J. Xia
The Great Depression in 1920s had a disastrous influence on Canada. Suffering from the Great Depression, Canadians faced the problem such as unemployment, starvation and increasing suicide rate. In order to save Canada from the Great Depression, Canadian government did lots of change and published lots of policies. The government’s policies such as creating work campus or deportation were not very effective, but Canadian government was successful in its attempts to deal with the Great Depression to the extent of distributing pogey, rising tariffs and signed treaty with the U.S.
First, at that time, the job insurance was not existed yet, so the government decided to distribute pogey to their citizens. The pogey is the money that was distributed by the government to those people who did not have a job and income to support their life. During the Great Depression, the rate of unemployment rose a lot and numerous workers lost their jobs so they had no income to make their families survive. The data showed that 1 in 5 Canadians had to depend on the pogey to survive. Whereas, the pogey was lower than the lowest wage in the country and if people wanted to get the pogey, they had to wait for a long time and admit that they had no ability to gain money by themselves in public. This request was ashamed for most men so they stop to get pogey from the government and tried to gain money by themselves. Although someone doubt that the way was too cruel, it is a right method to stimulate people to find jobs instead of depend on the government. Therefore, distributing pogey was a right decision made by the Canadian government.
Second, the government rose the tariffs in order to improve the economy in their own country. The Great Depression in Canada was influenced by the increasing tariffs in the America so their goods such as wheat and newsprints could not be exported. Therefore, after Bennett became the Prime Minister in 1930, he made a decision which was increase Canadian tariffs as well. After increasing the tariffs, Canadians would buy the goods that were produced by their own country instead of buying foreign goods. As a result, it is another way to improve and protect Canadian’s own economy during the Great Depression.
Last but not least, after King became the Prime Minister again in 1935, he promised that he would equalize the distribution to different provinces and set better services in those poor provinces. His most influential decision was to signed treaty with the United States. Promising a much-desired trade treaty with the U.S., the Mackenzie King government passed the 1935 Reciprocal Trade Agreement. Some experts said it marked the turning point in Canadian-American economic relations and reversed the disastrous trade war of 1930-1931, lowing tariffs, and yielding a dramatic increase in trade, and it revealed to the prime minister and the president that they could work together well.
In brief, the Canadian government did a lot since the Great Depression happened in 1920s. The Prime Minister changed twice and both of them did certain contribution for the recovery of Canada. The government was highly attended and got lots of pressures. To the extent of distributing pogey, rising tariffs and signing treaty with the U.S. was the effective way that Canadian government succeed to deal with the great depression.
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