Assignment Directions (10%)
Purpose: the purpose of this First Assignment is to offer you an opportunity to become familiar with the course content (the 6 units and various topics in each unit) and the specifics of Unit 1 (Roads to Confederation). You also get an opportunity to become familiar with expectations on how to format an assignment using APA formatting standards. You will have an opportunity to conduct research as directed. You will also have an opportunity to use the APA format for creating in text citations and references page.
Instructions:
· Access our course content by clicking on Content and then open Unit 1. Carefully read all materials in Unit 1.
· Next, explore the content in our other 5 units, listed on the left in the table of contents. You do not need to read everything exhaustively at this point. The idea is to get an overview of the content and themes of our course.
· You will be asked to answer two questions (see below). Answer each question in your assignment, numbering your answer for each question at a minimum to show where each answer is. Use headings and sub-headings if you wish to further show where sub-sections of answers are. Use APA formatting standards for essays for font style, size, spacing, margins, headings, sub-headings etc.
· You will NOT need introductory or concluding paragraphs.
· You will be marked on thoroughly answering all questions and subsections of questions showing that you explored our course content and conducted research. Do not quote directly from our course content or from your research. Instead, answer the questions in your own words, showing you read and understood the course content and the research you conducted and that you have carefully reflected on the materials. But remember that even when you are using your own words, you still need APA in text citations.
· When you mention content from our course or from your research you WILL need APA in text citations. At the end of your assignment, on its own separate page, you will need a References Page where you will list once each the sources you used, dividing this list into two sections: One section you should label Course Resources and the other section you should label Outside Resources. Course Resources include any content in any of our Units or any sources directly linked in any of our Units. Outside Resources includes anything else you used, including any sources you were directed to use in the assignment description. See resources under Content- “APA Resources” in the table of contents for how to format your in-text citations and your references page entries.
· Your answers must be original and unique to you. Once you put your assignment in the drop box, it will go through Turnitin to compare your work against material submitted by other students and material available online.
· Using carefully edited proper sentences and paragraphs, answer the questions below. Number each question and write approximately two paragraphs for each question.
· See the Ru
ic for the First Assignment for further details on how to be successful in this assignment.
First Assignment Questions:
1. Open Unit 1 (Roads to Confederation) and carefully read all the content there (including material on Confederation itself and important background material provided). Select one of the Fathers of Confederation listed (Macdonald, Cartier, Brown, Dorion, McGee, Tilley, Gray, Howe, or Tupper) and research him and his views on Confederation using one or more articles in the online Canadian Encyclopedia. You can access it here: https:
thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en. On that site, use the “search” button on the top right to research your chosen Father of Confederation. Select articles in your research here rather than “timelines” or “collections” or any other type of source. According to your chosen Father of Confederation, what were the advantages and/or disadvantages of Confederation? Explain, using both your encyclopedia research and content from Unit 1. Set your explanation into the context of the background material you read in Unit 1 to show your understanding of why your chosen Father of Confederation would feel that way. Do NOT conduct research using any other sources. You WILL need APA in text citations to your encyclopedia article(s) and to Unit 1 course content in this answer.
2. Next, conduct an overall exploration of the other 5 units in our course. Briefly identify one topic, issue or theme that caught your attention. Explain
iefly why it caught your attention and what you now know about this so far after your exploration in our course content. Next, conduct research on this topic, issue or theme by reading one or more articles in the online Canadian Encyclopedia. You can access it here: https:
thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en. On that site, use the “search” button on the top right to research the topic you want to know more about. Select only articles to read (not a “timeline” or any other link) and
iefly explain the new insights you have gained about this topic and why you feel it is important, particularly to understand how Canada was created at Confederation and has developed as a country from what you know from Unit 1. Do NOT conduct research using any other sources. You WILL need APA in text citations to course material and your chosen encyclopedia article(s) in this answer.
