Essay Sample: The Impact of World War 1 on Canada

During WW1 many areas of Canadian life were impacted. The country and its people were changed from then on. The first area with one of the largest impacts were women. The treatment of women during WW1 drastically changed and new opportunities started to arise. Evidently the rights of some women started to change. In 1917, a new bill was passed that gave the right to vote to any women who had relatives fighting overseas. This could be a husband, son or father. The bill was called The Wartime Election Act. Another bill was also passed called The Military Voters Act and gave any women or nurse in the armed forces the right to vote. This was a very significant part of the history of Canadian women as it was the starting point for much change yet to come at the time. Another thing that started to change for women was their ability to work in a factory. Since women couldn’t fight overseas they would contribute to the war from the homefront. Most men had been drafted or enlisted to fight so women had to start taking over the jobs usually performed by men. The main thing was the factory work. The women would create munitions, set fuses for shells and bullets, make guns, tanks and all sorts of other machinery. Because of the war prices of things started to increase quite a bit and families couldn’t rely on just the income of the man. Many women started to get jobs to help pay for things as more employment opportunities came about. Although women being able to do this was good, the conditions that they were forced to work in were not so. Their working conditions were extremely poor and dangerous; illness spread fast amongst the workers. The final point is nurses. Nurses during the war were given many opportunities to do the roles usually done by the male doctors. This improved efficiency and medical treatment. Nurses had to treat wounds that they had never seen before, especially when chemical warfare came to light. Many became reliant on the nurses as they were a significant part in helping to save those wounded. During this time the number of nurses also started to increase.

The second area of impact was the Canadian people as a whole. Division amongst Canadians became a serious issue as the years of war went on and frustration with fighting and rules in place strengthened. The first point for this area was the division socially and politically. On a political aspect the liberals and conservatives were not getting along. Laurier, leader of Liberal party, was against conscription while the Prime Minister Robert Bordon was for it. Conscription was one of the largest contributors to the divide in Canadians and led to many other divisions as well. On the social aspect, the divide with the “rich and poor” was also quite noticeable. Fighting in a war costs a lot of money, inflation started to happen on a substantial level and the affordability of food started to decrease. The rich were able to afford the increase of food costs while those in the lower classes had trouble. Because most families didn’t have their “breadwinner” at home the lower class women then had to get jobs in order to feed their families. Poverty became a large problem for Canadians during this time. The second point was the linguistic divide. When conscription became a thing some Canadians supported, while others did not. For the most part French-speaking Canadians were against it as they thought it wasn’t their war to fight. The English speaking/ British Canadians were mainly for conscription. Many people still had strong ties to Britain, so fighting in a war with them was supported. This divide caused many riots between the people and many arguments would result in racial slurs being used or aggression to those considered “cowards”.  The final point was the racial divide. In this time period many people started to immigrate to Canada. It was a new country and people were trying to start a new life. When the war started the government labeled those who had any descent from an enemy nation “enemy aliens”. One example of this was the Ukrainian Internment. This happened because they were split between the enemy and ally. During this Ukrainian Canadians lost jobs, were put into camps and pretty much forced into physical labor. Ukrainian labor built much of the infrastructure still around today. Including the Banff golf course. These Canadians also had to follow strict rules put in place. They had to report to the police on a regular basis and carry papers that identified them as an “enemy alien”.   Racial divide was also evident during this time witht the Indian Act. The Indian Act was bascially used to assimilate the indigenous people. Even war heros like Francis Pegahmagabow, an inidgenous sniper, had the rules still forced upon him after he returned from war.

The final area of impact I’d like to talk about is the death toll and long lasting wounds that effected the survivors and those left at home. One of the main long lasting affects from war that impacted many of the soldiers was mental illness. Mental illness after the war was horrible for those who were lucky enough to survive. One of the main illnesses was “shell shock” or more commonly known today as PTSD. This would lead to insomnia for the soldiers and extreme anxiety. Depression was also common. All the surviving soldiers witnessed so many deaths in front of their eyes. They had to kill others even if they didn’t want to. The soldiers lost everything and as a result depression came about to almost all. The second point to this area was the effects it caused back home in Canada. Over 60,000 Canadians died over the period and around 172,000 were injured. Most of the soldiers were able men 18+, this usually mean’t they had people at home for them still. Whether it was wives, children, sisters or mothers. Those families who had their loved one pass away also meant they lost their main source of income. CFPs were invented in hopes others would donate and help soldiers famillies but not all qaulified so women had to take on the lead role and find jobs. The homelife of those who returned and those who did not was vastly different. My final point was the population decrease that came as a result. During this time most of the male population was overseas fighting which caused the fertility rate to drop drastically. Because of this Canada had the problem of thousands of men dying and less and less babies being born to keep our population for future generations. Canada was a new country with a population of only around 8 million. 619,636 men had to enlist of that. This was about 7% of the population and today would be equivalent to around 2,600,000 soldiers. This could have been even worse for Canada if the war had continued to go on.