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In August of 1929, the Great Depression left a very limited amount of jobs for women in Canada. During the Great Depression, many corporations shut down from bankruptcy. That left a lot of people unemployed, including many women. Women had a hard time finding jobs during this time, especially due to how limited their areas of employment were. Since men were favoured in the workplace, women (specifically married ones) were also asked to leave any open positions for men.
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For women, this event brought a lot of change for them. Women had just gone through World War I and the Roaring Twenties, where they were able to actively have a job, so all of this was quite new to them. This was a declining event for women. It forced them to take a step back from the progress they had made so far to get where they were in the workplace.
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The Dust Bowl was a series of dust storms that started in 1929 and it mainly affected the farmers in the Canadian Prairies. Factors that contributed to these severe dust storms were over farming during WWI and ongoing droughts in the Prairies. With the Prairies in a drought, there were very high temperatures and no rain causing farmers' crops to be destroyed. Conditions during the dust storms became so intense that people left their farms as they saw many people dying from the dust’s effects.
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For farmers, this event was a difficult change for them. With the effects of the Dust Bowl farmers were no longer able to produce crops, which was something new for them that they had not seen in recent days. This event was a decline for farmers with its very negative effects it brought to their work. This was because of how the dust storms and weather conditions ruined their farms, as well as it forced them to leave everything they had behind.
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At the start of World War II in September of 1939, men in Canada were sent away to the battlefield and were forced to leave behind their families as well as their jobs. Women entered the workplace to help reduce labour shortages and to keep the economy intact while men fought overseas. Women could often be seen working on farms, as nurses, or in factories. Women commonly worked in factories producing munitions for the war, as there was a high demand for these war supplies overseas.
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This event showed continuity for women from years before. Women were also seen working as nurses, on farms and in factories during World War I. This was a progressive event for women because it introduced them back into the workplace. Women had just gone through a period of time where they often had to give up their jobs to men, but now they were able to take back their positions and strive in the workplace once again.
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As soon as Italy entered the war against Canada in June of 1940, the government gave the RCMP the ability to arrest and intern Italians in Canada. The reason this was possible was because of the War Measures Act. This act gave the government the ability to make ethnic groups, including Italians register as “enemy aliens'' so they could be sent away to internment camps around Canada. Italians were interned and arrested because they were viewed often as fascist sympathizers and spies by Canadians.
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For the Italian Canadians, this event brought significant change to them. Italians were treated very differently in Canada during World War I, they actually were treated properly and were even able to enlist in the war. Comparing that to their circumstances now of being put into internment camps, things had gotten severely worse for them. This was a decline for the Italians because of how they were judged based on a generalized stigma and were treated awfully from it. -
During World War II in April of 1941, Canada’s federal agriculture minister James Gardiner asked farmers to increase the production of crops. Farmers were depended on to fulfill these demands because these crops were needed to fuel the men who had gone overseas. As the war went on James kept demanding a higher rate of production for crops, this forced farmers to work longer hours just to be able to keep up. Farmers may have worked lengthy hours but in return, the prices of crops went up.
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For farmers, this event showed continuity from World War I. In World War I, farmers were also asked to increase their production of crops to support the men on the battlefield. This event made progress for farmers because they had just gone through the Great Depression where prices for their crops were severely low. From crops being in such high demand during this time, it allowed the prices to go back up to a stable price which benefited all farmers.
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In early 1942 after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Japanese Canadians were forced to leave Canada or else they were interned. Pearl Harbor was the tipping point for the Canadian government that led to the interning of the Japanese people. The government was able to do this because of the War Measures Act. The act labelled Japanese Canadians as “enemy aliens” and allowed them to be put into internment camps. The camps the Japanese were sent to were overcrowded and had poor, inhumane conditions.
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Japanese Canadians were hit with a massive change of life during these times. This was very different for Japanese people because even during World War I they had not been interned or discriminated against to this extent. This change was a decline for Japanese people because of how they were just kicked around like they meant nothing to Canada.
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