Compare And Contrast Scain And Bennett's

The Great Depression of 1929 not only hit America severely but also devastated the Canadian economy where had the USA as a main partner of trading. This high interdependency on America brought a huge shock to Canada and her economy was replete of increasing unemployment and poverty. Two governments, here, attempted different approaches to recover the massive aftermath and these can be divided into two phases: Bennett’s government of 1930-5 and King’s of 1935-9. Although they both faced failure from Laissez-Faire, they had made different attempts in terms of unemployment, trade and economy including foreign affairs, and agriculture.

Both governments here tried to reduce the unemployment by providing pubic works schemes and relief programmes.

The fund from employees, employers and the Canadian government was spread to the unemployed and it had managed to cover 42% of total unemployed. In contrast to the Bennett’s, King, here, focused on supporting the unemployed rather than giving them low-waged jobs in a forceful way. With the increased trade with Canada due to the increase in demand but lower price, King was able to achieve the improvements in the employment due to more job opportunities, and this insurance scheme had played a great role in forming the foundation of future unemployment scheme. Therefore, Mackenzie’s policy should be seen as more effective since its method had more public’s support as seen from “King or Chaos” and actually contributed to the stabilisation of the Canadian

In contrast to the Bennett’s, he focused on the international development by decreasing the tariff. He, especially tried to vitalize the trade between Canada and the USA rather than the Britain through the agreement in 1935 which has reduced the high tariffs. Since it was Canada who needed other more, it could be seen as clearly benefit for Canada when the agreement was made. The sales taxes was collected more often and this put power to the government, making them more able to have a control on the economy by enabling it to spend more. As the federal government took over the functions such as welfare provision and received most of the income taxes, the government was further able to increase not only their power but also spending for the country shown through the investment on industrial regions like Ontario and Quebec. Therefore, the Mackenzie’s government also made more effective decision of decreasing the tariffs in contrast to the Bennett’s. Also the fact that King was able to achieve more in the US trade than the Bennett’s clearly showed his policy a lot more effective but also beneficial to