With the end of World War II, Canadian soldiers returned home to an uncertain future. But a strong economy and government programs ensured a smooth transition to peacetime.
While Canadians were relieved to have the war years behind them, some veterans learned the hard way that "you can't go home again." After months or years of being apart, some couples decided it was easier to simply call it quits than to try to pick up where they had left off.
Of course, it wasn't all doom and gloom in the bungalows of the nation. Most Canadians had plenty of cause for celebration. The war was over and the economy was on an upswing. In fact, it was during the 1950s that a large number of Canadians decided to take the plunge into home ownership. The number of Canadians who owned homes jumped from one in three in 1948 to two in three by 1961.
The good times didn't just happen by accident, of course. The Canadian government was making a conscious effort to avoid a repeat of the economic chaos that had come on the heels of the end of World War I. It forced companies to hire back returning veterans on favourable terms and provided veterans with educational allowances and low-interest loans so they could obtain any necessary retraining.
The government took other steps to manage the post-war transition, too. In 1944 it set up the Department of Veteran Affairs to help with the transition from life on the front lines to life on the home front, and it continued to implement policies to minimize post-war inflation. As a result, the post-war recession that many people had been dreading never materialized.
