Canada’s Most Defining Moments Essay Example for Free

Canada’s Most Defining Moments Essay Canada is a one of the wealthiest countries in the world but Canada didn’t just become wealthy overnight. Canada has many accomplishments and failures but the most defining moments in Canadian history were both the failures and accomplishments in the economy or economy related. The three most defining moments in Canadian history were; the stock market crash, which led to the â€Å"Great Depression†, the baby boom on the other hand led to increases in jobs during the 1960’s, and finally GST replaced â€Å"Manufacture Sales Tax† (MST) in 1990. The morning of October 24th 1929 is known as â€Å"Black Thursday† because on this day the stock market crashed in America but it affected most of the world including Canada. The cause of this crash in Canada was because of citizens buying ‘on margin’ which is borrowing money from banks and only putting down 10-20% of the loan. The crash caused the 1930’s to be a period of great depression for citizens. This brought the country into a state of panic and many people committed suicide because of the stock market crash. In only 2 days the market had dropped an average of 20%. The stock market crash was a spark that led Canada and many other countries into a â€Å"Great Depression†. Other factors that contributed to Canada’s Great Depression were: the dependence on the United States, over-production and over-expansion, and dependence on the primary industry, these were all long term causes. Many companies in Canada were in debt because of over-pro duction and over-expansion. This caused many of those companies to crumble and if these companies were still up and running they could have brought Canada money from international trade. Companies weren’t the only businesses effected, farming, logging, mining, and pretty much the entire primary industry was falling and Canada wasn’t producing any money and practically all exports were to a halt. The Great Depression was stopped by the start of the second world war because of people desperately looking for jobs, so they joined the army. Canada became a more feared country, thus Canada helped win battles like D-Day and the Italian Campaign. Along with the success Canada has had in world war two, the baby boom generation occurred between 1945 to 1964, which increased the population. The cause of the baby boom was essentially the great depression because numerous Canadians enrolled in the military. Canadians want to make a quick buck and not expecting to fight for years. Canadians went to battle for six years without women and when soldiers returned from the war they had an urge for intercourse with their girlfriends or wives and that’s what started the baby boom. The next generation would need to produce more consumer items and build more houses due to the sheer number of baby boomers, more power and water would also be required to run those homes. Therefore with these new demands we need to open more jobs to satisfy those demands. The baby boomer generation is even effecting us now, 66 years later. They are going to soon influence skill trades in Canada because the baby boomers in those jobs are near retirement. There is going to be a shortage of people to fill those jobs; especially because of parents wanting their children to go to university, therefore not getting a job in the skill trades. Many jobs like caregivers for example will require more people because of the sudden increase in elderly citizens. We are also going to need to pay for the baby boomer’s healthcare and security income and that will come from our taxes. Canada could be in trouble for the future because we don’t have the people to fill those jobs and we don’t have the money to pay for their health care and security insurance. The Canadian government can’t pay for the health care and security insurance without enforcing some type of tax, and that is exactly what they did. Prime minister Brian Mulroney and financial minister Michael Wilson introduced the idea of a Goods and Services Tax (GST) to replace Manufacture Service Tax (MST) and Federal Telecommunication Tax. This new tax is suppose to be implemented to all provinces except Alberta because they already had their own sales tax at a retail level. GST saved Canada from debt of the first world war, even though GST wasn’t introduced until 1990, MST was the little brother of GST. The government decided that MST was the best way to pay for the debt and essentially it was, but most Canadians and manufacturers strongly disliked this tax. GST was promoted as revenue-neutral in relation to the MST, the shifting of the tax away from exported manufactured goods would make life more costly for Canadians. Thus Canadians were against GST and manufactures were worried that the tax would hurt their sales internationally. The GST is affecting us every day, because if you are Canadian and you pay for a product or service; you are hit with a 13% fee and that is HST (PST and GST combined). The most critical moments in Canadian history were all economic related. Once the stock market crashed in 1929, it caused panic, mayhem, and an economic crisis of great magnitude. The baby boom was a complete opposite; it gave Canadians more jobs and soon we are going to have too many jobs and not enough people to fill those jobs in the 1960’s. GST is still Affects our everyday lives because everyone pays taxes when buying a consumer product and it has been that way since 1990. Canada could be in trouble economically in the near future. Since the baby boom is retiring; I would predict that Canadians will have to paying more taxes due to the extra costs of healthcare and as throughout history, Canadians have had a burning hatred towards taxes and especially increases in those taxes. This could possibly cause an uproar in the future.