As July 1st approaches and I am going to be, once again, out of Canada during Canada Day, I have been trying to use my ample spare time to get into the spirit of Canada Day. I haven't yet spent half of my Canada Days overseas, probably like 3/8ths of them, and I blather on about the crappy things about Canada, some of them being the reasons I left it, but I still love my country and think it should be and COULD be the best country in the world. From that statement you may correctly infer that I don't believe it is. But I think all it would take is for the Canadian people, who I still maintain faith in, to collectively put our money where our mouths are. If Canada is your home and native land and it commands true patriot love in you, whether you are a son or a daughter of Canada, then you want to stand on guard and make sure the true north is kept strong and free. That is a responsibility we claim. It's a duty we take seriously. Or at least it should be. Quite frankly, it has become just something we sing about mindlessly at hockey games in my opinion. But before you get angry, rest assured, I WANT you to get angry. But for the right reasons.
When I see people getting all bent out of shape about one line of the national anthem being unfair to women, I get a little angry. Not because they're wrong, witness the above "son or daughter" comment, but because I think we need to concentrate on the meaning of the entire song. When I see people getting their long underwear in a knot about the gay pride flag being an unpatriotic altering of our national flag, I get a bit steamed. I wish Canadians would show this kind of righteous indignation about what that flag represents: our country. It seems people have the time and effort to become morally outraged at small things like our flag, our anthem, our prime minister bumping a breast, our sport, our national flower, our national bird, but for the love of God and country, what about our NATION?
How can we test our performances as the guardians of the True North's strengths and freedoms? I don't think that's too hard a deal. I think we need to look, really look, like we may never have before, at the people upon whose backs our country has been built. Every November 11th I feel much like I feel on Canada Day. I see the poppies and I hear the speeches but I am left with an emptiness as I look at Canada and see the modern product that was purchased with the blood of so many young Canadians. Is this what they wanted? Is this what they fought and died for? Who's to say? All we can do is try to put ourselves into the positions that Canadian men were in at the times when our country participated in war and see if we can't try to empathize and read exactly what it was they went through, and maybe even why they fought. Let's try to list some of the reasons people went to war for Canada. Then maybe from that list of reasons, we can decide whether we have a Canada today that properly honours their wishes and their sacrifices.
WWI
"What did that say? ONE? Oh crap! There's gonna be ANOTHER one of these?" is absolutely NOT what the soldiers thought or felt. Even if they were told at the start of 1914 that there would be two world wars, the majority of soldiers that ended up fighting in WWI for Canada would have probably welcomed the news. They were a pack of young, confident, brave, naïve, magnificent fools! The phrase, "For King and country," was enough all by itself to inspire a lot of Canadian men to enlist. At the time, 60% of Canadians were British born and still had strong ties. Canada was still just a quasi-independent dominion of the British Empire. We pretty much had to go if England instructed, though we could decide the extent of our involvement. Back then, when politicians and parliament were not so cooperative with the powers that be, William Lyon Mackenzie King repeatedly argued that parliament would decide, but he needn't have bothered. Canadians were gung ho to get into the act. So the number one reason, not necessarily the main reason, but the first on the list of why Canadian men signed up for WWI is because England did.
Considering that in 1911 there were 7.2 million people in Canada and 6.4 of them were born in Britain, (89%), Canada was rapidly changing in that area and there was little doubt that this was an unwelcome change among the citizens of Canada. Yes, Canadians were a little bit racist! By the time Canada actually went overseas in mid October of 1914, 54% of the country was British born and by the end of the war only 50% were. Canada was becoming multi-cultural and, big surprise, the majority didn't like it. The war provided many examples. There were so many people desperate to enlist, the Canadian military had the luxury of selectivity. And that meant young, fit, healthy, male, and white people only. Even people who didn't have time to brush after every meal were said to have pleaded and begged through rotting teeth to be allowed to kill some Germans, but they weren't allowed. Old men used shoe polish to blacken their grey hair. Young men, since birth certificates were uncommon, just lied about their age. There are stories of 14-year-olds fighting. Even natives, who would later prove to be valuable soldiers, were initially refused. Interestingly, 28.5% of Canada was French Canadian but very few of them volunteered because of the poor treatment they received at the training camp in Valcartier, Quebec. Most English speaking Protestants did not like French speaking Catholics. Simple as that.
