Great Depression Canada Essay

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The 1930s was a bleak time period for Canada. The Great Depression had a devastating impact on the country, spreading across the provinces and bringing hardship to big cities and towns alike. No social, racial, or economic class was excluded. Farmers, bankers, bricklayers, clergymen, and autoworkers were affected indiscriminately. Between the years 1929 and 1939, many banks and businesses all over the world collapsed. Millions of people, including thousands of Canadians, lost their life savings, their jobs, and much of what they owned. Canadians suffered many hardships during the the Great Depression; yet despite this found unique ways to survive.

Canadians suffered many hardships during the Great Depression. When our economy crashed, they were forced to face difficulties that no one was expecting after the era of freedom during the twenties. Some of these hardships include farmers being forced to leave their homes, urban families being unable to buy necessities for their families, and unemployment that stretched across the country. To begin, many Canadians that lived in the city were unable to provide for their families, because they had to buy whatever food they needed. In the rural areas, the people could grow their food on their farms. In the city, they had no way to get food, or any other necessity without money. Growing their own was not an option. Here is a quote from an aboriginal man regarding urban citizens during the Great Depression, “That was the thing having a farm. You could always have the seeds and grow your food, and we used to do the hunting and trapping so we’d have meat. But them folks up there in the city, they didn’t have anything.” (Cruxton, Wilson, 2000, p-193). Although the urban citizens experienced many hardships, the rural area definitely suffered as well. Meanwhile in the prairie provinces, thousands of families were forced to leave their homes. There was a horrible drought in the thirties, and this caused farmer’s crops to die. Because of this, the top layer of soil on the ground lost all moisture and blew around the prairies in terrifying black sandstorms. It became so bad that these Canadians had to leave everything behind and start over in the city, even though it looked just as bleak there. A shocking number of people left the prairies during the thirties, “Between the years 1931 and 1937, 66 000 people left Saskatchewan, 34 000 left Manitoba, and 21 000 left Alberta.” (Cruxton, Wilson, 2000, p-189). Finally, a third hardship that Canadians faced during the Great Depression was unemployment. Unemployment was one of the largest part of the thirties. Some people couldn’t even take care of their families by buying essential items, and suffered. Also,
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A few of these would be welfare, relief camps, and entertainment. To begin, welfare was something that the government came up with in an attempt to help Canadians to survive. They would provide citizens for vouchers for food, transportation, and other needs. Though they were a good idea, there wasn’t enough welfare for everyone and it was barely enough to live off of, and the people who applied for welfare were very desperate. Similar to the discrimination against the unemployed, the people who applied were looked down upon by others. If you were going to a soup kitchen to get your meals, you had to deal with not only the discrimination but also the low quality of the food that you were served. Here is a quote from a man that ate at soup kitchens during the Great Depression, “ My two meals at the soup kitchen were a tin plate of white beans boiled in water only, two slices of dry bread, and a mug of tea or coffee maybe, it was hard to tell.” (Mennil, 1978, p-32). As you can tell from the quote, the soup kitchens were very bland, and people on welfare still were just barely scraping by. Another way that Canadians survived during the Depression was by attending relief camps. This only applied to single, unemployed men. These relief camps were set up by the government, and were awful to live in. The rules were extremely strict, and the work was very hard. The men were given shelter and food,

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