Topic, issue, or theme for Question #2
Unit 3: The Canadian Economy: Depression, War, and Recovery
The Great Depression
The Great Depression of the 1930s still ranks for Canadians as the most disastrous decade of this century. To many of those who lived through it, the Second World War came as a relief. In recent years the use in the media of the phrase “the worst unemployment since the Great Depression” testifies to its continued force as a symbol of economic catastrophe.
1929 Market Collapse
The Canadian economy was dependent on the export of raw materials such as wheat, lumber, and minerals, all of which saw foreign markets plummet after 1929. Manufacturing companies in Canada were forced to cut back on production and lay off workers because of the dramatic slump in demand for the goods they made. Unemployment skyrocketed. Young, single men, frequently in search of their first jobs after leaving school, were particularly affected. Many of them traveled across the country, hitching rides on railway freight cars, in what was all too often a vain search for work.
The "Bennett Buggy"
The Depression is remembered for the
ead lines and the dust clouds sweeping over drought-stricken Saskatchewan. Perhaps the most striking image, however, is that of the “Bennett buggy,” an automobile without engine turned into a horse-drawn ca
iage named after Prime Minister R.B. Bennett. Economic necessity forced a step backwards in technology. The decade witnessed many such defeats. Small wonder that Canadian authors writing about the 1930s have called them “ten lost years,” “the dirty thirties,” “the bitter thirties,” “the winter years.”
Recovery
In Canada, the economic downswing began in the summer of 1929 and ended in the spring of 1933. The recovery that followed was uneven (Prairie farmers, for example, scarcely shared in it), was inte
upted by a severe recession in XXXXXXXXXX, and was far from complete when war
oke out in Europe in September 1939. The war
ought economic recovery. Industrial activity increased rapidly, and agriculture also improved. On the Prairies the drought finally ended. By 1942 unemployment had given way to overemployment, women were entering the labour force in unprecedented numbers, and the Depression had become a memory. For years, however, that memory would be very potent.
XXXXXXXXXXUnit #1 Roads to Confederation
Towards Confederation
Post War Of 1812
In the aftermath of the War of 1812 the familiar tensions returned to both Upper and Lower Canadian politics.
In Upper Canada debates in the assembly revolved around control of money. Reformers argued that the elected representatives of the people should determine how and where tax money was spent. The conservatives within the assembly, and the British government argued that as a colony Canada needed to defer to British prerogatives. In Lower Canada, a similar debate was being held. In this case, however, it was complicated by the clear linguistic divisions within the colony.
It is important to note Canada's colonial status at this time. Both Upper and Lower Canada and the maritime colonies of New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia were viewed by the British not as new countries in the making but rather as colonies designed to support and benefit the mother country.
This had benefits and costs for both sides of the equation. The economic activity of the colonies was very clearly geared towards supporting the British economy. As Britain launched its Industrial Revolution raw materials from the colonies helped to sustain it. The Mercantilist framework meant that economic activity in the colonies would be controlled exclusively by the British. In order to help facilitate this the British protected colonial trade. While the colonies could not trade widely, they also had a guaranteed market in Britain. This meant that the British frequently paid a premium price for the goods they needed but it also assured them not only of supplies but also the market. The perceived necessity of this a
angement explains the British insistence on limiting the powers of the colonial assemblies to act outside the direction of the British government.
Despite the domination of the economy by the British it was natural that the Canadian colonies would begin to trade with their American neighbors. This created new tensions both for the colonies and for the British but before the 1840s the existing system was not seriously questioned. For the Maritimes, the existing economic model seemed even more natural. Both Nova Scotia and New Brunswick benefited from a sea-faring tradition and impressive port facilities. In both cases the natural economy of the colonies faced outward. Trade with Britain, British colonies in the Cari
ean and even the northeastern US meant that the colonial economic system worked very well for the Maritime colonies.
Mounting Tensions
The conflicts within the Canadian political system reached their peak in the 1830s