Things were to change later in the war with conscription, but let's stay in 1914 awhile and really get a feel for what Canada was like and try to discover a few more reasons our boys went over to fight. "Boys" is a word I chose intentionally because in 1914 52.15%, over half the country, was under 25 and well over half of THEM were male. Some 440,000 more men than women. In a country of 7.8 million, those are some noticeable odds. Competition for women was stiff. The lure of the virulent, masculine, let's face it: chick magnet uniform and heroic, romantic sacrifice for one's country were undeniable. And what's the main reason 25-year-old men do ANYthing? Reason #2, which could even be reason #1, to get some action... wink, wink, nudge, nudge. Okay, I'm being filthy. It might be more respectfully described as, to get a girl and start a family. Remember, this was adventure! This was a chance to live something you'd only read in novels or comic books or heard on the radio. Most people didn't have TV's or go to see many movies. To be blunt again, lives in 1914 were not that exciting. The war added danger, drama, adventure, comradery, romance, yes even sadness to otherwise boring lives. What better setting for a lifelong relationship? I have to admit, I am a sucker for a war story, even a romantic one.
But, while the males weren't that much different back then, neither were the females. It took more than a uniform and heroic backstory to get the girl. If you like it then you better put a ring on it. A ring that comes with a wedding, lots of gifts, a house and a lifetime of financial stability. And folks, the war looked to be a very good way for an average Canadian guy to get enough money saved up to make a solid go of a family life. By the days of overseas training in late 1914 a buck private was making $1.10 a day. That was pretty good pay. A Leftenant, (they're called lieutenants now but weren't then), got $2.60 a day and a Colonel got $7.50. The ranks go something like Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Warrant Officer, Leftenant, Captain, Major, Colonel, General. There are sub-categories in almost all ranks. By comparison an average farm worker, (male), in 1914 made $35.55 a month compared to a private's wages of $33.oo a month. The Leftenant's wages of $78.00 a month were more than a telegraph operator's $68.64 per month. And if you were a Colonel, you made $225.oo a month. That's more than double the average railway conductor's $102.18 a month.
But these figures don't do us any good unless we know how much things cost in 1914. Here is a great graphic article of what I'm talking about. Rent was $20.15. That's the equivalent of $430.00 in 2014. And that's a HOUSE, folks! A two storey, 3 bedroom HOUSE! Utilities were another 8 or 9 bucks. You add a few loaves of bread at 6 cents each, some milk at 10 cents a quart, eggs at 34 cents a dozen, steak at 25 cents a pound, you can imagine how hard it would be to get married and raise a family even as a telegraph operator, never mind a farm worker. And with Canada's grain industry becoming the new world leader, more 25-year-olds in Canada were farm workers than telegraph operators at the time of WWI. The beautiful thing about the war for these young men was that they were given room and board for free! No rent, no utilities, no food to pay for. Even at private's wages, it didn't take a genius to see that no matter how long the war lasted, every soldier should be coming back with a sweet stash of cash! So reason number three, which was, in my opinion, most likely the main reason men rushed to sign up for the war was probably, financial gain. Of course saying, "I'm doing it for the money," or, "How can I find a girlfriend if I don't fight?" didn't have the same heroic ring as, "I answered the call for King and country," so reason number one was probably thought to be the main reason, but realistically, was it? Even people today can relate. The average wage in Canada is over $4,000.00 a month, although I've never been close to a job like that! Statistically close to half of that will be sucked up by taxes. Rent will be over a grand. Food, utilities, the people in Canada, even the ones who make 4 grand a month, are STILL in the same situation today! Imagine then how SWEET it would be to get a job for a few years that pays minimum $750 a month up to well over 2 grand and every dollar of that is take-home pay. Of course you'll spend a little on having a good time in Europe, seeing the sights, spending a night or two with a French hooker a la "Catch 22" but you would be hard pressed to find people in Canada TODAY who would turn down a similar offer. I sure as heck wouldn't!
You could probably add some fringe answers like to see the world , unhappy family life , crappy job or to defend my freedom and way of life . Probably these contributed to a lot of decisions to join the military for WWI but I don't think the main three are in very much doubt. So nobody cried when the first troops shipped off to war. It was all cheering and waving.
The war turned out to be a lot harder and longer than expected. Canadian troops distinguished themselves at battles like Ypres where they faced chemical warfare. I once smelled a container of chlorine pucks for swimming pools and for about a minute I wished I was dead. What our troops went through is hard to imagine, but try that sometime for reference. Next came the Somme. For five months allied forces were at a virtual stalemate with the Germans. Trench warfare was hellish and casualties were high. Canada lost 24,700 men and the allies lost 624,000 to the Germans' 660,000 and all for about 13 km. of penetration. This kind of pointless slaughter was not what most of the men who rushed to sign up had envisioned. Back home in Canada, the enthusiasm for volunteering diminished as news of the trench conditions and casualties spread.
