THE WHO, WHAT, WHY, AND HOW OF IT!

 Canadians began producing our own munitions, or weapons of war.  Many other wartime goods, such as blankets, could be produced in Canada with safety.  However, with many men fighting overseas it was the women of Canada who performed the duties at hand in the factories.

 Many women enlisted to become ambulance drivers, nurses and aircraft workers overseas.  Others stayed in Canada and worked on farms, sewed uniforms for Canadian soldiers and worked for the Canadian Red Cross.  Women also started to work in the munitions factories all over Canada.

 The conditions in which the women worked were also unfavorable - the buildings were very cold and often home to rats.  Women were not paid the same wages as men but did a more than acceptable job in replacing them.

 During the war Europe had serious problems getting producing enough food.  All the farmers in Europe had gone off to war during the summer of 1914, leaving their crops ripening in the fields, some never to be harvested.  The burden fell to North America to provide food for the 120,000,000 people in the countries of the Allied Forces.

 The burden fell to North America to provide food for the people in the countries of the Allied Forces.  Prices increased for foods such as butter, eggs, and coffee. There were meatless and wheatless days to try to cut consumption of highly valued food products. As a response to the cuts in consumption, community gardens began to spring up everywhere.

 “Farmerettes” were women who worked on the Home Front.  They assisted in all aspects of farm work, replacing the labour of men lost to military service.  In 1918, for example, 2,400 women picked fruit in the Niagara region.

 At the start of the war people went around panic buying food and hoarding it at home.  Some shops sold out of food in days in August  Canadians had to send food and supplies to Britain during the war and therefore had to limit what they were eating.

 With the German’s introducing Submarines (a new weapon in WWI) they were sinking our ships on the way to England.  This caused further rationing.  What was rationed:  Weekly, each Canadian adult was entitled to have 1.8 kg of meat and 220g of sugar.  Gas and metal was also rationed.

 During the war Canadians feared and harassed Germans.  In Canada, the Ontario city of Berlin changed its name to Kitchener, after Lord Kitchener, famously pictured on the "Lord Kitchener Wants You" recruiting posters.  Several streets in Toronto that had previously been named for Liszt, Humboldt, Schiller, Bismark, etc., were changed to names with strong British associations, such as Balmoral.

 The Canadian Parliament within days of entering the war passed the War Measures Act with little debate (August 2914).  The Government was granted the authority to undertake any action seen as necessary "for the security, defence, peace, order and welfare of Canada."  The Government was given control over transportation, trade and commerce, and property; censorship of the means of communication, which at the time primarily meant newspapers; and the right to arrest and deport suspected enemies.

 Using the War Measures Act the Canadian Gov’t took lands from all people in Canada to grow crops and farm beef.  For example, the First Nations people who lived in OKA had their lands taken and were promised it back after the war. This never happened.

 This act allowed the Gov’t to also have curfews put in place.  Citizens of Canada had no rights and freedoms that they have today under this Act.