Canada's Great Depression: Part 1 - From Prosperous to Penniless

Imagine living through the Roaring Twenties. Economically, things seem to have gotten figured out by the powers that be in the government sector. Capitalism has made everyone rich, there's wealth and growth everywhere, and as a Western Nation, you're on top of the world - now that the fight that almost destroyed it is done and dusted, that is. I think it's fair to say you've got to be pretty darn optimistic. Heck, everyone was. It wasn't just the general public either, as the newspapers were reporting how things were just going to keep getting better and better, whereas the rare exception seeing things for how it really was would be pushed to the back for being too doom-and-gloom.

Men lining up for a free meal. This was back in the day where
being homeless and out of work still required the dignity of a
peacoat and three-piece-suit.

Those that foresaw the collapse told of how over-developing the nation and having far too much supply and not enough demand was going to ruin the markets. Of course, that sounds like something far off in the future or just some vague possibility - until all of a sudden it knocks you off your feet. After all, how could things go wrong? Many were so optimistic that the good times would keep on rolling they would buy on margin. One such man, who bought $80,000 worth of stock from a broker with $8,000 as a down payment (pretty well everything he had) was hoping to hold onto it and sell it later, making more than the cost of the interest by a landslide. People had been doing this for years. He was one of many that was struck suddenly and debilitatingly by the collapse of the market. The next day, he realized that $8,000 was not only gone, but he owed $8,000 to the bank.

Here I am, feeling like I gambled away my life savings if I drop $20 at the casino. That Kitty Glitter machine is a cruel mistress.

The cause for that poor man's sudden economic demise was the crash of the market in October, 1929.  Seeing as how the market had just veritably exploded in the American stock exchange, speculators began selling their shares at record rates. Montreal averaged 25,000 trader shares on an average day, but on Black Tuesday, the 29th of October, they sold 400,000. So many were selling so quickly that you could get a different price on a stock just depending on what side of the room you were on, so loud and crazy was the stock exchange. People were crying, feinting, screaming, and whatever other human emotions come out in a mix of tragedy and panic (nervous peeing?), and just like that, the Great Depression was born.

A man during the Dust Bowl, desperately searching for where
he dropped his keys.

Canada, for the remainder of the decade, plunged into a world that seems so against how one would expect our nation to handle a trainwreck like this. The government became exceedingly heavy handed, thinking that an iron fist would fix things when a soft touch was desperately needed. Canada was ruled by distant, callous and ineffectual leadership, made worse by the fact that it was already a near impossible situation to escape. All the while, any dissenting voice would get - quiet literally - beaten down. The rise of communism was a looming spectre reaching over Canada, and the government did everything in its power to push it down by any means necessary whenever it popped up, like some ideology-based game of Whack-a-Mole.

Busy with the reds, the government failed to help was the average, everyday citizen, ready and willing to work but unable to do so. People were quite literally starving to death, a problem that sounds so out of touch with Canada. Conditions were so terrible that in Halifax 192 houses were condemned that had 370 families living in them. Unemployment in Toronto had, at one point, jumped 34% from the level in 1929. 1,357,262 Canadians were on relief by 1933 - and that was long before the worst of the Depression had struck.

I know I'm harping on this, but why do these poor men
dress better than I literally ever have? How can you
be both dapper and destitute?

Of course, these are all just numbers, and once you hit a certain point it fails to hit quite the way it should. When numbers get too high they cease being understandable, and it becomes difficult to relate to it. It's when you look at the personal toll on people, and the occasional individual story of tragedy and heartbreak brought on by the Dirty Thirties, that's when it stops becoming a laundry list of distressing facts and the brutal nature of it truly becomes real. If I had to sum up the degree of tragedy with one such story, it would be the life of Ted Bates, his wife Rose, and their nine-year-old son. Reading on history has a tendency of inundating you with such a slew of horrible things that you almost get desensitized, but man... this one stuck with me.

Ted and Rose had lost everything they had. With their final scraps of cash, they rented a car and just enough gas to lock themselves in a garage and attempt to commit suicide as a family through carbon monoxide poisoning. However, misjudging how much they needed or simply not having enough to afford the amount required, it only managed to kill their young boy and severely weaken the husband and wife. Dizzy from the fumes, Ted tried to knock his wife out cold - by her wishes - to then stab her to death, but neither was able to do so. Instead, they only managed to cut each other deeply but not enough to kill. Taken to hospital, they managed to survive their wounds. Contrary to how one would think the story would go, and a testament to the dire situation Canadians found themselves in, the town - in a shocking display of sympathy - agreed to not only pay for the funeral of their son but to provide them money to cover their legal expenses. The couple was found not guilty.

This is the Canada in the 1930s. Brutal, desperate, and filthy. A government that couldn't provide, a police force making a mockery of the law, and good, hardworking people pushed to the depths of despair. It kind of makes today look like a walk in the park.