History edit
In the late nineteenth century, Canada had two major labour organizations, the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and the Knights of Labour, which were united under the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada (TLC). But in 1902 all labour unions except the AFL were expelled from the TUC on the orders of Samuel Gompers, the American leader of the AFL. Although its members discussed setting up a labour party it was not until 1917, that the TUC set up the Canadian Labour Party, which was modelled on the British Labour Party. Its electoral record however was poor.[1]
A Canadian branch of the American Socialist Labor Party was formed in 1890. Dissatisfaction with the autocratic leadership style of the leader Daniel DeLeon, led members to leave and establish the Canadian Socialist League (CSL).[2] Formed in 1898, the CSL, formed in 1898, was a loose federation of socialist locals, with each local allowed to develop its own programs, provided they were in broad agreement with socialist principles. By 1902 it had 60 locals.[3] It was soon however eclipsed by the Socialist Party of Canada (SPC), which developed in British Columbia, with support from miners loggers and working people in the cities of Vancouver and Victoria. Unlike the CSL, the SPC was explicitly Marxist, and aimed to educate the working class. Its program called for the transformation of the means of production to the collective property of the working class. It avoided calls for reform, which it thought detracted from the eventual revolution. Following the 1903 provincial election in British Columbia, where socialists receivied 8% of the vote and elected their first MLA, James Hawthornthwaite, BC socialists united with socialists across the country to form the SPC, and the CSL disbanded.[4]
The SPC. which centralized control from British Columbia, drew dissent from members over the degree of control by the executive, autonomy for ethnic locals, membership in the Second International and the degree to which reformist demands could be made in electoral platforms. This dissent led to the founding of the Social Democratic Party of Canada in 1911. The new party, which also aimed to educate the working class and transform the means of production into the property of the working class, also advocated electoral reform, including women's suffrage. Its newspaper, Cotton's Weekly, became the best-selling socialist newspaper in Canada.[5] The SPC had refused to join the Second International, which they saw as "reformist"[6] The Social Democrats however became members shortly after their founding.[7]
Following the electoral failure of the Canadian Labour Party, a number of Independent Labour Parties (ILP) were established throughout the country. ILP leaders blamed the failure of the CLP on its decision to exclude radical unions, including the One Big Union, from participation. In 1919, 12 members of the Ontario Party were elected and governed in coalition with the United Farmers of Ontario. In 1920, 11 ILP candidates were elected to the Manitoba legislature and 4 to the Alberta legislature, where they allied with the newly governing United Farmers of Alberta. But in 1921, only two ILP members were elected to the federal parliament, as they faced opposition on the Left from the Canadian Labour Party and the Socialist Party.[8] The CLP finally disbanded in 1928.[9] Despite the small size of the ILP caucus in the dominion parliament, they were able to unite with a "Ginger Group" of Progressive Party MPs and form an opposition to the Liberal government, with the ILP's J. S. Woodsworth as leader.[10]
In 1920, branches of the Communist Party of America and the United Communist Party of America were organized in Canada and they were united into the communist Party of Canada (CPC) at a convention in Guelph, Ontario in 1921. The party was banned but reformed in 1922 as the Workers Party of Canada, until the ban against the CPC was lifted two years later. The party went underground from 1931-1934 and was banned again in 1942, when it reorganized as the Labor Progressive Party, by which it would be known from 1943 to 1959. An unsuccessful revolt in 1956 by revisionists led by J. B. Salsberg demanding the resignation of the long-term Stalinist leader, Tim Buck, led to the defection of most party members. Division over the Sino-Soviet split led to the creation of a Maoist Progressive Worker's Movement. Another split led to the cration of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist).[11]
Woodsworth, who had been advocating a united Canadian people's party since 1919, organized a series of conferences from 1929 to 1932, to discuss a new party,inviting the Ginger Group, members of Independent Labour Parties and United Farmers of Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and samll business men from major cities. and university professors. The new party, the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation, was established in Calgary in 1932, and Woodsworth and 12 other MPs became the CCF caucus in parliament.[12]
The CCF was able to achieve a measure of success in the 1940s. By 1943 they formed the official opposition in four provinces and were elected as the goverment of Saskatchewan in 1944. In 1958, leaders of the CCF met with the Canadian Labour Congress and other groups to establish a new party. The result was the New Democratic Party, formed in 1961.[13]
In Quebec, the separatist Parti Quebecois (PQ), which first formed the Quebec government from 1976-1985, applied to join the Socialist International, but was refused membership, based on objections from the NDP.[14]
Notes edit
References edit
- Busky, Donald F. Democratic socialism: a global survey. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2000. ISBN 0275968863
- Busky, Donald F. Communism in history and theory: Asia, Africa, and the Americas. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002. ISBN 0275977331
- Lipset, Seymour Martin & Marks, Gary. It didn't happen here: why socialism failed in the United States. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2001. ISBN 0393322548
- McCormack, A. Ross. Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement 1899-1919. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991. ISBN 0802076823
- Newton, Janice. The feminist challenge to the Canadian Left, 1900-1918. McGill-Queen's Press, 1995. ISBN 0773512918
- Penner, Norman. From protest to power: social democracy in Canada 1900-present. Toronto: James Lorimer & Company, 1992. ISBN 1550283847