Canada's Golden Age

[balletomane]

Which decade or era in Canadian history would you consider to be Canada's golden age? Is it a decade long ago or one that awaits us?

In my opinion, about 1896 to 1914 would be Canada's golden age, a time when Canada was accepting more immigrants than today, cities in the west went from being pioneer towns to some of the largest in the nation and optimism and boosterism were abound, summed up when Laurier declared, "We are a nation of six million people already; we expect soon to be 25, yes, 40 millions, there are men in this audience who, before they die, if they live to old age, will see this country with at least 60 millions of people."

[SignalHillHiker]

Not sure for Canada as a whole. 1897-1907 is viewed as a golden era here by most historians and appears to have been considered such by the people as well. St. John's was one of the largest cities in the region at time and had a status it's never come close to since. When the city burned down in 1892, every city from Halifax to St. Augustine, especially New York City and Boston, organized relief ships. We were front page news for weeks. That'd never happen today. It was probably also viewed as a golden era because it followed an especially violent period of riots between Catholics and Protestants, that fire, and the complete collapse of our local banks in 1894.

WWII was another golden era, especially for the capital city. So many American bases, our economy was on fire, so many thousands of women marrying American servicemen, going off to see the world, returning home to visit every year with new influences. Every American celebrity alive at the time performed here, etc.

For many rural Newfoundlanders, the 1950s were a golden era. Following Confederation, Canadian law forced St. John's hand and public services had to be provided to the outports for the first time. Electricity, running water, roads, schools, hospitals... all of this was brought to rural areas for the first time in our history. For those who were forcibly resettled to more easily-serviced communities it caused a lot of hardship, the same sort of social response you often see on reserves - generational alcoholism, poverty, etc. - but for the most part, for the majority of rural Newfoundlanders, it was like lurching from the medieval to modern era in the span of a few years. I don't want to give the impression they were hicks. Many regularly traveled the world for work, or spent time in well-established communities like Harbour Grace, Bonavista, Carbonear, and St. John's. They just never would've even dreamed of having those types of amenities at home.

[Architype]

I think Vancouver's Golden age was during the years when the city first established itself as a real city, went through rapid development and it's first building boom; the years approximately between 1900 and 1914, when it even had two claims for tallest buildings in the British Empire. Others might consider the years between Expo 86 and the present day to be a golden age.

For Canada as a whole I would see it as the sixties, when we finally felt like an independent country free of the British Empire, and had our own Canadian flag.

[someone123]

I think we are living through a golden age right now, and that Canada is soon going to be considered a more powerful country on the global stage, comparable to the UK.

We're also living through an urban golden age specifically. The urban ills of the 90's and earlier are mostly gone and urban living is the most desirable kind of living right now.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think we are living through a golden age right now, and that Canada is soon going to be considered a more powerful country on the global stage, comparable to the UK.

We're also living through an urban golden age specifically. The urban ills of the 90's and earlier are mostly gone and urban living is the most desirable kind of living right now.

I think you might be right, but it's hard to know for sure until time passes. Canada has a lot going for it, massive natural resources, room to grow, well defined systems of government, little historical baggage (compared to other countries), respect for liberal democracy. What puzzles me though is why Canada isn't doing better given all these huge advantages and lack of any major problems? The only big reason I can think of is that the USA sucks away a lot of potential.

I feel the US has to start hitting the limits of its growth soon though, and if they don't figure out their major political issues then that is going to start harming their attractiveness to investment. If that starts happening, Canada should look very appealing.

[Innsertnamehere]

Why Canada isn’t doing better? Canada is one of the wealthiest countries on the planet with consistently rapid growth, increasing wealth, one of the most stable governments and democracies on the planet, and extremely positive global perception. What more could you ask for?

[thurmas]

I would say 1945 to 1965 we had the 4th largest navy in the world at the end of the war, robust economic and population growth, domestic tensions were much weaker than what they would become in the 70s and 80s and 90s virtually no debt as well.

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by balletomane

Which decade or era in Canadian history would you consider to be Canada's golden age? Is it a decade long ago or one that awaits us?

