CANADA IN THE ROARING TWENTIES

UNIT 3

ECONOMY AND POLITICS

Each region of Canada had developed its own problems in post-war Canada;

Maritimes Quebec Prairies

ECONOMY AND POLITICS MARITIMES

Experienced a drop in production after the war, This drop caused a concern for a few reasons:

High freight rates on railways; Decline in demand for fish, coal, lumber and farm goods; Stoppage of railway building through the East; High unemployment rates;

ECONOMY AND POLITICS

Maritime provinces formed the Maritime Rights Movement whose sole interest was to

Increase subsidies to the provinces; Encourage international trade through Maritime

ports; Protect Maritime goods through high tariffs;

ECONOMY AND POLITICS

QUEBEC Still embittered about Conscription in 1917, Quebec

formed their own political party within Quebec – Action Nationale led by Abbe Groulx;

This party called for the protection of French-Canadian culture: French ownership of large provincial corporations

(hydro); Opposed foreign investment in Quebec; Supported traditional French rural life and values;

ECONOMY AND POLITICS

PRAIRIES Began experiencing problems directly after the end

of the war, when wheat production/demand stopped;

Creation of the National Progressive Party led by Thomas A. Crerar; Wanted a lower cost of freight and tariffs manufactured

products; Allow voters to propose laws and be able to recall MPs

who are not representing their concerns;

PROSPERITY AND CHANGE

By 1923-24 the post-war economic slump was beginning to lift and Canadian wheat, manufactured goods and natural resources - iron ore, nickel, zinc, copper were in high demand again;

Pulp and paper industry was supplying the large American market;

Automobile industry grew;

PROSPERITY AND CHANGE

Manufactured goods, labour-saving devices also grew (radios, record players, toasters, washing machines, electric irons);

Largest manufacturing area was in the Montreal – Toronto – Windsor corridor;

Toronto and Montreal were large producers before the war, but their production increased dramatically at this time;

PROSPERITY AND CHANGE Some cities specialized in production of certain

goods Hamilton – iron and steel Kitchener – rubber products and furniture Windsor – cars, trucks, car parts

American car companies set up branch plants in Canada to avoid tariffs on imported carriages (up to 35% tariff on top of cost);

Cars built in Canada receive preferential tariff treatment when sent throughout the Empire;

PROSPERITY AND CHANGE

Farming communities saw uneven prosperity; Some left their farms for work in the cities, while

others went into debt to buy the latest tractors and threshers;

Wheat farmers were earning record amounts by the mid-1920s;

Success of some wheat farmers attracted inexperienced farmers to the West – these used farming methods that rapidly exhausted the soil;

PROSPERITY AND CHANGE

The Maritime provinces experienced economic booms in some areas and bust in others;

Coal mining was dropping because of the switch to oil or electricity;

Construction and tourism industries grew; Pulp and paper and other related industries also grew as

markets opened up in Britain and the US; Changes in railway protection rates for the Maritimes

resulted in drops in coal and steel industries; (rates increased by 25%)

GOOD TIMES

Technological advances enabled rural and city dwellers to become connected and their lives made slightly easier (telephone, radio, movies, automobiles, airplanes, electrical appliances);

People who moved into the cities got jobs in the service industry (transportation, finance, public administration, hospitality);

Wages rose for most people, many could buy things on credit, disposable income grew for spending on cars, radios and sewing machines;

GOOD TIMES Roads were being built for the growing number

of cars and trucks, airmail service for the mail; Bush pilots were flying to and mapping the

North; Stocks (portions of a company purchased by the

public) were being bought as peoples’ confidence in the economy increased;

This led to a stock market boom;

LEISURE TIMES Growth of radio broadcasts in Canada meant

that in 1929 there were 297 000 radios in homes where in 1923 there were only 10 000;

First North American broadcast was from Montreal on May 20, 1920 – it was a music program;

The first radios needed headphones and controls were primitive and poor quality – they improved rapidly;

LEISURE TIMES Ted Rogers, a Canadian electrical engineer, developed

the ‘battery-less’ radio (worked through electrical current) and opened CFRB (Canadian Frequency Rogers Battery-less) from Toronto;

Most programs listened to came from the US (80% of the shows);

CBC (Canadian Broadcasting System) was created in 1936 in response to concerns that too much American content was heard on Canadian radio (Aird Report)

First Canadian program was Hockey Night in Canada with Foster Hewitt, occurring on March 22, 1923;

