Progressive Party of Canada
Encyclopedia
The Progressive Party of Canada was a political party in Canada
in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers
parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba
, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba
. The party was part of a farmers' political movement that included provincial Progressive and United Farmers' parties.
The United Farmers movement in Canada rose to prominence after World War I
. With the failure of the wartime Union
government to alter a tariff
structure that hurt farmers, various farmers movements across Canada became more radical and entered the political arena. The United Farmers movement was tied to the federal Progressive Party of Canada and formed provincial governments in Ontario
, Alberta
and Manitoba
. It rejected the National Policy
of the Conservatives
and also felt that the Liberals
were not strong enough proponents of free trade
and were too strongly tied to business interests. Generally, farmers groups formed alliances with Labour and socialist groups though, in power, they became closer to the Liberals causing ruptures in several provinces between United Farmer governments and their organizations.
. The most important issue to farmers in western Canada at the time was free trade
with the United States. The National Policy
implemented by Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald
in the 1890s forced farmers to pay higher prices for equipment, and to sell their produce for less. After World War I
, however, neither of the major political parties supported free trade.
At the turn of the century voters in Western Canada began to consider an influx of radical political ideas. From the United States
came Progressivism
and the Non-Partisan League
. From Britain
, the new immigrants brought Fabian socialism. This mix of ideology and discontent led to discussion of forming an independent party, especially in the "Grain Growers Guide", a magazine of the day. The first organizations of agricultural protest were the farmers’ organizations such as the Manitoba Grain Growers Association and the United Farmers of Alberta
.
In the period immediately following World War I
farmers' organizations across Canada were becoming more politically active and were entering electoral politics on the provincial level. The United Farmers of Ontario ran in the 1919 provincial election
and, surprisingly, won.
In June 1919, Thomas Crerar
, Minister of Agriculture
in the Unionist
government of Robert Borden
, quit the Borden cabinet because Minister of Finance Thomas White introduced a budget that did not pay sufficient attention to farmers' issues. Farmer leader and MP John Archibald Maharg
also withdrew his support from the government and joined Crerar. In 1919 and 1920 several by-election
s were won by "United Farmers" candidates. In 1920, Crerar and his supporters founded the Progressive Party of Canada with Crerar as its first leader. The new party won 58 of the 235 seats in the 1921 general election
.
seats in Ontario. At the time, the party viewed this as a disappointing result . The Progressives received significant support in the Maritimes provinces as well, but only one seat in New Brunswick
. At the provincial level, farmers' parties became significant presences in both Nova Scotia
and New Brunswick.
By taking a very decentralized approach, the Progressive Party copied the method used in the United States to build a national party in the U.S. Congress .Crerar was not the national leader of the party, but only the parliamentary leader. The media regarded him as the leading spokesman of the party, although he had no official position outside of parliament. The party also had no national organization, relying instead on the Canadian Council of Agriculture to provide some degree of national structure. Each candidate was free to promote any policies they desired. Support for reforming the National Policy
was a common denominator, but even this was not universal within the party. The Progressives can barely even be called a party, and many have argued that the term "Progressive Movement" is perhaps more apt.
In the 1921 election, the Liberal Party of Canada
won the largest number of seats, and formed a minority government
. The Progressives were divided over what to do, however. A significant group of ex-Liberals, including Crerar, supported forming a coalition government
with the Liberals. This was resisted both by Montreal
interests in the Liberal Party and the radical Progressives. Some radical Progressives, who were followers of Henry Wise Wood
of the UFA, supported a very different strategy. They wished to remain a decentralized party with each member simply representing his constituents. The two groups agreed to refuse the position of Official Opposition
, normally accorded to the party with the second largest number of seats, and this was passed on to the third-largest party, the Conservative Party.
s and a national party organization. These efforts were resisted, however, and in 1922, Crerar resigned as leader. He was replaced by Robert Forke
, another ex-Liberal who agreed with Crerar on most issues. The Progressives proved unsuccessful in Parliament, and lost much of their moderate support in eastern Canada. While in the 1921 election Crerar had toured the entire nation, Forke abandoned everything east of Manitoba. In the 1925 election
, the Progressives lost almost all of their Ontario members, but were still moderately successful in the west.
This left the party dominated by the radical Alberta
wing. Forke resigned as Progressive house leader on June 30, 1926, one day after Mackenzie King resigned as Prime Minister. Forke and most of the Manitoba Progressives made a deal with the Liberal Party and ran as Liberal-Progressive
s in the 1926 election
prompted by the fall of the interim Conservative government of Arthur Meighen
. The Liberals were able to form a stable minority government
following the 1926 election with the support of the 7 elected Liberal-Progressive MPs and Forke entered the Mackenzie King
cabinet as Minister of Immigration and Colonization. The Alberta Progressives reconstituted themselves as parliamentary representatives of the United Farmers of Alberta
electing 11 MPs in the 1926 election and 9 in 1930 - most of whom were members of the radical Ginger Group
faction of left wing Progressive, Labour and United Farmer MPs. The remaining UFA MPs were routed in the election of 1935
when most sitting United Farmers of Alberta MPs joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
and were defeated at the polls by the Social Credit Party of Canada
. Only three MPs were elected as Progressives in the 1930 election, Milton Neil Campbell
and Archibald M. Carmichael
of Saskatchewan and Agnes MacPhail
of Ontario. MacPhail successfully ran for re-election as a United Farmers of Ontario
-Labour candidate in the 1935 election but was defeated running under the same banner in 1940.
