Discuss The Most Important Change For People Living In Canada As A Result Of World War One

What was the Most Important Change for People living in Canada as a Result of World War One? World War I brought upon several repercussions towards Canada, the largest being the introduction of income tax in 1917. The War Tax Upon Income had the largest impact on Canada as the length of the act was unknown, national debt accumulated through the course of the war, and inflation rises. No one was quite sure when the war would end, so Canada needed to put income tax into place to help fund the war, where Sir William Thomas White, the minister of finance, had said, “We do not know how long this war will last… Therefore, I have placed no time limit upon this measure. This precaution caused a great change for people as they needed to start paying

The national debt for Canada acquired in the war grew at an alarming rate, where because of the war, Canada had to pay $164 million per year to pay off their debt. Overall, Canada's total debt reached $1,665,576,000 because of the war. It was due to this cost that income tax would be implemented, and even after the war debt was paid off, the government had grown in both size and power, causing them to not repeal the act after the war. This overall benefitted Canada’s economy in the long term, leading to economic growth and forever changing Canada.Wars need to be paid for, and the resources required are resources that the common civilian would otherwise consume. In order to divert those resources into the war effort, inflation rises, which increases price of goods, making consumers buy less and less. Income tax forces the general public to buy less, and lowers the value of the dollar.After the war ended in 1918, the demand for goods decreased, with many factories that produced wartime products needing time to return to full production. This caused mass unemployment and even those living with jobs found it harder and harder to cope with prices rising rapidly. The