The Maratime Rights Movement (Nova Scotia, Canada)
Uploaded by badgercat on Mar 25, 2002
The Maritime Rights Movement is usually seen as part of the economic decline of post world war period in the Maritimes. The Maritimes were going through hard times, the depression was said to have started in the Maritimes ten years before the rest of Canada did in 1929. The Movement had the Maritimes economic and social needs as it’s priorities. The Maritimes views were often contradictory to those of West and Central parts of Canada. The Movement strove to alleviate some of the stress on the Maritimes economy, especially in the midst of hard times after the war. The Movement was seen as an opportunity for Maritimers to stand together for their own interests as Eastern Canadians. In retrospect, most see the movement as a plea for separation, but this was usually not the case.
The Period Leading into the Movement
In reference to the rest of Canada at the time, the Maritimes were a region with less of an advantage in fields such as the economy, employment and business. At the time the Central and Western areas of Canada were much more populated then the Maritimes. This often this correlated with better economy, employment, and other fields that the Maritimes were weak in. Since the time of Confederation, the Maritimes economy had been on a steady downfall. This was a huge strain on the labor force. Most of the potential employees in the Maritime region were leaving, going to Central and Western Canada for better life and employment .
Going into the 1920’s the Maritimes were loosing the bulk of its laborer’s to other parts of Canada with better economy. This created problems for the Maritimes. The first main problem has to do with the population of the Maritimes. With all of the workers from the Maritimes leaving, the population is dropping. The odd thing is that the overall population of the Nation at this time is growing, while the population of the Maritimes is actually falling. What this translates into is the fact that the population in the rest of Canada was actually growing faster then the population of the Maritimes was dropping. This problem creates a problem in it’s self, as can be seen in the impact felt in both politics and the economy . Instead of the Maritime economy advancing, most of our workers left, and thus helped Canada’s Western and Central economies increase .
When it came to...