.
The more radical of the progressives split two ways. The Ginger Group
was a faction formed in 1924 by radical Progressives and were later joined by several Labour and Independent MPs. They would eventually formed the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
(the forerunner of the modern New Democratic Party
).
Others, especially the radical populists, would later turn towards Social Credit
ideology, forming a definite line of western protest that continued to run through the Reform Party of Canada
and the Canadian Alliance
party. Both the CCF and Social Credit had their roots in the United Farmers
movement, from which a large number of MLAs were elected in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia
and Manitoba, and which formed governments in Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba. On Manitoba, the United Farmers of Manitoba changed their name to the Progressive Party of Manitoba
after coming to power in 1922.
It could be argued that the United Farmers parties were provincial wings of the federal Progressive Party. The Conservative Party received the least of the Progressive's spoils, inheriting only the name. More important than these effects on individual parties, the Progressive Party also had a great effect on Canada's governmental system—it was the first successful example of a third party in Canada. Despite the Duverger's Law
of political science, the Canadian Parliament has always had a third, and sometimes a fourth or even fifth, party present ever since (although no third or fourth party has ever formed a national government in Canada.) The Progressives thus served both as a model and a cautionary tale
for those that followed after.
Does not include MPs elected as United Farmers, Labour, Independent, Independent Progressive or other designations who may have been part of the Progressive Party caucus.
Progressive MP Agnes MacPhail
was re-elected in the 1935 federal election
as a United Farmers of Ontario
-Labour candidate but was defeated running under the same banner in the 1940 federal election
.
, whose 1950 book, The Progressive Party in Canada, won a Governor General's Award
, and had been the principal text on the Progressive Party ever since. A great number of more recently published works on western politics cite only Morton’s book in their discussion of the Progressive Party. Morton, a Red Tory
, wrote in the context of a seemingly spreading Social Credit movement. Morton’s book was the first in a series exploring the origins of the Social Credit movement.
provides an interesting case that parallels that of the United Farmers. However Newfoundland was not part of Canada until 1949.
. Aligning with the Independent Labour Party they formed the official opposition with 11 MLAs (elected with a 30.9% of the popular vote). Daniel G. McKenzie, a successful farmer and former school-teacher from Malagash, was appointed party and opposition leader.
The party began to lose its momentum in the fall when one of its founders, Major Hugh Dickson, was defeated in the Colchester by-election. In 1921, Nova Scotia Liberal Party Premier George Murray
discredited the party in the eyes of the public when he offered to divide the government's budget surplus among members of the legislature. All but one United Farmer MLA accepted Murray's largesse. Later that session another scandal rocked the party when it was revealed that MacKenzie had secretly accepted a government salary of $500. A series of defections followed and by 1925 the United Farmers of Nova Scotia had virtually ceased to exist.
elected 9 United Farmers and 2 Farmer-Labour MLAs who sat together and allowed the incumbent Liberals
to maintain confidence in a minority government
situation. None of them were re-elected in the 1925 election
and no other UF candidates were elected at subsequent elections.
, the United Farmers of Ontario
formed government as a result of the 1919 provincial election
with E.C. Drury as Premier
. After the government's defeat in 1923
and the formal decision of the UFO to withdraw from electoral politics, most remaining UFO Members of the Legislative Assembly
(MLAs) took to calling themselves "Progressives". In the 1934 provincial election
the remaining Progressive MLAs under Harry Nixon
ran as Liberal-Progressives in an alliance with the Ontario Liberal Party
led by former UFO member Mitch Hepburn. The Liberal-Progressives subsequently joined the Liberal Party.
had merged with the Manitoba Liberal Party
in the 1920s to form a Liberal-Progressive party there. Despite this, in 1942, Manitoba Premier John Bracken
, a Progressive, was persuaded to become the leader of the national Conservative Party
. As a condition of his accepting the leadership, the party's name was changed to Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
. The Progressive Party of Canada, however, refused to disband, and ran its own candidates in the subsequent federal election against Bracken's Tories. The party's electoral fortunes continued to decline, and most Progressives ended up joining either the Liberal Party or the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
(CCF), rather than the renamed Progressive Conservatives.
ran seven candidates and elected six members to the Saskatchewan legislature in the 1921 general election
despite the absence of a provincial organization due to the reluctance of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association to break with the Saskatchewan Liberal Party
. The Liberals had a tradition of consulting the SGGA about farm policy and of appointing prominent farm activists to cabinet such as Charles Dunning and John Maharg. A political crisis ensued the Liberal government in late 1921 in which Premier William Melville Martin
angered the SGGA by campaigning for the federal Liberal Party of Canada
against the Progressive Party of Canada in the 1921 federal election
. Agriculture Minister Maharg, a former SGGA president, resigned from the Cabinet in protest and crossed the floor to sit as an Independent and become Leader of the Opposition
. Martin himself was forced to step down and the federal Progressives won 15 of 16 Saskatchewan seats in the federal election. The SGGA subsequently authorized the creation of local political action committees across the province but were unable to build on the 1921 federal breakthrough and only ran 6 of a possible 63 candidates in the next two provincial elections. In the 1925 provincial election
the Progressives again won six seats and formed the official opposition. They were reduced to third party status and five seats in the 1929 provincial election
with the Liberals reduced to minority government
status due to a strong showing by a revived Conservative Party of Saskatchewan. The Progressives joined with the Conservatives to force the Liberals from office on September 6, 1929 and formed a coalition government
allowing the Conservatives leader James T.M. Anderson
to take power as premier; one Progressive, Reginald Stipe, was appointed to Anderson's cabinet as minister without portfolio
. By the next election the Progressives had disappeared.
