1914-1929: The Best and Worst Time to be a Canadian

1. Indian Act: Indian children forced to attend school (1926)

1.1. This event represents decline because aboriginal children were forced to attend schools where they were starved and treated poorly to force them to gain a “western” mindset. Some of the children ended up dying from how badly they were being treated. Their parents would be arrested if they didn't give up their children or if they tried to hide their children. The government had tried to cover the whole thing up and keep it from getting out to the public. Some children never came home to their parents and their parents were just left wondering what could have happened to their children.

1.2. Image Link: https://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/0104-missing-children-1.jpg?w=620

2. Winnipeg Strike (1919)

2.1. This event represents decline because after the war people were being paid low wages, the war had taken its toll on the economy, this caused the people to go on strike until they were paid decent wages. The economy was still in war mode and needed time to recover, however giving people lower wages was obviously not the right solution.

2.2. The strike forced the government to listen to Canadians and they were forced to help the economy and give people better wages. Previously the government had been ignoring people's many requests and only did what they thought was the best for the economy.

2.3. Image Link: http://cupe.ca/sites/cupe/files/bwrememberstrike_0.jpg

3. Canda's 100 Days (1918)

3.1. This event represents progress because it ended world war 1. This was the last 100 days of WW1, Canada breached the German lines and the Germans were defeated. These 100 days showed the world that the Canadians were strong, and a force to fear, it also earned Canada the respect of other countries.The Canadian commander was Lieutenant-General Sir Arthur Currie.

3.2. Sir Arthur Currie was a teacher, an insurance salesman, a militia officer, a real estate developer, an army officer, an office holder and an university administrator. His grandparents had fled from Ireland to Canada because of religious intolerance. He had a hard life growing up in Canada, he was the third of seven children, only four of them had survived to maturity. He was a teacher in British Colombia before he joined the army. Sometime while he was in B.C. he changed the spelling of his name from Curry to Currie because his friends were always associating him with the east Indian food curry. His friends used to teasingly say "Curry is Spicy".

3.3. Image Link: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Canadian_troops_on_Arras-_Cambrai_road-1918.jpg

4. Progress or Decline?

4.1. I believe that Canada witnessed both progress and decline in the years of 1914-1929. Some can argue for either side, they can say the amount of triumphs is greater than the amount of losses and some can argue that the losses were so great that they overpower the triumphs. However, I feel that they cancel each other out. Also, many events can be looked at both ways, such as Canada's 100 days. In Canada's 100 days they defeated the Germans but they lost 9074 Canadians in three days. There are very few events that can be viewed solely as progress or decline. An event that can be looked at as solely progress is when women won the right to vote because it is a tremendous turning point in Canadian history and there is not a thing that happened during that event that can be interpreted as decline. It was progress because women were being looked at as equals to men for the first time in Canadian History. An event that can be looked at as purely decline is the Indian act when aboriginal children were forced to attend school in 1926. Aboriginal children were taken from their parents, told everything they believed in was wrong and that they needed to change themselves. In modern times it would insane to even think about something like that, and in today's world it wouldn't be able to stay hidden and covered up because of one thing: Social Media. Many people would take to social media if something like that ever happened now, it would be impossible for any government to keep it hidden. The Halifax explosion is an event that shows both progress and decline, obviously there is more decline in it than progress but none the less there is some progress. The decline part is easy to notice, the destruction, the casualties, the trauma, idea for atomic bomb, etc., however the progress is hidden in between the lines. This showed the Canadian government that their military needed training, structure and experience. The Winnipeg strike is like the Halifax explosion but on a smaller scale. The strike brought destruction, 94 people were arrested, and 1 was unfortunately killed. The progress was that it showed the Canadian government that they needed to listen to the people. The way I see it is that if you ruled a kingdom, the people within your kingdom need to be kept happy because without them you rule nothing. It is an important lesson for any government to know and understand and the Canadian government had been neglecting the people after WW1. For these reasons I think that Canada witnessed both progress and decline from 1914-1929.

5. Halifax Explosion (1917)

5.1. The site wouldn't allow to me to paste images in so I have attatched the links: http://www.cbc.ca/halifaxexplosion/he2_ruins/interactives/slideshow/images/11.jpg

5.2. This event represents decline because there was many Canadian casualties and the control of the harbor was taken from the experienced Canadians and given to Canada’s small navy. The government made a mistake in giving the navy control because they were not experienced enough to handle the amount of ships in the harbor. The explosion was the biggest explosion of it's time, it is what created the idea of the atomic bomb. The force of the explosion leveled buildings, shatter windows, beach ships in the harbor and create a massive tidal wave.

5.3. This was a wake up call for the Canadian government, it showed how small and inexperienced their military was. The Canadian military needed far more training than it had had at that time. It lacked training and structure, the Canadians who used to run the harbor were far more experienced, the military needed to recruit people who were experts at what they did.

6. Women win the right to vote (1918)

6.1. This event represents progress because women had never been given rights that were equal to men’s, however they had been doing lots of the men’s jobs while they were away at war. Woman were now looked at differently, instead of being looked at people who should cook and clean, they were now looked at as people who can do anything a man can do.

6.2. Nelly McClung was one of the leaders for women to win the right to vote. She was a politician, an author, a social activist, and a feminist. She rallied others to the cause of woman’s suffrage and woman's rights in Manitoba in the early 1900's. As a child she questioned the roles of women in society. She wondered why the boys could race and girls couldn't, the idea of girls running and their legs being showed was frowned upon in her time. At the age of sixteen she begun teaching at a rural school, at recess she would go outside and play football with the students. This was frowned upon by many of the parents, however she eventually convinced them otherwise using logic and persuasive lecturing.

6.3. Image Link: https://mondaymorningsmile.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/women-vote.jpg

7. Would I have wanted to live in Canada in this time period?

7.1. No, I would not have wanted to live in Canada in this time period because of how immigrants were sometimes treated. After the Halifax explosion Canadian immigrants of German descent were immediately forced to leave their homes and they were arrested because Canadians thought that the Germans had somehow caused the explosion. That would have been a bad time to be an immigrant from Germany in Canada. Numerous times in Canadian history immigrants are not treated fairly, it is not they are being treated terribly, just not as well as they are being treated today. Many aboriginal man and immigrants signed up for WW1 but Canada would not let them fight until they began to run out of Canadian soldiers. The main reason I would not like to live in Canada during that time period is because of the way immigrants were treated, I like living in the current time period much more.