How did Canadian life change after World War Two? This was the driving question of our latest project in PLP 10, and honestly, I’m surprised by how much the entire world changed. Canada especially was at the forefront of post war evolution. This blog post is all about how I came to answer that question. So, let’s get into it.
Starting off with the very beginning. A pretty great place to start. This project was in collaboration with the Deep Cove heritage society. They are an organization that talks about the history of deep Cove and how it’s changed. This involves talking about how it changed after WW2, which is where we came in.
The competencies we were applying in the project were: discuss, listen, and speak, and also continuity and change. These two different competencies guided our project along. I usually hate working along side these types of competencies but I found that on this occasion, they helped me focus in on doing my best work. They also structured what I wanted to say in my podcast and in other work.
To get to the final interview podcast, I had to find someone to interview. As my podcast topic is traditions, my goal was to find an interviewee that could tell me about a Canadian event that they had been present for throughout several years. I got lucky with this one, Asha and Grace both helped me by recommending Trevor Carolan. A man of many talents.
One thing I found I definitely excelled at was the presentations. We did a series of two presentations on two different things but in both I felt like I did very well in both. I showed that I knew what I was talking about and used the skills I’ve been developing to share my knowledge.
My final podcast was something I’m relatively proud of. I had a difficult time with some of the editing but I pushed past that and I’m confident in the end result.
The final answer I came up with was expressed in the paper I wrote in one of the final days of this project. I’m really proud of my work here. I feel like it expresses my answer to the driving question. So Zoe, how did Canadian life change after World War Two?
Canadian life after World War Two would never be the same as it was before the war. Canadian life changed in both social and economic ways. This lead to the Canadian quality of life improving in visible ways, like the development of the suburbs and various Canadian social programs. These programs allowed for Canadians to thrive in Canada and thus allow for the growth of Canadian pop culture. The learning I have done in this project let me explore Canada’s foundations and it’s national identity.
The driving force in the economic boom after the war was the baby boom. This action acted as the first domino in a line of many. To prevent a depression after the war, the Canadian government pumped money back into the economy. Canadian citizens were stable enough to support children and themselves, and thus responded by having children. This grew the need for many things, like new industries, a bill of rights, and unions.
There were so many new people in Canada like, immigrants, new children, and, soldiers returning from war. All of these new people needed support. Social programs acted as a national support system to help Canadians live the best life they could. Some of these programs were paid maternity leave, employment insurance, and most notably, Medicare. Paid maternity leave was introduced in British Columbia in 1966, and this allowed for women who stayed in the workforce after the war ended to have children while still being able to support themselves. Employment insurance gave Canadians the opportunity to make money in unstable jobs without worrying they would be unable to provide if they were fired due to no fault of their own.
These social programs led to the Canadian quality of life to improve in many ways. People could afford housing, have families, not die of a small infection, or go broke because of an injury. Canadian citizens were able to get back to a post war lifestyle, but better! The introduction of the nuclear family gave Canadians ideals to strive for, and the television gave them information that was easily accessible. The quality of life for Canadians drastically improved from the quality of like they had during wartime. Going from minimal rations to fully stocked grocery stores must have been a pleasant shock.
In conclusion, the government encouraging economic growth helped the baby boom, boom! The baby boom along with new people coming into, or returning to Canada led to the Canadian quality of life improving. Medicare and other social programs showed Canadians they mattered. This allowed for Canadians to develop a sense of self and a national identity.
In conclusion, Canadian life changed a lot after the war. In discovering this, I created some work that I was quite proud of and learned a lot. I hope you enjoyed today’s post and make sure to check in two weeks to see how our final exhibition went!