The Great Depression in Canada

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Recommended: Critically discuss the reason for the 1929 wall Street stock crash as well as the economic and social impact of the crash in USA

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 important for governments to find methods to deal with the depression, but the Canadian government wasn't very successful in its attempts to deal with the Great Depression.
A depression is defined as a long period of severe economic and social hardship, massive unemployment, and suffering. This particular depression around the 1930s was a GREAT depression. There was drought on the prairies which lessened already cheap harvests, only 300000 of 11000000 Canadians actually earned enough money to pay income tax, and over 25% of Canada's workforce was unemployed. A small minority actually made a lot of money during the depression, but the majority were suffering harshly.i A depression this caliber had never even been heard of before.
The prime minister at that time, Mackenzie King, was unprepared to deal with the crisis at hand. His thoughts were that the depression was only a fluke, and that given time, the economy would prosper once more. King never answered the pleas for aid by his citizens, and told ...

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... Canadians' trust in their government to handle situations such as this wavered. And lastly, why not do as others had success with? The Americans already utilised the method of spending their way out of a depression, and it had worked for them, at least to a degree. It was enough to save millions of lives and give hope to the people! So why not do as they did? Why wait so long for the situation to be too late to heal? The Canadian government were not very successful in their efforts in dealing with the Great Depression. Replacing prime ministers (twice) and making only minor changes ultimately did Canada no good. The government's poor efforts in their attempts to resolve

Works Cited

Canadian Encyclopedia Plus; Bennett; Canada; McLelland and Stewart; 1995

Cranny, Michael. Counterpoints Exploring Canadian Issues Second Edition. Toronto: Pearson Canada Inc., 2010.

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