While the Progressives moved to the right, more radical farmers gravitated to the United Farmers of Canada (Saskatchewan Section) which was formed in 1926 by members of the Farmers' Union of Canada and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association. As a result of the Dust Bowl
farm crisis during the Great Depression
the UFC (SS) became politicised and adopted a socialist platform. In 1930, in response to the Progressive-Conservative coalition, the UFC (SS) under the leadership of George Hara Williams
decided to form a new political party. In 1932 it joined with the Independent Labour Party in the province to form the Farmer-Labour Group. Progressive MLA Jacob Benson joined the new party to become its first MLA. In the 1934 provincial election
, the FLG returned five MLAs to the legislature and subsequently became the Saskatchewan section of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.
formed was the governing party in Alberta from 1921 until its defeat in 1935. It also elected a number of MPs to the Canadian House of Commons
who sat initially as Progressive Party MPs but were re-elected as UFA MPs beginning in 1926 due to a split in the Progressive movement.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers
United Farmers of Canada
The United Farmers of Canada was a radical farmers organization. It was established in 1926 as the United Farmers of Canada as a merger of the Farmers' Union of Canada and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association...
parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba
Progressive Party of Manitoba
The Progressive Party of Manitoba, Canada, was a political party that developed from the United Farmers of Manitoba, an agrarian movement that became politically active following World War I...
. The party was part of a farmers' political movement that included provincial Progressive and United Farmers' parties.
The United Farmers movement in Canada rose to prominence after World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
. With the failure of the wartime Union
Unionist Party (Canada)
The Unionist Party was formed in 1917 by Members of Parliament in Canada who supported the "Union government" formed by Sir Robert Borden during the First World War....
government to alter a tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
structure that hurt farmers, various farmers movements across Canada became more radical and entered the political arena. The United Farmers movement was tied to the federal Progressive Party of Canada and formed provincial governments in Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
and Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
. It rejected the National Policy
National Policy
The National Policy was a Canadian economic program introduced by John A. Macdonald's Conservative Party in 1876 and put into action in 1879. It called for high tariffs on imported manufactured items to protect the manufacturing industry...
of the Conservatives
Conservative Party of Canada
The Conservative Party of Canada , is a political party in Canada which was formed by the merger of the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada in 2003. It is positioned on the right of the Canadian political spectrum...
and also felt that the Liberals
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
were not strong enough proponents of free trade
Free trade
Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
and were too strongly tied to business interests. Generally, farmers groups formed alliances with Labour and socialist groups though, in power, they became closer to the Liberals causing ruptures in several provinces between United Farmer governments and their organizations.
Origins
The origins of the Progressive Party can, in many ways, be traced to the politics of compromise under Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid LaurierWilfrid Laurier
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, GCMG, PC, KC, baptized Henri-Charles-Wilfrid Laurier was the seventh Prime Minister of Canada from 11 July 1896 to 6 October 1911....
. The most important issue to farmers in western Canada at the time was free trade
Free trade
Under a free trade policy, prices emerge from supply and demand, and are the sole determinant of resource allocation. 'Free' trade differs from other forms of trade policy where the allocation of goods and services among trading countries are determined by price strategies that may differ from...
with the United States. The National Policy
National Policy
The National Policy was a Canadian economic program introduced by John A. Macdonald's Conservative Party in 1876 and put into action in 1879. It called for high tariffs on imported manufactured items to protect the manufacturing industry...
implemented by Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald
John A. Macdonald
Sir John Alexander Macdonald, GCB, KCMG, PC, PC , QC was the first Prime Minister of Canada. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, his political career spanned almost half a century...
in the 1890s forced farmers to pay higher prices for equipment, and to sell their produce for less. After World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, however, neither of the major political parties supported free trade.
At the turn of the century voters in Western Canada began to consider an influx of radical political ideas. From the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
came Progressivism
Progressivism
Progressivism is an umbrella term for a political ideology advocating or favoring social, political, and economic reform or changes. Progressivism is often viewed by some conservatives, constitutionalists, and libertarians to be in opposition to conservative or reactionary ideologies.The...
and the Non-Partisan League
Non-Partisan League
The Nonpartisan League was a political organization founded in 1915 in the United States by former Socialist Party organizer A. C. Townley. The Nonpartisan League advocated state control of mills, grain elevators, banks and other farm-related industries in order to reduce the power of corporate...
. From Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, the new immigrants brought Fabian socialism. This mix of ideology and discontent led to discussion of forming an independent party, especially in the "Grain Growers Guide", a magazine of the day. The first organizations of agricultural protest were the farmers’ organizations such as the Manitoba Grain Growers Association and the United Farmers of Alberta
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
.
In the period immediately following World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
farmers' organizations across Canada were becoming more politically active and were entering electoral politics on the provincial level. The United Farmers of Ontario ran in the 1919 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1919
The Ontario general election, 1919 was the 15th general election held in the Province of Ontario, Canada. It was held on October 20, 1919, to elect the 111 Members of the 15th Legislative Assembly of Ontario ....
and, surprisingly, won.
In June 1919, Thomas Crerar
Thomas Crerar
Thomas Alexander Crerar, was a western Canadian politician and a leader of the short-lived Progressive Party of Canada. He was born in Molesworth, Ontario, and moved to Manitoba at a young age....