Then in April of 1917 there was Vimy Ridge, a battle fought in France during which all four Canadian divisions fought together for the first time. Though we lost 3,598 men, it was an impressive victory over the Germans. There is a memorial in Vimy, France today in honour of our soldiers. Later in 1917, Passchendaele, however, was more horrific attrition like the Somme. Canada lost 15,600, British forces lost 275,000 troops and the Germans killed or wounded numbered 220,000. Within a year all the ground gained by the sacrifice of the allied forces was evacuated during a German assault anyway.
Toward the end of the war, battles were more successful. For instance the tank battle of Cambrai was only a couple of days in early October of 1918 and it was a slam dunk. It looked like the war was ending. Finally on November 11th, in a train car in Compiegne, France, an armistice was signed. Close to 66,655 Canadians were killed and almost 173,000 were wounded. All suffered physically and mentally from the war including those who had remained in Canada. However, all looked forward to prosperity in peace time. And, by God they had earned it! Unfortunately it was not easy to recover from the war.
Canada's economy had been booming for 15 years since before the turn of the century almost up until the war began. It experienced a drop in 1914 due to draught and massive railway layoffs, but most expected the good economy to continue after the war. Before the war Canada had built up a huge industrial base including iron and steel and settling the prairies, one of the foremost wheat growing regions in the world. Then during the war, Canada was depended on for food. Mostly the wheat but also beef, pork and cheese. Canada also supplied artillery rounds, shells, explosives and other metals for the war effort. Government revenues until the war had been 90% from import tariffs and excise, (sin), taxes on things like alcohol and tobacco. A lot of other countries were like that too. Not yet given opportunity to establish crippling personal taxes. But, as we all know, to help finance the war, more sin taxes were added, some company taxes called, "excess profit" taxes were introduced, and, yes, a temporary personal income tax that STILL hasn't been repealed.
The total debt from WWI was said to have reached 1.665 billion dollars by war's end. The Borden government claimed that the new taxes were not enough to cover that. They "needed" to borrow. From, guess where? New York. Previously our largest trading partner had been England. The U.S. was an unknown. That changed. Canada's exports to the U.S. contributed to the "Roaring 20's" there. A lot of people don't know this but the 20's didn't exactly roar for Canada. In the 7 years between 1913 and 1920, prices of virtually everything in Canada almost doubled. The price index for that time was 100-189. That is, if something cost 100 bucks in 1913, it was 189 in 1920. The indexes for a lot of other countries were worse. The U.S. was 202, the U.K. was 253, France was 331 and Germany was 1002. But, no matter what country you were from, they all said the inflation was a necessary effect of the war, but not a single one could prove that, including Canada. Whatever the reason chosen to raise prices, the pay the soldiers had been receiving during the war was cut in half or worse by inflation by the time they got home.
Even though this looked good for Canada, it hurt us worse than anyone but Germany. The pay the soldiers had saved created a small bump in the economy in 1920 when they had all finished sailing home, but it took several years just to get back to the way things were before the war. In 1913 Canada's level of income was 84% of the U.S. level and 90% that of the U.K. In 1925 it was back to 70% and 84% respectively. It took Canada a dozen years, till 1926, just to get back to the economy they had in 1913. Though promises of glorious return to a prosperous life in a thriving Canada had been made to the soldiers all throughout the war, those promises weren't kept.
To give you an idea of the government that had made those promises, Borden's conscription crisis should do. First of all, his promise to never enact conscription was also not kept. There had grown an opinion, particularly among the well to do British, that French Canadians, "Quebeckers," were slackers and needed to be forced to fight for their country. It became clear to Borden after visits to Europe during the mid to latter parts of the war that Canada should send more troops. But the lads in Canada were not as willing to volunteer as they had been before the war. Borden decided on conscription but in order to pass it, he had to be re-elected. So he simply gave the vote to people who would support conscription like wives and relatives of soldiers, the first women allowed the vote in Canada, and soldiers themselves, including underage and British born. Soldiers had previously been banned from voting during war time. He just changed that before the election. Just made a couple of laws. Cheated to win the election. That's all. And he didn't give the vote to people who would oppose it like immigrants from enemy nations like Germany or Austria to Canada and conscientious objectors to the war. What do you know, he won! I have said that Canadian men and women back in WWI times were a lot like they still are today. So was the government. More to follow...
