Editing History of Canada (section)

===Great Depression===
{{main|Great Depression in Canada}}
[[File:ReliefWorkHighway.jpg|thumb|Road construction between [[Kimberley, British Columbia|Kimberley]] and [[Wasa, British Columbia]] by Relief Project workers, 1934]]
Canada was hit hard by the worldwide [[Great Depression]] that began in 1929. Between 1929 and 1933, the gross national product dropped 40 per cent (compared to 37 per cent in the US). Unemployment reached 27 per cent at the depth of the Depression in 1933.<ref name=f1/> Many businesses closed, as corporate profits of {{CAD|396&nbsp;million}} in 1929 turned into losses of {{CAD|98&nbsp;million}} in 1933. Canadian exports shrank by 50% from 1929 to 1933. Construction all but stopped (down 82 per cent, 1929–33), and wholesale prices dropped 30%. Wheat prices plunged from 78c per bushel (1928 crop) to 29c in 1932.<ref name=f1>{{cite book |editor-first=M.C. |editor-last=Urquhart |title=Historical Statistics of Canada |year=1965 |issue=series F1-F13}}</ref>

[[File:YongeStreetMission.jpg|thumb|A crowd gathers for free food at the Yonge Street Mission in Toronto during the [[Great Depression]]]]

Urban unemployment nationwide was 19 per cent; Toronto's rate was 17 per cent, according to the census of 1931. Farmers who stayed on their farms were not considered unemployed.<ref>Canada, Bureau of the Census, ''Unemployment'' Vol. VI (Ottawa 1931), pp. 1, 267</ref> By 1933, 30 per cent of the labour force was out of work, and one-fifth of the population became dependent on government assistance. Wages fell as did prices. The worst hit were areas dependent on primary industries such as farming, [[Mining in Canada|mining]] and logging, as prices fell and there were few alternative jobs. Most families had moderate losses and little hardship, though they too became pessimistic and their debts became heavier as prices fell. Some families saw most or all of their assets disappear and suffered severely.<ref name="Berton2012">{{cite book|first1=Pierre |last1=Berton|title=The Great Depression: 1929–1939|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vuVOyizWolgC&pg=PP1|year=2012|publisher=Doubleday Canada|isbn=978-0-307-37486-8|pages=2–613}}</ref><ref name="Neatby2003">{{cite book|author-link1=H. Blair Neatby|first1=H. |last1=Blair Neatby|title=The Politics of Chaos : Canada in the Thirties|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MpmjZNrPqgoC&pg=PP1|year=2003|publisher=Dundurn|isbn=978-1-894908-01-6|pages=1–162}}</ref>

In 1930, in the first stage of the long depression, Prime Minister Mackenzie King believed that the crisis was a temporary swing of the business cycle and that the economy would soon recover without government intervention. He refused to provide unemployment relief or federal aid to the provinces, saying that if Conservative provincial governments demanded federal dollars, he would not give them "a five-cent piece."<ref>Neatby, ''William Lyon Mackenzie King'', 2:312, 318</ref> The main issue was the rapid deterioration in the economy and whether the prime minister was out of touch with the hardships of ordinary people.<ref name="Berton2012b">{{cite book|first1=Pierre |last1=Berton|title=The Great Depression: 1929–1939|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vuVOyizWolgC&pg=PP54|year=2012|publisher=Doubleday Canada|isbn=978-0-307-37486-8|page=54}}</ref><ref name="Morton1999">{{cite book |first1=Desmond |last1=Morton|title=Working People: An Illustrated History of the Canadian Labour Movement|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E_-19s_1NOYC&pg=PP139|year=1999|publisher=McGill-Queen's Press – MQUP|isbn=978-0-7735-7554-7|page=139}}</ref> The winner of the 1930 election was [[Richard Bedford Bennett]] and the Conservatives. Bennett had promised high tariffs and large-scale spending, but as deficits increased, he became wary and cut back severely on Federal spending. With falling support and the depression getting only worse, Bennett attempted to introduce policies based on the [[New Deal]] of President [[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] (FDR) in the United States, but he got little passed. Bennett's government became a focus of popular discontent. For example, auto owners saved on gasoline by using horses to pull their cars, dubbing them [[Bennett Buggy|Bennett Buggies]]. The Conservative failure to restore prosperity led to the return of Mackenzie King's Liberals in the [[1935 Canadian federal election|1935 election]].<ref>{{cite book|first1=J. R. H. |last1=Wilbur|title=The Bennett New Deal: Fraud or Portent?|year=1968|publisher=Copp Clark |pages=78–112, 147–90}}</ref>

In 1935, the Liberals used the slogan "King or Chaos" to win a landslide in the 1935 election.<ref>H. Blair Neatby, ''William Lyon Mackenzie King: 1932–1939'' (1976) pp 143–48.</ref> Promising a much-desired trade treaty with the U.S., the Mackenzie King government passed the 1935 Reciprocal Trade Agreement. It marked the turning point in Canadian-American economic relations, reversing the disastrous trade war of 1930–31, lowering tariffs and yielding a dramatic increase in trade.<ref>{{cite journal | last1 = Boucher | first1 = Marc T. | year = 1985–1986 | title = The Politics of Economic Depression: Canadian-American Relations in the Mid-1930s | journal = International Journal | volume = 41 | issue = 1| pages = 3–36 | doi=10.2307/40202349| jstor = 40202349 }}</ref>

The worst of the Depression had passed by 1935, as the Government of Canada launched relief programs such as the ''National Housing Act'' and the National Employment Commission. The [[Canadian Broadcasting Corporation]] became a [[crown corporation]] in 1936. Trans-Canada Airlines (the precursor to [[Air Canada]]) was formed in 1937, as was the [[National Film Board of Canada]] in 1939. In 1938, Parliament transformed the [[Bank of Canada]] from a private entity to a crown corporation.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bankofcanada.ca/about/who-we-are/ |title=Who we are |work=Bank of Canada |access-date=June 9, 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110611204829/http://www.bankofcanada.ca/about/who-we-are/ |archive-date=June 11, 2011 }}</ref>

One political response was a highly restrictive immigration policy and a rise in [[Nativism (politics)|nativism]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://faculty.marianopolis.edu/c.belanger/quebechistory/readings/CanadaandJewishRefugeesinthe1930s.html|title=Quebec History|first=Claude|last=Bélanger|website=faculty.marianopolis.edu}}</ref>

[[File:Kamloops on to Ottawa.jpg|thumb|left|Strikers from unemployment relief camps on a train in [[Kamloops]], en route to Eastern Canada, 1935]]

Times were especially hard in western Canada, where a full recovery did not occur until the Second World War began in 1939. One response was the creation of new political parties such as the [[Canadian social credit movement|Social Credit movement]] and the [[Cooperative Commonwealth Federation]], as well as popular protest in the form of the [[On-to-Ottawa Trek]].<ref>{{cite web|title=The On-to-Ottawa Trek|url=https://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/calgary/onottawa.html|publisher=The University of Calgary (The Applied History Research Group)|year=1997|access-date=April 12, 2010|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090923010231/http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/calgary/onottawa.html|archive-date=September 23, 2009}}</ref>