, Minister of Agriculture
Minister of Agriculture (Canada)
The Minister of Agriculture is a Minister of the Crown in the Cabinet of Canada, who is responsible for overseeing several organizations including Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, Canadian Dairy Commission, Farm Credit Canada, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, National Farm Products Council and...
in the Unionist
Unionist Party (Canada)
The Unionist Party was formed in 1917 by Members of Parliament in Canada who supported the "Union government" formed by Sir Robert Borden during the First World War....
government of Robert Borden
Robert Borden
Sir Robert Laird Borden, PC, GCMG, KC was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as the eighth Prime Minister of Canada from October 10, 1911 to July 10, 1920, and was the third Nova Scotian to hold this office...
, quit the Borden cabinet because Minister of Finance Thomas White introduced a budget that did not pay sufficient attention to farmers' issues. Farmer leader and MP John Archibald Maharg
John Archibald Maharg
John Archibald Maharg was a Saskatchewan politician.Born in Orangeville, Ontario, Maharg moved west and settled near Moose Jaw in 1890 where he became a grain farmer and cattle breeder. He helped organize the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association becoming its first president from 1910 to 1923...
also withdrew his support from the government and joined Crerar. In 1919 and 1920 several by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
s were won by "United Farmers" candidates. In 1920, Crerar and his supporters founded the Progressive Party of Canada with Crerar as its first leader. The new party won 58 of the 235 seats in the 1921 general election
Canadian federal election, 1921
The Canadian federal election of 1921 was held on December 6, 1921 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 14th Parliament of Canada. The Union government that had governed Canada through the First World War was defeated, and replaced by a Liberal government under the young leader...
.
Elected to office
Traditionally, the Progressive Party has been viewed as a western protest party, but some now contest this. It is certain that its core of support was western. But as the 1921 election shows, the Progressives began life as a truly national movement. The Progressives won 24 of the 81 House of CommonsCanadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
seats in Ontario. At the time, the party viewed this as a disappointing result . The Progressives received significant support in the Maritimes provinces as well, but only one seat in New Brunswick
New Brunswick
New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...
. At the provincial level, farmers' parties became significant presences in both Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
and New Brunswick.
By taking a very decentralized approach, the Progressive Party copied the method used in the United States to build a national party in the U.S. Congress .Crerar was not the national leader of the party, but only the parliamentary leader. The media regarded him as the leading spokesman of the party, although he had no official position outside of parliament. The party also had no national organization, relying instead on the Canadian Council of Agriculture to provide some degree of national structure. Each candidate was free to promote any policies they desired. Support for reforming the National Policy
National Policy
The National Policy was a Canadian economic program introduced by John A. Macdonald's Conservative Party in 1876 and put into action in 1879. It called for high tariffs on imported manufactured items to protect the manufacturing industry...
was a common denominator, but even this was not universal within the party. The Progressives can barely even be called a party, and many have argued that the term "Progressive Movement" is perhaps more apt.
In the 1921 election, the Liberal Party of Canada
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
won the largest number of seats, and formed a minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
. The Progressives were divided over what to do, however. A significant group of ex-Liberals, including Crerar, supported forming a coalition government
Coalition government
A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...
with the Liberals. This was resisted both by Montreal
Montreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
interests in the Liberal Party and the radical Progressives. Some radical Progressives, who were followers of Henry Wise Wood
Henry Wise Wood
Henry Wise Wood was an American-born Canadian agrarian thinker and activist. He became director in 1914 and was elected president of the United Farmers of Alberta in 1916. Under his leadership the UFA became the most powerful political lobby group in the province...
of the UFA, supported a very different strategy. They wished to remain a decentralized party with each member simply representing his constituents. The two groups agreed to refuse the position of Official Opposition
Official Opposition (Canada)
In Canada, Her Majesty's Loyal Opposition , commonly known as the Official Opposition, is usually the largest parliamentary opposition party in the House of Commons or a provincial legislative assembly that is not in government, either on its own or as part of a governing coalition...
, normally accorded to the party with the second largest number of seats, and this was passed on to the third-largest party, the Conservative Party.
Demise
Crerar attempted to introduce certain attributes of a standard party to the Progressives, including Parliamentary WhipWhip (politics)
A whip is an official in a political party whose primary purpose is to ensure party discipline in a legislature. Whips are a party's "enforcers", who typically offer inducements and threaten punishments for party members to ensure that they vote according to the official party policy...
s and a national party organization. These efforts were resisted, however, and in 1922, Crerar resigned as leader. He was replaced by Robert Forke
Robert Forke
Robert Forke, PC was a Canadian politician. He was elected as Member of Parliament for Brandon in 1921. In 1922, he replaced Thomas Crerar as leader of the Progressive Party of Canada...
, another ex-Liberal who agreed with Crerar on most issues. The Progressives proved unsuccessful in Parliament, and lost much of their moderate support in eastern Canada. While in the 1921 election Crerar had toured the entire nation, Forke abandoned everything east of Manitoba. In the 1925 election
Canadian federal election, 1925
The Canadian federal election of 1925 was held on October 29 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 15th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Party formed a minority government. This precipitated the "King-Byng Affair".The Liberals under...
, the Progressives lost almost all of their Ontario members, but were still moderately successful in the west.
