8.18 Summary
Two weeks after the start of the Great War the Panama Canal opened. In the 1920s, new grain elevators appeared along the Great Lakes and on Vancouver’s waterfront, a sign of the expanding market the canal created for the foremost of Canada’s staple exports: wheat. In the same decade, new processes enabled the growth of the pulp and paper industry and hydro-electricity became an industry in its own right. The suburbanization that would characterize the post-WWII years was evident in the 1920s as well, as new houses and early electric appliances took the place of wood and coal stoves and ice-boxes. Ownership of the newest communications innovation — the telephone — leapt from one-in-four households in 1921 to three-in-four by 1931; the electric radio very nearly kept pace. The 1920s also saw an increase in Canadian trading with the United States. One consequence of this trading was the acceleration of the automobile industry and the extension of car-ownership to more and more Canadians. Governments borrowed heavily to build the infrastructure needed to support automobile ownership, and cities started reshaping their streets to facilitate private transportation — often at the expense of public transportation. The 1920s were, in many respects, the defining decade of the 20th century.
It is easier to speak with confidence about events nearly 100 years ago than in the last decade or two. Historians demonstrate a reluctance to weigh in on the recent past because the questions it raises are unsettled, the sources one needs to tap are as yet unavailable, and the measures one might apply not fully clear. This is nowhere more the case than in economic history. What can be said for sure about the Canadian economy since 1920 is that it experienced three major watersheds: the Depression, the post-war boom, and the disruptions associated with the post-industrial era. Some constants remain throughout this period. The Atlantic provinces continue to struggle economically; for them, Confederation has not paid off as well as it might have. Dependence on staple products has not gone away; for every BlackBerry or graphic arts design studio, there is a boxcar of coking coal headed to a ship bound for Japan or China, a pipeline full of oil coursing its way to the American Midwest, and millions of bushels of grain — or perhaps rapeseed or soy — heading into the Atlantic or Pacific. Consumerism, which appeared first as a hopeful engine of growth, defined the 20th century and continues to assert itself in the 21st. Although blue-collar wages have not continued their mid-century growth, the need for highly technical skills has redirected students into fields where their post-secondary education may secure them middle-class salaries, or at least will acculturate them to middle class values and spending habits.
The role of population in this story is quite possibly the most critical piece. The impact on Canada of two World Wars was serious but nothing as bad as i