ouver in British Columbia eventually to surpass Winnipeg and become Canada's third-largest city in 1920.
Strike to present
Following World War I, more than 30,000 workers walked off their jobs in May 1919 in what came to be known as the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. The strike was a product of post-war recession, labour conditions, the activity of union organizers and a large influx of returning discharged soldiers seeking work. After many arrests, deportations, and incidents of violence, the strike ended on 21 June 1919, when the Riot Act was read and a group of Royal Canadian Mounted Police officers charged a group of strikers. Two strikers were killed and at least thirty others were injured, resulting in the day being known as Bloody Saturday; the event polarized the population. One of the leaders of the strike, J. S. Woods worth, went on to found Canada's first major socialist party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), which later became the New Democratic Party.
The stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression resulted in widespread unemployment, which was worsened by drought and low agricultural prices. The Depression ended after the start of World War II in 1939, when war requirements stimulated the economies of Western nations. In the Battle of Hong Kong, The Winnipeg Grenadiers were among the first Canadians to engage in combat against Japan. Battalion members who survived combat were taken prisoner and endured brutal treatment in prisoner of war camps. In 1942, the Government of Canada's Victory Loan Campaign staged a mock Nazi invasion of Winnipeg to promote awareness of the stakes of the war in Europe.
When the war ended, pent-up demand generated a boom in housing development, although building activity was checked by the 1950 Red River Flood, the largest flood to hit Winnipeg since 1861. On 8 May 1950, eight dikes collapsed, four of the city's eleven bridges were destroyed, and nearly 100,000