The U.S. received a great deal of cash in the Treaty of Versailles from allies it had aided like France and the U.K. and, of course, from Germany, who paid the equivalent of 442 billion in today's US dollars in reparations. These were not all to the U.S., but they got a good chunk of those payments and the party was on! The war winners were buying radios, TV's, vacuum cleaners, washing machines, cars, all kinds of things, so businesses expanded, imports increased, and the stock market soared. Another thing Americans were buying was real estate. Land and homes were being purchased sometimes sight unseen! It was a frenzy to get the lives that the citizens of the world war winning country deserved.
It is unclear why things were more conservative in Canada. One theory is that the banks did not go quite as crazy with irresponsible lending as those of the U.S. Canada abandoned the gold standard, declared Dominion notes legal tender then expanded its note issuance. They made money from nothing. This is one good way to cause a stock market meltdown. All the responsibility was left to the banks to decide how much money they wanted to create out of thin air to add to their reserves. They were limited only by their lending practices. And between 1923 and 1929 bank loans in Canada increased 60% but that was hardly the frenzy that was happening in the U.S. One reason was because banks in Canada were not allowed to issue mortgages.
Regardless, both Canada and the U.S. lacked financial policies to control excess credit growth and suffered the consequences. In my research I came up with this quote: "In this context, the goal of financial stability policy would be to limit systemic risk stemming from procyclical movements in credit, leverage and asset prices, which would render the financial system, and the real economy, more vulnerable to an adverse shock." Yeah. What he said. So limit risky mortgages, lending and investments, limit inflation, limit leverage, which is spending money and making deals with money that you don't have, or you will get smoked by an adverse shock, like if people start trying to collect on that imaginary money. In short, regulate. Sound familiar? It's exactly what caused the stock market crash of 2008.
So the U.S. had the roaring 20's and Canada, after slow recovery, had a few good years being 4 times more dependant on exports, mostly to the U.S. now, but in 1929 that stock market crash happened and both countries were in dire straights.
Before we get to WWII, as promised, more dirt on the government. As long as I've lived Canada has been considered a "nice" country. It's rated every year as one of the best, happiest, least stressful countries to live. It's only because the corruption is better hidden, that's all. And people who bring questions, doubts, even hard facts about that corruption are more expertly written off as conspiracy theorists. Look, in 1918 the War Appropriation Act, for half a billion dollars, (that's 1918 dollars), was approved. Try to do some research on that. It is not easy. Yet 100 years later, we're STILL paying off the WWI debt of 1.665 billion? That's some absolutely first rate government corruption!
When I found obvious illegal immigration and hiring of foreign students in the early 2000's, who were probably paid less than Canada's legal minimum wage, I called the appropriate government agency and was called a racist, then told, "Sir, there is nothing we can do," even though investigation, fining, deportation and all of that is EXACTLY the purview of the department I'd called. One of MANY war profiteering scandals during WWI was that of the Webb/Oliver rucksacks. The proper British equipment for soldiers was the Webb rucksack. These were manufactured by Webb through the J. Wesley Allison group of Manhattan, N.Y., who bought each piece of equipment for $4.40, then sold it to the Canadian military for $5.50. When the people at Webb hadn't been paid for the initial shipment, they went to Ottawa and found out what was going on. They then reported it to the ministers of finance and justice and the Solicitor General who all said, "Sir, there is nothing we can do." White, Dougherty and Meighen were their names. They told the Webb representative to either deal directly with the government or cancel the order. The government refused absolutely to deal any way other than through Allison and his gang in New York. So the deal was cancelled. And what do you want to bet the orders, including the original, were never paid for? This gets better! The Canadian government decides to now purchase Oliver equipment. The same stuff as Webb supplied only it cost $6.75 and $7.25 a set. Nobody knows why...... In the end the Oliver rucksacks were discarded, because they were shit, and before going to war, the English government supplied Canadian soldiers with Webb rucksacks.