In my opinion, about 1896 to 1914 would be Canada's golden age, a time when Canada was accepting more immigrants than today, cities in the west went from being pioneer towns to some of the largest in the nation and optimism and boosterism were abound, summed up when Laurier declared, "We are a nation of six million people already; we expect soon to be 25, yes, 40 millions, there are men in this audience who, before they die, if they live to old age, will see this country with at least 60 millions of people."

Unless of course you were a woman, minority or Indigenous.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by milomilo

What puzzles me though is why Canada isn't doing better given all these huge advantages and lack of any major problems? The only big reason I can think of is that the USA sucks away a lot of potential.

Brain drain to the US is a small factor in terms of overall demographics but when you look at key demographics, people with a lot of skills but not a lot of established wealth (e.g. the top new graduates), it's extreme. I would guess that most of Canada's top 1% talent-wise leaves the country, and not many seem to come back.

We don't seem to make any effort to control this. We hand out subsidized tuition and full scholarships to students who move to the US as soon as they graduate, and provide a discount education to many students who are only in Canada for university.

[csbvan]

Originally Posted by someone123

I think we are living through a golden age right now, and that Canada is soon going to be considered a more powerful country on the global stage, comparable to the UK.

We're also living through an urban golden age specifically. The urban ills of the 90's and earlier are mostly gone and urban living is the most desirable kind of living right now.

This

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Why Canada isn’t doing better? Canada is one of the wealthiest countries on the planet with consistently rapid growth, increasing wealth, one of the most stable governments and democracies on the planet, and extremely positive global perception. What more could you ask for?

The USA has considerably higher GDP per capita, and is growing faster - with every year that passes the gap between the two becomes larger. Given that Canada has many of the advantages of the USA without many of the disadvantages, we should be catching up rapidly, yet we are not.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by someone123

Brain drain to the US is a small factor in terms of overall demographics but when you look at key demographics, people with a lot of skills but not a lot of established wealth (e.g. the top new graduates), it's extreme. I would guess that most of Canada's top 1% talent-wise leaves the country, and not many seem to come back.

We don't seem to make any effort to control this. We hand out subsidized tuition and full scholarships to students who move to the US as soon as they graduate, and provide a discount education to many students who are only in Canada for university.

This, and also the drain of companies due to more capital investments from the south. I've no idea how to solve that though - in my opinion, Canadian investors not throwing ridiculous sums of money at often stupid tech startups is sensible, but how do you get around that if there are a ton of investors in the states with so much money that they can afford to make risky investments? The only way I see it being fixed is if the tech sector turns out to be a massive bubble (probably, IMO), and all these investors get burned.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by milomilo

This, and also the drain of companies due to more capital investments from the south. I've no idea how to solve that though - in my opinion, Canadian investors not throwing ridiculous sums of money at often stupid tech startups is sensible, but how do you get around that if there are a ton of investors in the states with so much money that they can afford to make risky investments? The only way I see it being fixed is if the tech sector turns out to be a massive bubble (probably, IMO), and all these investors get burned.

To some degree this also shows that GDP doesn't always tell the whole story. If you're doing the equivalent of digging holes and filling them up again with pointless tech startups, your GDP may go up without generating a commensurate increase in real value. Then again, it's hard to say which startups are going to be successful and which ones won't.

Exchange rates cause weirdness too. I don't think we actually got 20% worse relative to the US from 2014-2016 when the CAD lost valued relative to the USD.

I think GDP is useful as part of a bundle of different metrics when it comes to tracking how a specific economy is doing over time. It is inaccurate as a method of comparing different places with substantially different economies and different currencies. By that I mean that maybe a factor of 2 or 4 difference matters while a ranking of $40k vs $45k USD per capita is a smaller difference than the likely error.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by thurmas

I would say 1945 to 1965 we had the 4th largest navy in the world at the end of the war, robust economic and population growth, domestic tensions were much weaker than what they would become in the 70s and 80s and 90s virtually no debt as well.

I would agree, although I would put the beginning of the Canadian Golden Age in 1944, when we stood shoulder to shoulder with the US and the UK in Normandy on D-Day. Canada on it's own liberated the northern fringe of France and the low countries. Canada gained a lot of credit and respect for our sacrifice during the war.

