The Depression hit especially hard in Western Canada - at its peak, an estimated two-thirds of the people in the rural Prairies were on some form of government relief. During this time, the first elements of Canada’s social welfare system were being created. And new social pressures were altering the economic and political life of the nation.
In this environment, the Bank of Canada opened its doors in March 1935, to provide an effective, centralized monetary authority for Canada. Then, as now, our mandated role has been to regulate credit and currency in the best interests of the economic life of the nation and, generally, to promote the economic and financial welfare of Canada.