This left the party dominated by the radical Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
wing. Forke resigned as Progressive house leader on June 30, 1926, one day after Mackenzie King resigned as Prime Minister. Forke and most of the Manitoba Progressives made a deal with the Liberal Party and ran as Liberal-Progressive
Liberal-Progressive
Liberal-Progressive was a label used by a number of candidates in Canadian elections between 1926 and 1953. In federal and Ontario politics, there was no formal Liberal-Progressive party, but it was an alliance between two separate parties...
s in the 1926 election
Canadian federal election, 1926
The Canadian federal election of 1926 was held on September 14 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 16th Parliament of Canada. The election was called following an event known as the King-Byng Affair...
prompted by the fall of the interim Conservative government of Arthur Meighen
Arthur Meighen
Arthur Meighen, PC, QC was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served two terms as the ninth Prime Minister of Canada: from July 10, 1920 to December 29, 1921; and from June 29 to September 25, 1926. He was the first Prime Minister born after Confederation, and the only one to represent a riding...
. The Liberals were able to form a stable minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
following the 1926 election with the support of the 7 elected Liberal-Progressive MPs and Forke entered the Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...
cabinet as Minister of Immigration and Colonization. The Alberta Progressives reconstituted themselves as parliamentary representatives of the United Farmers of Alberta
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
electing 11 MPs in the 1926 election and 9 in 1930 - most of whom were members of the radical Ginger Group
Ginger group
A ginger group is a formal or informal group within, for example, a political party seeking to inspire the rest with its own enthusiasm and activity....
faction of left wing Progressive, Labour and United Farmer MPs. The remaining UFA MPs were routed in the election of 1935
Canadian federal election, 1935
The Canadian federal election of 1935 was held on October 14, 1935 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 18th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King won a majority government, defeating Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's Conservative Party.The central...
when most sitting United Farmers of Alberta MPs joined the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...
and were defeated at the polls by the Social Credit Party of Canada
Social Credit Party of Canada
The Social Credit Party of Canada was a conservative-populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform...
. Only three MPs were elected as Progressives in the 1930 election, Milton Neil Campbell
Milton Neil Campbell
Milton Neil Campbell was a Canadian politician. He represented the electoral district of Mackenzie from 1921 to 1933, in the Canadian House of Commons....
and Archibald M. Carmichael
Archibald M. Carmichael
Archibald M. Carmichael was a Progressive party member of the Canadian House of Commons. He was born in Smithdale, Ontario and became a farmer, minister and teacher....
of Saskatchewan and Agnes MacPhail
Agnes Macphail
Agnes Campbell Macphail was the first woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons, and one of the first two women elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario...
of Ontario. MacPhail successfully ran for re-election as a United Farmers of Ontario
United Farmers of Ontario
The United Farmers of Ontario was a political party in Ontario, Canada. It was the Ontario provincial branch of the United Farmers movement of the early part of the 20th century.- Foundation and rise :...
-Labour candidate in the 1935 election but was defeated running under the same banner in 1940.
Legacy
After the collapse of the party, most Progressive voters returned to the Liberal Party. The Liberals had always viewed the Progressives as simply 'Liberals in a hurry', and for a large group of the party's supporters, this was true. The most important example of this return to the Liberals is T.A. Crerar, who served with the Liberals for decades, first as a cabinet minister and then as a SenatorCanadian Senate
The Senate of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the House of Commons, and the monarch . The Senate consists of 105 members appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister...
.
The more radical of the progressives split two ways. The Ginger Group
Ginger group
A ginger group is a formal or informal group within, for example, a political party seeking to inspire the rest with its own enthusiasm and activity....
was a faction formed in 1924 by radical Progressives and were later joined by several Labour and Independent MPs. They would eventually formed the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...
(the forerunner of the modern New Democratic Party
New Democratic Party
The New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...
).
Others, especially the radical populists, would later turn towards Social Credit
Canadian social credit movement
The Canadian social credit movement was a Canadian political movement originally based on the Social Credit theory of Major C. H. Douglas. Its supporters were colloquially known as Socreds...
ideology, forming a definite line of western protest that continued to run through the Reform Party of Canada
Reform Party of Canada
The Reform Party of Canada was a Canadian federal political party that existed from 1987 to 2000. It was originally founded as a Western Canada-based protest party, but attempted to expand eastward in the 1990s. It viewed itself as a populist party....
and the Canadian Alliance
Canadian Alliance
The Canadian Alliance , formally the Canadian Reform Conservative Alliance , was a Canadian conservative political party that existed from 2000 to 2003. The party was the successor to the Reform Party of Canada and inherited its position as the Official Opposition in the House of Commons and held...
party. Both the CCF and Social Credit had their roots in the United Farmers
United Farmers of Canada
The United Farmers of Canada was a radical farmers organization. It was established in 1926 as the United Farmers of Canada as a merger of the Farmers' Union of Canada and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association...
movement, from which a large number of MLAs were elected in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
and Manitoba, and which formed governments in Alberta, Ontario and Manitoba. On Manitoba, the United Farmers of Manitoba changed their name to the Progressive Party of Manitoba
Progressive Party of Manitoba
The Progressive Party of Manitoba, Canada, was a political party that developed from the United Farmers of Manitoba, an agrarian movement that became politically active following World War I...
after coming to power in 1922.