I would put the end of the Canadian Golden Age a little later too. Certainly Expo 67 marked a high point in terms of projecting the Canadian identity to the world. Canada remained hip in 1968 with the election of Trudeau Pere. Trudeaumania was a real thing and got us notice elsewhere in the world. It was a time when anything seemed possible. I would put the end of the Golden Age in 1970, with the October Crisis. Suddenly the future of Canada seemed in peril, and the general gloom of the 1970's followed (Viet Nam War, oil crisis, recession, world terrorism). The sense of optimism of the 1960's came crashing to the ground, and didn't really recover until about 1990.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by milomilo

This, and also the drain of companies due to more capital investments from the south. I've no idea how to solve that though - in my opinion, Canadian investors not throwing ridiculous sums of money at often stupid tech startups is sensible, but how do you get around that if there are a ton of investors in the states with so much money that they can afford to make risky investments?

I've given it some thought; I probably mentioned this story on the forum already but I have a couple very close friends (physicists with PhDs) who went ahead and started a high-tech, high-risk business and desperately needed funding; I ended up giving them a tiny bit of money in the end, just as a favor (knowing that the project would've died at that point without my $), and they had the hardest time raising the rest of the funds they needed... I realized I had gotten very spoiled by the reliability and safety of (high cap rate) real estate, so tech startups to me looked like crazy gambling in comparison.

I'm a representative sample of the problem, IMO. My conclusion is that there should be massive tax credits, tax breaks, or incentives (i.e. for each private dollar invested, the govt puts a dollar), and to make it revenue-neutral, for each startup that ends up working really well, eventually that money (or at least a chunk of it) is owed back to the govt.

Basically, no one would ever "make out like a bandit" without being forced to reimburse at least a good chunk of that government help... but if your startup fails, then the debt vanishes.

On average, the net cost of this program wouldn't be very high, and the economic benefit would be almost certainly tremendous.




P.S. another lesson learned is that Canadian banks won't lend you anything whenever you actually need funds, but as soon as you don't need loans and are swimming in cash, THEN that's the moment where they suddenly all want to lend you money that you don't need anymore. Very useful...

[Nite]

Originally Posted by milomilo

The USA has considerably higher GDP per capita, and is growing faster - with every year that passes the gap between the two becomes larger. Given that Canada has many of the advantages of the USA without many of the disadvantages, we should be catching up rapidly, yet we are not.

Keep in mind the US is fueling it's economy right now from massive taxs cuts which has increased their deficits to unsustainable portions.
The US is headed for a big slump in the future.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Why Canada isn’t doing better? Canada is one of the wealthiest countries on the planet with consistently rapid growth, increasing wealth, one of the most stable governments and democracies on the planet, and extremely positive global perception. What more could you ask for?

Exactly!

[whatnext]

Originally Posted by milomilo

This, and also the drain of companies due to more capital investments from the south. I've no idea how to solve that though - in my opinion, Canadian investors not throwing ridiculous sums of money at often stupid tech startups is sensible, but how do you get around that if there are a ton of investors in the states with so much money that they can afford to make risky investments? The only way I see it being fixed is if the tech sector turns out to be a massive bubble (probably, IMO), and all these investors get burned.

So instead we're throwing away money on real estate bubbles. So much better.

[Loco101]

It has always been a golden age in the gold mining City of Timmins, the city with a heart of gold. But our economy has had ups and downs. Our best times both culturally and economically were during any boom times.

As for Canada, I feel the best is yet to come. Things like reconciliation, technological advances, better social services and environmental improvements will hopefully be successful which will really make us stand out. And of course being among the top in standing up for human rights. There will certainly be some setbacks along the way but that's to be expected.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by milomilo

The USA has considerably higher GDP per capita, and is growing faster - with every year that passes the gap between the two becomes larger. Given that Canada has many of the advantages of the USA without many of the disadvantages, we should be catching up rapidly, yet we are not.

Some of the growth in the U.S. isn't healthy growth. Many of my wife's family members there have lots of money to buy goods but things like their health care costs really hurt their finances. The 2008 recession almost sunk them too yet our family was barely affected. I find that Canada has made more wise economic decisions and has also spent public funds more efficiently. More stability here.

The American way of doing things isn't all bad but I find that there are more vulnerable people there and less of a social safety net.