Boom Years
The economy of the rest of the country improved dramatically after 1896, and from that year until 1914, Canada had the world's fastest growing economy. The west was settled, the population grew quickly, so that by 1900, Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier could predict that the twentieth century would be Canada's century as the nineteenth was the United States's. The cause of this boom is debated. Whether the settlement of the west was a cause or effect of the boom is one of the most important issues. Globally the economy was improving with the end of the Long Depression. The last semi-humid farmland in the United States was exhausted, leaving Canada with the best unexploited farm land in North America. Technological changes from the steel plow to combine harvesters played an important role, but perhaps the most important development was the practice of dry farming that allowed farmers to profitably grow wheat on the semi-arid southern prairies.
The most noted expansion was in western Canada, but at the same time Central Canada was undergoing a period of significant industrialization.
While western and central Canada boomed during the pre-World War I years the economies of the three Maritime provinces grew far more slowly. There is also much debate over the cause of this, but its consequence was a growing disaffection with Confederation in the east, manifested by the Maritime Rights movement.
Read more about this topic: Economic History Of Canada
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