It could be argued that the United Farmers parties were provincial wings of the federal Progressive Party. The Conservative Party received the least of the Progressive's spoils, inheriting only the name. More important than these effects on individual parties, the Progressive Party also had a great effect on Canada's governmental system—it was the first successful example of a third party in Canada. Despite the Duverger's Law
Duverger's law
In political science, Duverger's law is a principle which asserts that a plurality rule election system tends to favor a two-party system. This is one of two hypotheses proposed by Duverger, the second stating that “the double ballot majority system and proportional representation tend to...
of political science, the Canadian Parliament has always had a third, and sometimes a fourth or even fifth, party present ever since (although no third or fourth party has ever formed a national government in Canada.) The Progressives thus served both as a model and a cautionary tale
Cautionary tale
A cautionary tale is a tale told in folklore, to warn its hearer of a danger. There are three essential parts to a cautionary tale, though they can be introduced in a large variety of ways. First, a taboo or prohibition is stated: some act, location, or thing is said to be dangerous. Then, the...
for those that followed after.
Election results
| Election | Party leader | # of candidates nominated | # of seats won | # of total votes | % of popular vote |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1921 Canadian federal election, 1921 The Canadian federal election of 1921 was held on December 6, 1921 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 14th Parliament of Canada. The Union government that had governed Canada through the First World War was defeated, and replaced by a Liberal government under the young leader... |
Thomas Crerar Thomas Alexander Crerar, was a western Canadian politician and a leader of the short-lived Progressive Party of Canada. He was born in Molesworth, Ontario, and moved to Manitoba at a young age.... |
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| 1925 Canadian federal election, 1925 The Canadian federal election of 1925 was held on October 29 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 15th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Party formed a minority government. This precipitated the "King-Byng Affair".The Liberals under... |
Robert Forke Robert Forke, PC was a Canadian politician. He was elected as Member of Parliament for Brandon in 1921. In 1922, he replaced Thomas Crerar as leader of the Progressive Party of Canada... |
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| 1926 Canadian federal election, 1926 The Canadian federal election of 1926 was held on September 14 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 16th Parliament of Canada. The election was called following an event known as the King-Byng Affair... |
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| 1930 Canadian federal election, 1930 The Canadian federal election of 1930 was held on July 28, 1930 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 17th Parliament of Canada... |
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Does not include MPs elected as United Farmers, Labour, Independent, Independent Progressive or other designations who may have been part of the Progressive Party caucus.
Progressive MP Agnes MacPhail
Agnes Macphail
Agnes Campbell Macphail was the first woman to be elected to the Canadian House of Commons, and one of the first two women elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario...
was re-elected in the 1935 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1935
The Canadian federal election of 1935 was held on October 14, 1935 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 18th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King won a majority government, defeating Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's Conservative Party.The central...
as a United Farmers of Ontario
United Farmers of Ontario
The United Farmers of Ontario was a political party in Ontario, Canada. It was the Ontario provincial branch of the United Farmers movement of the early part of the 20th century.- Foundation and rise :...
-Labour candidate but was defeated running under the same banner in the 1940 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1940
The Canadian federal election of 1940 was the 19th general election in Canadian history. It was held March 26, 1940 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 19th Parliament of Canada...
.
Historiography
The study of the Progressive Party is almost wholly dominated by one author, W.L. MortonW.L. Morton
William Lewis Morton, OC was a noted Canadian historian who specialized in the development of the Canadian west. He was born in Gladstone, Manitoba. He won a Rhodes Scholarship and attended Oxford University where he studied history...
, whose 1950 book, The Progressive Party in Canada, won a Governor General's Award
Governor General's Award
The Governor General's Awards are a collection of awards presented by the Governor General of Canada, marking distinction in a number of academic, artistic and social fields. The first was conceived in 1937 by Lord Tweedsmuir, a prolific author of fiction and non-fiction who created the Governor...
, and had been the principal text on the Progressive Party ever since. A great number of more recently published works on western politics cite only Morton’s book in their discussion of the Progressive Party. Morton, a Red Tory
Red Tory
A red Tory is an adherent of a particular political philosophy, tradition, and disposition in Canada somewhat similar to the High Tory tradition in the United Kingdom; it is contrasted with "blue Tory". In Canada, the phenomenon of "red toryism" has fundamentally, if not exclusively, been found in...
, wrote in the context of a seemingly spreading Social Credit movement. Morton’s book was the first in a series exploring the origins of the Social Credit movement.
Newfoundland
Though not part of the United Farmers movement, or indeed a movement of farmers at all, the Fisherman's Protective Union of NewfoundlandNewfoundland and Labrador
Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
provides an interesting case that parallels that of the United Farmers. However Newfoundland was not part of Canada until 1949.
Nova Scotia
The United Farmers of Nova Scotia was formed in January 1920 at meetings that followed the annual convention of the Nova Scotia Farmers' Association. At an April meeting, 300 farmers approved the UFNA's constitution and the publication of a newspaper, United Farmer's Guide. The movement nominated 16 candidates and elected 7 in the 1920 general electionNova Scotia general election, 1920
The 14th Nova Scotia general election was held on 27 July 1920 to elect members of the 37th House of Assembly of the Province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It was won by the Liberal party....
. Aligning with the Independent Labour Party they formed the official opposition with 11 MLAs (elected with a 30.9% of the popular vote). Daniel G. McKenzie, a successful farmer and former school-teacher from Malagash, was appointed party and opposition leader.
The party began to lose its momentum in the fall when one of its founders, Major Hugh Dickson, was defeated in the Colchester by-election. In 1921, Nova Scotia Liberal Party Premier George Murray
George Murray
George Murray may refer to:*George Mosley Murray , Bishop*Lord George Murray , Jacobite general*George Murray , Royal Navy officer and MP for Perth Burghs...
discredited the party in the eyes of the public when he offered to divide the government's budget surplus among members of the legislature. All but one United Farmer MLA accepted Murray's largesse. Later that session another scandal rocked the party when it was revealed that MacKenzie had secretly accepted a government salary of $500. A series of defections followed and by 1925 the United Farmers of Nova Scotia had virtually ceased to exist.
