implement dryland farming techniques-which would have prevented topsoil wind erosion-and a severe drought, 150,000 square miles of land in Kansas, Colorado, Texas, Oklahoma, and New Mexico, faced havoc not previously seen in American history. The first “black blizzard” occurred in 1931, and they occurred till conservation efforts in the 1940s, but the damage had been done, reflected on the upturned land and record heat, as well as the unleashed swarm of locust and jackrabbits, causing terror in children and adults alike. Consequently, massive amounts of people migrated from the plains fleeing the storms, and those who stayed faced the harmful effects from the inhalation of dust particles.
However, the stock market crash could not be to blame for the beginning of the Great Depression. In fact, "the crash actually revealed underlying problems that led to the Great Depression" (Schultz, 2006). Thus, the fact that farms had been struggling for years, overspending of the country forced people into debt, and the banking system itself was unstable. These prevalent issues at the time of economic struggle is what forced Canada into a Depression that they would never
After the stock market crash of 1929, the prosperity of the 1920s descended into poverty. The Great Depression of the 1930s was the worst economic crisis in modern history and it had a significant impact on the lives of Canadians. People lost their livelihoods and the ability to provide for their families. Wages plunged and unemployment rose throughout the decade. Across Canada people faced many challenges during this period of social and economic turmoil. Farmers in the prairies suffered greatly during the 1930s, as drought and nature exasperated the economic crisis. Canadians in cities struggled to find jobs that would provide for their families. Many men left their homes and families to search for work. The Great Depression caused
Often referred to as the ‘Dirty Thirties’, was the Great Depression in Canada. Starting October 29, 1929, the New York stock markets decreased value caused many citizens in Canada to lose their jobs, homes, and other belongings. Over five years, the national spending in Canada fell 42 percent and 30 percent of eligible working Canadians were without a job until 1939, when it dropped to 12 percent. The four western provinces; British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba were impacted most severely, as they relied on exports for goods. Canadians in the prairies lost farms due to the severe drought that was occurring. Ontario and Quebec were impacted most by striking unemployment rate, but had factories near to produce goods and services.