Like many Canadians of the baby boom generation, I gained my first knowledge of the Great Depression from my parents. In particular, I remember my father’s stories about the dirty thirties and how he always emphasized the precarious nature of the times, when jobs were scarce and no welfare system existed to help those in need. Many people, including the policymakers of the day, had experienced economic recessions, but these downturns in the economy had been relatively brief compared to the severity and duration of the Depression. As a result, most people were unprepared when the world economy was plunged into chaos in 1930 ...

It seems every generation has at least one massive building project that involves more science and more technology than anything that came before. The desire to build it big and build it anywhere is behind everything from the Great Pyramids and Great Wall of China to the Taj Mahal and the CN Tower. It is also behind the International Space Station, a multi-billion dollar construction project that experts say would never have left the drawing board without Canadian expertise in robotics. "The whole space station would not exist–they would not be able to build it–without the Canadian technology," says Alain Poirier, director general o...