New Brunswick
The 1920 provincial electionNew Brunswick general election, 1920
The 15th New Brunswick general election was held on 9 October 1920, to elect 48 members to the 35th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, the governing house of the province of New Brunswick, Canada...
elected 9 United Farmers and 2 Farmer-Labour MLAs who sat together and allowed the incumbent Liberals
New Brunswick Liberal Association
The New Brunswick Liberal Association , more popularly known as the New Brunswick Liberal Party or Liberal Party of New Brunswick, is one of the two major political parties in the Canadian province of New Brunswick...
to maintain confidence in a minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
situation. None of them were re-elected in the 1925 election
New Brunswick general election, 1925
The 16th New Brunswick general election was held on 10 August 1925, to elect 48 members to the 36th New Brunswick Legislative Assembly, the governing house of the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Although political parties had no standing in law, thirty-seven MLAs declared themselves to be...
and no other UF candidates were elected at subsequent elections.
Ontario
In OntarioOntario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, the United Farmers of Ontario
United Farmers of Ontario
The United Farmers of Ontario was a political party in Ontario, Canada. It was the Ontario provincial branch of the United Farmers movement of the early part of the 20th century.- Foundation and rise :...
formed government as a result of the 1919 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1919
The Ontario general election, 1919 was the 15th general election held in the Province of Ontario, Canada. It was held on October 20, 1919, to elect the 111 Members of the 15th Legislative Assembly of Ontario ....
with E.C. Drury as Premier
Premier of Ontario
The Premier of Ontario is the first Minister of the Crown for the Canadian province of Ontario. The Premier is appointed as the province's head of government by the Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, and presides over the Executive council, or Cabinet. The Executive Council Act The Premier of Ontario...
. After the government's defeat in 1923
Ontario general election, 1923
The Ontario general election, 1923 was the 16th general election held in the Province of Ontario, Canada. It was held on June 25, 1923, to elect the 111 Members of the 16th Legislative Assembly of Ontario ....
and the formal decision of the UFO to withdraw from electoral politics, most remaining UFO Members of the Legislative Assembly
Member of the Legislative Assembly
A Member of the Legislative Assembly or a Member of the Legislature , is a representative elected by the voters of a constituency to the legislature or legislative assembly of a sub-national jurisdiction....
(MLAs) took to calling themselves "Progressives". In the 1934 provincial election
Ontario general election, 1934
The Ontario general election, 1934 was the 19th general election held in the Province of Ontario, Canada. It was held on June 19, 1934, to elect the 90 Members of the 19th Legislative Assembly of Ontario ....
the remaining Progressive MLAs under Harry Nixon
Harry Nixon
Harry Corwin Nixon was a Canadian politician and briefly the 13th Premier of Ontario.He was born on a farm near St...
ran as Liberal-Progressives in an alliance with the Ontario Liberal Party
Ontario Liberal Party
The Ontario Liberal Party is a provincial political party in the province of Ontario, Canada. It has formed the Government of Ontario since the provincial election of 2003. The party is ideologically aligned with the Liberal Party of Canada but the two parties are organizationally independent and...
led by former UFO member Mitch Hepburn. The Liberal-Progressives subsequently joined the Liberal Party.
Manitoba
The Progressive Party of ManitobaProgressive Party of Manitoba
The Progressive Party of Manitoba, Canada, was a political party that developed from the United Farmers of Manitoba, an agrarian movement that became politically active following World War I...
had merged with the Manitoba Liberal Party
Manitoba Liberal Party
The Manitoba Liberal Party is a political party in Manitoba, Canada. Its roots can be traced to the late nineteenth-century, following the province's creation in 1870.-Origins and early development :...
in the 1920s to form a Liberal-Progressive party there. Despite this, in 1942, Manitoba Premier John Bracken
John Bracken
John Bracken, PC was an agronomist, the 11th Premier of Manitoba and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada ....
, a Progressive, was persuaded to become the leader of the national Conservative Party
Conservative Party of Canada (historical)
The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the...
. As a condition of his accepting the leadership, the party's name was changed to Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
Progressive Conservative Party of Canada
The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada was a Canadian political party with a centre-right stance on economic issues and, after the 1970s, a centrist stance on social issues....
. The Progressive Party of Canada, however, refused to disband, and ran its own candidates in the subsequent federal election against Bracken's Tories. The party's electoral fortunes continued to decline, and most Progressives ended up joining either the Liberal Party or the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...
(CCF), rather than the renamed Progressive Conservatives.
Saskatchewan
The Progressive Party of SaskatchewanProgressive Party of Saskatchewan
The Progressive Party of Saskatchewan was a provincial section of the Progressive Party of Canada and was active from the 1920s to the mid-1930s...
ran seven candidates and elected six members to the Saskatchewan legislature in the 1921 general election
Saskatchewan general election, 1921
The Saskatchewan general election of 1921 was the fifth provincial election held in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was held on June 9, 1921 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan....
despite the absence of a provincial organization due to the reluctance of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association to break with the Saskatchewan Liberal Party
Saskatchewan Liberal Party
The Saskatchewan Liberal Party is a liberal political party in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan.-Early history :The party dominated Saskatchewan politics for the province's first forty years providing six of the first seven Premiers, and being in power for all but five of the years between the...
