Economy and Development of Contemporary Period

Economic Development

• Before the 19th century, Canada used to base its economy on the timber, agriculture and fishing industries.
• Then in 1850, they industrialization started to break forth rapidly in the country, with the new birth in the 20th century.

The Primary Sector

• Agriculture wasn't making that much progress in the 19th century anymore.
• In the 1930s,  mechanization of farming was made.
• There were many different changes in the agriculture development.
• There were groups such as diary production, animal husbandry and market gardening.
• Family-run businesses were being taking over by small or medium-sized enterprises.
• New resources were being noticed.
• At the end of the 19th century, mines were being opened; extracting different types of ores.

The Secondary Sector

• In the 19th century affected industries as they now started to make everyday necessities like leather, shoes, clothing, tobacco, and food.
• New industries started to come forth making new things.
• There was processing of pulp, paper, and wood.
• Ore processing was definite factor.
• Chemical products and transportation were vital.
• Since the 1970s, the secondary sector started to decrease because of the competition.

Hydroelectricity

• Resource products were mainly backed up by hydroelectricity.
• Quebec had a major natural advantage of it because of its waterways.
• Starting from the 1920s the waterways like St. Maurice, the Saguenay, Ottawa, and St. Lawrence rivers were being used for the hydroelectricity development.
• In 1963, the Government of Quebec made Hydro-Quebec and took control of the whole province's sale.
• They started making projects in James Bay, Manic-Outardes, and La Grande (later Robert-Bourassa).
• Quebec was and still the world leader in hydroelectricity.
• The Robert-Bourassa was the largest underground station in the world.
• Hydro-Quebec attracted top energy consumption industries as clients, giving more competition in electricity rates.
• Building those large hydroelectric stations caused some natural disasters.

The Tertiary Sector

• Throughout the 20th century, the tertiary sector was increasing rapidly.
• Administration and finance was becoming more popular opening a new line of occupation: the office worker.
• Consumption, retail activities, and retail chain stores were increasing so much.
• The making of social measures opened doors for the government to make more jobs in the area of social services, health, and education.
• Tourism and leisure even aided in that sector.
• All of those fields were mostly centered in the urban center.
• The pay wasn't very high because it required few qualifications.

Concentration of Capital

• Production was concentrated in the small number of companies.
• Some were so powerful, that there was no competition.
• They made monopolies and even made their own dominant social class called the industrial burgeoisie, who were mainly Anglophone.
• The banks even became essential.
• Many big businesses borrowed from banks.
• So the capital was dependent on the banks.
• After World War I, the U.S. and Canada ties started to grow while that of Great Britain decreased.
• America helped in the development of natural resources in Quebec.
• Though it helped the economy and industry, they became dependent to the United States.
• The American dependency lasted until later into the timeline.

Economic Cycles

• Quebec had prosperous and recessive moments.
• In the 20th century, their economy increased greatly, but due to the overproduction crisis, many industries just crashed.
• Products weren't selling, factories were closing which came forth unemployment, and consumption decreased.
• The Great Depression hit Quebec even harder in the 1930s causing the income to drop 37%.
• Thanks to World War II, its economy flew up with its production of weapons, ships, iron, steel, transportation tools, and even chemical products.
• War industry had many openings for jobs.
• The baby boom increased the wages, employment, and population.
• The economic growth went on for thirty years.
• The prices, especially the oil, hiked up, causing unemployment again.
• Interest rates went up and caused debts in families.
• Recessions kept going on and off in 1991-1992 and 2001-2002.

Government Economic Policies

• Before the economic depression of the 1930s, the State barely took care of the public economy.
• They were mostly concerned about the encouraging enterprises to build transportation infrastructures, providing investments, and and creating beneficial regulations.
• During the Great Depression the government encouraged agricultural colonization to destroy the unemployment.
• They started offering mortgage loans with low interests with their new company called l'Office du credit agricole.
• Thus, the Bank of Canada was made 1934.
• The federal government started making programs such as unemployment insurances and family allowance.
• Through that the recessions decreased.
• After 1960, during the Quiet Revolution, the Government of Quebec became more involved in the economy and created state corporations.

Foreign Trade Policies

• The Americans didn't want to renew the free trade treaty for a ten-year period.
• Even though it wasn't really strong enough, they started to make their own internal trade to keep it going.
• They've made their first Prime Policies.
• They encouraged immigration to increase the population.
• Improved railways transportation for a better connection to the people.
• Impose custom tariffs of 25% to 30% to protect Canadian industries.
• Though it was a big success at first, during the 20th century, a reduction of tariffs were asked and so they signed the North American Free Trade Agreement with the U.S.

Work Relations

• Industrialization made a new class called the working social at the end of the 19th century.
• Unions were made and were illegal until 1872, so the government made laws for them that couldn't be broken.
• There were problems especially since the Royal Commission Investigating revealed the terrible working conditions, but the federal government didn't care.
• The Government of Quebec adopted their first real work legislation in 1885 called the Provincial Manufacturing Law.
• Still, there were problems with the legislation, so they made better wages, vacation pay, pension funds, and social benefits.
• However, it didn't really become official to every group and there was still a sense of division;
• The growth of employment in the tertiary was so great, that throughout the 20th century, training and education was mandatory and vital.