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“Roaring Twenties” become “Dirty Thirties”: Canada and the Causes of the Great Depression also see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzGmkbAJcpc. The Trigger: The Stock Market Crash. The Trigger: The Stock Market Crash September 1929 – Prices begin to fall
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“Roaring Twenties” become “Dirty Thirties”: Canada and the Causes of the Great Depressionalso see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bzGmkbAJcpc
The Trigger: The Stock Market Crash • September 1929 – Prices begin to fall • Investors begin to lose confidence in the stock market and the companies they’d invested in • Tuesday, October 29, 1929 the stock market crashed as investors quickly sold their shares before they lost all their value
How did Canada go from the optimism and prosperity of the 1920s to the “Dirty Thirties”?
What were the 5 main long term causes of the Great Depression in Canada?
1. Overproduction -- Businesses were producing more goods than they could actually sell. The industrial capacity of both the U.S.A. and Canada had expanded beyond the ability of the consumer to consume
During the 1920s, many industries were expanding, and profits were spent on adding to factories or building new ones Huge supplies of manufactured goods were stockpiled because they could not be sold
2. Canada was dependent on exports of natural resources/staples. 1920s: about 25% of the Canadian Gross National Product was derived from exports of staple products
Wheat, fish, paper, minerals, coal, wood – shipped to Europe as it recovered from the war, and to the US Overproduction! As the economies of other countries started to decline, there was less demand for Canada’s raw materials
3. Canada’s economy was very dependent on that of the United States. 1920s: 40% of Canadian exports were sold to the USA A lot of US investment in Canada So…what happened when the US economy failed?
4. Protectionism Increasing trend in the 1920s Tariffs: money (“duties”) collected on goods coming in to a country Meant to discourage imports and protect industries from foreign competition US protectionism threatened Canada’s export market
5. Canadians were going into debt. • Buying stocks “on the margin” • Buying consumer goods on credit • Farmers and businesses borrowing from banks to pay for equipment and labour
So when the economy began to fail… Banks wanted repayment Companies went bankrupt and laid off workers Canadians couldn’t pay back their debts
Canada and causes of great depression • crash course on the roaring 20s