The Effects of the Great Depression on Canada.

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The Great Depression

Summary: The Great Depression affected Canada a great amount. Effects, such as unemployment, drought, and bankruptcies, all impacted the country immensely. Whereas Canada’s poor government role on the foundation was at the slowest, social programs introduced during this period provided the foundation for Canada's current social safety net that is still around today.

Labour:

The Great Depression impacted Canada in many ways and factors, which caused and deepened the depression. The aftermath of the war created some problems in Canada that were not there before. This period was also known as the interwar years, when depression struck across the world, and unemployment was a large factor. Due to over production, factories panicked and laid off huge amounts of workers. As the Depression declined, so did unemployment. When a worker lost their job, they did not line up for unemployment benefits, they went into competition with other individuals who were out of work. What stood out mostly was the fact that earning a dollar a day was considered a good wage; it mainly went covering for food cost. As more and more workers were laid off, there was a decline in demand, which caused the Depression to deepen. In Canada, citizens reacted in different ways. Those who were young had the capabilities to work harder and were better liked, which in return helped them keep their job. Men as young as 16, left home to work in camps to reduce the burden on their family. Some of those camps were located in remote areas, such as northern Ontario and B.C.’s interior. They looked like slave camps, with their bunked in tarpaper shacks, to their six and a half days a week, for twenty cents a day. As for those who were older, this was not the case. Some started selling products door-to-door, some panhandled, and others approached churches and charities for help Population:

The Depression changed families in dramatic ways. Many couples delayed marriage and the divorce rate dropped sharply. It was too expensive to pay the legal fees and support two households, as birth rates dropped below the replacement level for the first time, which took a huge effect on population. With plummeting numbers of immigrants and birth, population growth of the 30's had reached the lowest, dating back as far as 1880. “The number of Immigrants into Canada dropped from 169 000 in 1929 to fewer than 12 000 in 1935 and for the rest of the thirties it did not rise about 17 000”. Due to illness and unemployment, some 30,000 immigrants were forced to go back to their home country. “The number of deportations also rose from fewer then 2000 in 1929 to more than 7600 within three years. The death rate also rose due to poor living conditions, starvation, and disease. The birth rate dropped from 13.1 live births per 100 in 1930 to 9.7 in 1937.

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Schools:

The education suffered greatly, as school budgets were cut across the country. Some of those schools neither had electricity nor running water, heated wood stoves and lanterns were some of the things they tied to provide light. Sometimes, water was gotten from an outdoor pump. So to save money, districts combined with nearby schools, dropped staff lines, postponed new construction, and increased class size. Some city schools started progressive classrooms. In these classrooms teachers let the students choose what subjects they wanted to learn. Which forced many parents to go against those progressive classrooms. They wanted their children to ...

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