During the 1970s, there were social, political, and economic events and issues that challenged Canadians. Throughout the 70s, some of the social issues were racism, gender discrimination, and language rights. A few of the political issues were immigration, refugees seeking asylum in Canada, and the challenge of humanitarianism of Canadians. Economically, Canada faced the most problems here; “oil price shock”, “supply shocks”, stagflation, and inflation.

Throughout the 1970s, Canadians were changing Canada’s society to become more equal in the context of racism, gender discrimination, and language rights. Pierre Elliott Trudeau was trying to build Canadian society to a “just” society where it is multicultural and everyone would live in harmony. Throughout the 1970s federal government implanted new social programs and expanded the old ones. In the 1960s women's rights activists demanded the establishment of the Royal Commission on the status of women. In December of 1970 that document included new recommendations such as; providing daycare services for working women, prohibiting gender discrimination bias or marital status, unemployment benefits to working women on maternity leave, and wages established based on skills and responsibility rather than gender. The Women's movement was a defining moment for Canada’s society in the 1970s. Canadian women all agreed on the basic need to improve the situation of women; to fight racism and sexism. Women demanded affirmative action in the workplace; many employers created programs to create better equality between males and females job categories. During 1974 women began to make their place in politics, 14 women sate in provincial legislatures. By the end of the 1970s women had began to gain access to more male dominated professions, and had made significant social effects to Canada’s society. Another defining moment in Canada’s social history was Bill 22 and Bill 101. Bill 22 occurred in 1974, it made French the only official language of the province of Quebec. Bill 22 led to Bill 101 in 1977. That banned the use of English in government and business in the province, and failure to comply resulted in fines. Bill 101 weakened the relationships with Canadians both inside and out of Quebec. Canada became the first country in the world to adopt policy of multiculturalism, and that was instrumental for 1978 when the Canadian Human rights Act was passed prohibiting discrimination based on race, language, national or ethnic origin, colour, religion, age, sex, marital status, disability, and previous convictions.

In the 1970s, there was a sharp rise in the number of displaced people, resulting in an increase of refugees requiring asylum in Canada. The 1970s the government undertook a broad review of immigration, commissioning a study to provide factual background on policy issues and to furnish new policy options. In August 2, 1972, Idi Amin dictator of Uganda announced that all Asians with British passports would be expelled within 90 days; Britain was in a crisis state as they asked other countries for help. Canada contemplated taking them in, weighing the concerns about rising inflation, high levels of unemployment, Canada wanted to keep their humanitarian image and at the end accepted. This led to 1976, as a new Immigration Act was introduced; four new categories were introduced: independent class, humanitarian class, family class, and assisted relatives class. February 1978 Act represented the first time that Canada had formally recognized refugees as a legitimate class of immigrants to Canada. The “Boat People” of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia in 1979 made the crisis acute. Canada said they would accept up to 8000 refugees. The depth of public support for government action, along with private sponsorship suggested that the Canadian public was way ahead of the government in responding to the crisis.The crisis weakened Canada as the country struggled to help as many refugees as possible. Southeast Asian refugee flow went from 8000 to 50000; government said it was challenging humanitarianism of Canadians, giving a chance to Canadians to make a difference. In 1979 more than 60000 Vietnamese people came to Canada in total. The sharp rise in the number of displaced people led to a political instability but had a positive effect on Canadian humanitarianism, also showed the other countries that Canada was resilient and could handle crises without falling apart.

In the era of 1970s, Canada faced a new economic reality characterized by economic uncertainty and growing globalization. Inflation was a serious problem for canada in the late 70s, people were losing their jobs to mechanization in the industry, and many workers did not have the training for the new jobs in the service industry and computer fields. The Canadian dollar became less valuable when the US decided to let the dollar float rather than be tied with the value of gold. In 1974, there was an oil price shock - a massive increase in the oil sizes; the OPEC established export quotas, and by the end of the 70s the price of oil was about 14 times higher than the start of the decade. Canola was introduced to be a more desirable oil for the food trade; canola became a dominant crop on the Canadian prairies, causing the greatest change in crop planting. After the oil price shock, prices for housing and food followed suit, higher cost of living caused unions to go on strike to petition to increase wages. That led to the Canadian government responded by instituting wage and price controls which curbed inflationary pressures for several years; the controls were phased out in 78’. Stagflation in the 70s were partially caused by “supply shocks”. Canadian government responded to a large supply shock by maintaining total expenditure. A severe recession resulted because the increased expenditure on energy or food meant reduced expenditure on other goods and services, and therefore reduced output and employment. Trudeau took steps to control foreign investment, in 1971 he established the CDC to buy and manage companies using money from the government and private Canadian investors. In 1975, the government established a new petroleum company called Petro- Canada. Trudeau tried to get businesses and unions to co-operate with the government to set economic goals for wages and prices. The year of 1975 had a negative effect on 4.2 million Canadians. Canada had a collapse of economy in the 1970s, but it exposed Canada to what growing globalization is like.

Throughout the 1970s, Canada’s society, political stability and economy were challenged. Society wanted equality- gender equality, racial, language. Politically Canada was dealing with refugees, sharp rises of displaced people Canada had to take in. Economically, Canada struggled with wages and prices, the Canadian dollar mega drop, stagflation, and controlling foreign investments. The 70s challenged Canadians with a multitude of issues, but Canada responded with resilience.