Home front during the First World War

During the First World War the Conservative government of Sir Robert Laird Borden was committed to a maximum war effort. The production of the goods of war, from food to wagons to munitions, reached an unprecedented pace. The war created huge demands for material to support, by the end, over 400,000 Canadian soldiers at the front. War appropriations during the conflict totalled more than $1 billion. As war production in the factories and on the farms of Canada began to grow, business as usual gave way to remarkable government intervention in the economy. The government introduced the first measure of direct taxation at the federal level in the nation’s history. It created the Imperial Munitions Board, which served as the umbrella agency that organized and supervised the greatest industrial effort Canada had ever seen. The government encouraged voluntary restraint and changes in eating habits. Civilian organizations participated in the war effort, many of them run by women.