The Early Rumblings of a Political Earthquake
Since February 20th, share values on the Toronto Stock Exchange have fallen by one-third -- even greater than the stock market crash in October 1929. The global pandemic has caused a rapid economic shut down . Unemployment is soaring. There is no likelihood of a quick recovery. Stock market values took two decades to recover from the 1929 crash during which the world experienced the resulting decade-long economic depression and the Second World War. The economic recovery was painfully slow and really only ended with the start of the war. Deep and pervasive unemployment and inadequate safety nets devastated the lives of millions. The ’29 Crash, the ensuing Depression, and the experience of the war fundamentally changed the political landscape across the world. In Canada, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was formed in 1933. It aimed at ending the two-party Liberal and Conservative hegemony. While the CCF and its successor, the NDP, didn’t subsequently