I found an old booklet online that was really interesting to read! It's some of the war scandals of the Borden government that were brought up in parliament. Now, admittedly the booklet was written by Sir Wilfred Laurier, Borden's opposition for PM, but this is all stuff that is in the public record. You could find it in the minutes of the House of Commons. It's not simply propaganda. There are 22 scandals that are very much like the one above. And these are only the ones we KNOW about. Or at least the ones that the Borden government was directly confronted about. One that was interesting was about horses. I never picture horses being used in WWI but they were. 8,562 of them were assembled at Valcartier for Canada's first contingent. Of those only 6700 were fit for service when they got to Europe. That's almost 1900 horses that were of such low quality, they died or were slaughtered instead of used in battle. The details of several individual deals and the "friends of the government," who were the dealers, were brought up in the House of Commons. Names and prices. Diseases and ailments. Horses that could not get up without assistance; lame horses; blind horses; horses with broken hips; knee sprung horses; spavined horses; one horse who had been purchased for, (I'm not making this up), a drake and two ducks, were all bought for, on average, $162.50 through the agency of a Mr. Dewitt Foster. He chiselled the country out of more than $302,500.00 just in useless horses. This doesn't account for horses that were below par and bought for far more than they were worth. This one gets better too! The prime minister himself admitted that this Dewitt Foster had taken, (stolen), another $72,000.00 from government funds and squandered it in the pretense of buying horses.
This was one scandal that something had to be done about, surely! But the erstwhile Mr. Dewitt Foster was not imprisoned, forced to pay back what he'd stolen or even give an account of what he'd done with the money. He was just "read out of parliament." This is like the end of messages Ethan Hunt or other spies get from the government, "If you are caught we will deny all knowledge of you and your mission." He wasn't punished for graft against his country, fraud, or treason, he was punished for being caught! And he certainly wasn't punished enough. But this was a popular pattern during the war.
Boots. What was more important in trench warfare? Manufactured in Ontario and Quebec for a few bucks, sold to Canada for 4 by "friends of the government." Heels not reinforced, cardboard substituted for leather, just ridiculously small... same sort of quality as the horses and rucksacks. Soldiers were throwing them away and tying shingles to their feet. Soldiers were catching colds, tuberculosis. A boot commission was formed, a thousand boots were inspected and found unfit, but still the Borden government, a conservative majority, forced a whitewashing report through parliament.
One more I have to put in here: it seems the secretary of Sir Sam Hughes, Minister of Militia and Defence, who always denied any patronage list, even when, in 1915, the Director of Contracts in the Militia Department went on record as saying, "There is a patronage list - I suppose we have 8000 names on that list," it seems this private secretary, whose name does not appear in the article, had patented a shovel design. The government purchased some $33,750.00 worth of the shovels, which were never used. There were two problems with the shovels. First, they needed to be carried on the person, and this, the soldiers had found impractical, and secondly, ahem, each one had a hole in its middle. As I said, I'm a sucker for a wartime romance! hee hee hee...
Binoculars, trucks, guns, bandages, submarines, clothing, the stories were the same. In surveys done of academics, political scientists and the like, Sir Robert Borden, ranks as Canada's 8th best prime minister. (last to be knighted). Yes, he was a gentleman. It sounds absurd after reading of the way WWI was hijacked by him and his government, but with all I have learned about Canadian politics, their actions don't seem all that extraordinary and he just may have accurately BEEN our 8th best. Laurier is on our $5 bill and Borden is on the hundred. This, in my opinion seems fitting because Canadians don't use the hundred much. Some places don't even take them. They are reserved for large purchases only, such as rent, mortgages or income tax payments.
Now think about that 1.665 billion dollar price tag for WWI and how much of it accrued through avarice, graft and corruption. And with the introduction of new taxes, few if any on the perpetrators of war profiteering, the debt was hung on the people who were ripped off by the people on the patronage list. The good people of Canada. Those folks who just wanted to make a nice life for themselves and their families. The very soldiers and families of them, whose lives were endangered by the greed of "the friends of the government." I want to close with the beginning of the little scandals booklet because it echoes so eloquently what I started this post with. "While Canada was paying the price of Empire in money and blood, the vampires were gathering on the political horizon. All too early did they get full opportunity to gorge themselves at the expense of harassed taxpayers of the Dominion while the national guardians stood idly by or even aided in the shameful situation. A riot of extravagance, graft, profiteering and political maggotry such as Canada had never seen, and, let us hope, never will see again, followed the announcement of our participation in the war... a tremendous struggle for human liberty which demanded of us as never before the exercise of those national virtues without which a country is a source of weakness rather than strength to its allies." How much more heroic NOW are those men who were not just fighting the enemy far from home, but were handicapped by war profiteers at home and the complicity of their own government! And how much MORE do we owe their memory than modern governments that do the very same thing to the good people of Canada?
I think we've answered our questions for WWI.
coming next: WWII
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