GROUP OF SEVEN

Canadian artists who had developed an unconventional style of painting impressions of Canadian wilderness scenes with deep colours and broad, heavy strokes;

Influenced by one another’s talents and paintings, specifically Tom Thomson (died in 1917), they formed the Group of Seven;

Members were: Lawren Harris, JEH MacDonald, Franklin Carmicheal, Arthur Lismer, FH Varley, AY Jackson, Frank Johnston;

MOVIES

Most popular form of entertainment; Low cost and provided a feature presentation, a

“supporting” movies and a Newsreel; Minor boom in Canadian production in 1920s despite

Canada had been producing promotional movies since 1897;

Influex of Hollywood style movies after Famous Players purchased Canadian Allen movie theatres in 1923;

Silent films used to exaggerate actions and occasional captions;

1927 was the first “talkie” – Al Jolson in the Jazz Singer

LITERATURE

Growth in this field for Canadian author: Stephen Leacock, Sunshine Sketches of a Little

Town; Mazo de la Roche, Jalna; Morley Callaghan, Strange Fugitive Leslie McFarlane (pseudonym of Franklin W.

Dixon), Hardy Boys;

These people contributed to a new style of Canadian writing and publishing, later to influence generations of authors;

SPORTS Often referred to as “Canada’s Golden Age of Sports;” The International Fisherman’s Trophy in 1921 went to

the Canadian Bluenose after beating an American ship; Growth of hockey as the new national pastime, which

influenced cities and towns across the nation, as well as the Americans who contributed 3 teams to the National Hockey League;

SPORTS Howie Morenz, most popular player at the time

(on the Montreal Canadiens) and won the Hart Trophy 3 times in the 1920s;

Lionel Conacher was an all-round athelete (football, boxing, wrestling, baseball, lacrosse and hockey) His teams won the Grey Cup in 1921 and the

International League pennant in 1926 (baseball); He won the Canadian light-weight boxing

championship and the Ontario wrestling championship;

1928 OLYMPICS Amsterdam, Holland:

Track and field took several medals in a number of events;

Fanny “Bobby” Rosenfield (Russian-born immigrants) won Gold in the 100 metre dash and Silver in the 4 x 100 relay;

Percy Williams won Gold in the 100 metre and 200 metre dash; there was also a promotional aspect to this – a chocolate bar was named after him “Our Percy”

QUALITY OF LIFE

Technological advances such as electrical appliances reduced chore times;

“Flappers” were city dweller women who were living a lifestyle most believed inappropriate for women at the time;

Clothing for women had become more equal to the men’s style with short, bobbed hair, raised skirts and more revealing clothing;

Canadian scientist Frederick Banting and his partner, Charles Best, discovered insulin, which helped control diabetes;

IMMIGRATION AND INTOLERANCE Many British-Protestant Canadians were

demonstrating their intolerance to Eastern Europeans and to visible minorities, whether Canadian-born or not;

The activities of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s influenced some of the policies of the provincial governments;

Attempts made to “anglicize” many non-white members of communities through education in special schools or through missionary work;

IMMIGRATION AND INTOLERANCE

NATIVE PEOPLE Outlawed the Potlatch and the Sun Dance; Children were taken and placed in residential schools

in order to assimilate the younger generations; Indian Act of 1920 banned certain types of native

government – ensured complete dependence on Canadian government;

Reserve Indians could not vote; Women were excluded from selecting chiefs; Chief Deskadeh (F.O. Loft) went to the British

government and League of Nations to gain independence, but it was not granted;

PROHIBITION

Many women who had recently received the vote lobbied for prohibition (ban on the production and sale of alcohol);

It was believed by the temperance movements that alcohol was the center of society’s ills: domestic violence, crime rates;

Felt it was immoral to drink alcohol when the grain could be used for food products;

PROHIBITION

Federal government controls importing, manufacture and export of alcohol; provinces control licensing, sale and consumption;

Federal government legislated in 1918-1919 that alcohol production stop;

By 1917, all provinces except Quebec were under prohibition;

PROHIBITION

Laws were ignored by a large portion of Canadians;

Bootleggers (people who made and sold alcohol illegally) made millions of dollars, provinces lost tax dollars, so it was slowly repealed;

PROHIBITION

Benefits of prohibition: Crime rate dropped Arrest and drunkenness down 93% Expensive from bootleggers Fewer police needed Some jails closed More money went home to families Domestic violence down More productivity at work