Here in PLP, we are now studying the Roaring 20’s, and the Great Depression in Canada. To demonstrate our understanding of the topic, we were asked to come up with an inquiry question that had something to do with this time period.
I decided to look at how the Depression ended, and after some research, I found that many historians think that it ended due the the start of the Second World War. I found this intriguing since it took a tragedy (World War II) to end another tragedy (The Great Depression). That made me wonder, Would the Depression Have Ended if World War II Had Not Started?
First, I made this video to demonstrate how the Great Depression in Canada ended:
As you can see, World War II played a large role in the end of the Depression. But there were other factors in ending as well, such as the National Bank of Canada and the CBC.
Now that I had a good understanding of how the depression ended, I could look deeper into my inquiry question. I looked into the impacts that the war had on the depression. Specifically Canadian exports, government spending, and jobs in the military.
This mind map sums up what I found:
As it says in the mind map, I came to the conclusion that Without the start of World War II, the Great Depression in Canada would have continued.
This is very interesting because it made me realize that as much of a tragedy as the war was, it did help lift Canada out of depression.
I learned a lot about the Depression and WWII from this project. I had no idea that a war could help end a depression. This surprised me at first, but after researching, it makes perfect sense. I got most of my information from the Canadian Encyclopedia which had a lot of valuable facts and stats about the depression and the war. In all, I enjoyed this project as it taught me something new about our country.