. The Liberals had a tradition of consulting the SGGA about farm policy and of appointing prominent farm activists to cabinet such as Charles Dunning and John Maharg. A political crisis ensued the Liberal government in late 1921 in which Premier William Melville Martin
William Melville Martin
William Melville Martin served as the second Premier of the Canadian province of Saskatchewan from 1916 to 1922....
angered the SGGA by campaigning for the federal Liberal Party of Canada
Liberal Party of Canada
The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative...
against the Progressive Party of Canada in the 1921 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1921
The Canadian federal election of 1921 was held on December 6, 1921 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 14th Parliament of Canada. The Union government that had governed Canada through the First World War was defeated, and replaced by a Liberal government under the young leader...
. Agriculture Minister Maharg, a former SGGA president, resigned from the Cabinet in protest and crossed the floor to sit as an Independent and become Leader of the Opposition
Leader of the Opposition (Saskatchewan)
A list of parliamentary opposition leaders in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan, from 1906 to the present. There was no designated Leader of the Opposition for the sessions of 1921 and 1922.In the period 1925-1929 C.E. Tran and J.T.M...
. Martin himself was forced to step down and the federal Progressives won 15 of 16 Saskatchewan seats in the federal election. The SGGA subsequently authorized the creation of local political action committees across the province but were unable to build on the 1921 federal breakthrough and only ran 6 of a possible 63 candidates in the next two provincial elections. In the 1925 provincial election
Saskatchewan general election, 1925
The Saskatchewan general election of 1925 was the sixth provincial election held in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was held on June 2, 1925 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan....
the Progressives again won six seats and formed the official opposition. They were reduced to third party status and five seats in the 1929 provincial election
Saskatchewan general election, 1929
The Saskatchewan general election of 1929 was the seventh provincial election held in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was held on June 6, 1929 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan....
with the Liberals reduced to minority government
Minority government
A minority government or a minority cabinet is a cabinet of a parliamentary system formed when a political party or coalition of parties does not have a majority of overall seats in the parliament but is sworn into government to break a Hung Parliament election result. It is also known as a...
status due to a strong showing by a revived Conservative Party of Saskatchewan. The Progressives joined with the Conservatives to force the Liberals from office on September 6, 1929 and formed a coalition government
Coalition government
A coalition government is a cabinet of a parliamentary government in which several political parties cooperate. The usual reason given for this arrangement is that no party on its own can achieve a majority in the parliament...
allowing the Conservatives leader James T.M. Anderson
James Thomas Milton Anderson
James Thomas Milton Anderson was Saskatchewan's fifth Premier and the first Conservative to hold the office....
to take power as premier; one Progressive, Reginald Stipe, was appointed to Anderson's cabinet as minister without portfolio
Minister without Portfolio
A minister without portfolio is either a government minister with no specific responsibilities or a minister that does not head a particular ministry...
. By the next election the Progressives had disappeared.
While the Progressives moved to the right, more radical farmers gravitated to the United Farmers of Canada (Saskatchewan Section) which was formed in 1926 by members of the Farmers' Union of Canada and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association. As a result of the Dust Bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...
farm crisis during the Great Depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
the UFC (SS) became politicised and adopted a socialist platform. In 1930, in response to the Progressive-Conservative coalition, the UFC (SS) under the leadership of George Hara Williams
George Hara Williams
George Hara Williams was a farmer activist and politician. Born in Binscarth, Manitoba, Williams attended Manitoba Agricultural College after serving in World War I...
decided to form a new political party. In 1932 it joined with the Independent Labour Party in the province to form the Farmer-Labour Group. Progressive MLA Jacob Benson joined the new party to become its first MLA. In the 1934 provincial election
Saskatchewan general election, 1934
The Saskatchewan general election of 1934 was the eighth provincial election held in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was held on June 19, 1934, to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan....
, the FLG returned five MLAs to the legislature and subsequently became the Saskatchewan section of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation.
Alberta
The United Farmers of AlbertaUnited Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
formed was the governing party in Alberta from 1921 until its defeat in 1935. It also elected a number of MPs to the Canadian House of Commons
Canadian House of Commons
The House of Commons of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the Sovereign and the Senate. The House of Commons is a democratically elected body, consisting of 308 members known as Members of Parliament...
who sat initially as Progressive Party MPs but were re-elected as UFA MPs beginning in 1926 due to a split in the Progressive movement.
See also
- List of Progressive/United Farmer MPs
- United FarmersUnited Farmers of CanadaThe United Farmers of Canada was a radical farmers organization. It was established in 1926 as the United Farmers of Canada as a merger of the Farmers' Union of Canada and the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association...
- United Farmers of QuebecUnited Farmers of QuebecThe United Farmers of Quebec were founded in 1920 as part of the broader United Farmers movement in of Canada.The genesis of the organization was in protests resulting from the Conscription Crisis of 1917 against the attempt of Robert Borden's federal government to conscript farm youths into the...
- Fisherman's Protective Union a similar movement in NewfoundlandNewfoundland and LabradorNewfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...
- Labour Party
- Non-Partisan LeagueNon-Partisan LeagueThe Nonpartisan League was a political organization founded in 1915 in the United States by former Socialist Party organizer A. C. Townley. The Nonpartisan League advocated state control of mills, grain elevators, banks and other farm-related industries in order to reduce the power of corporate...
- Co-operative Commonwealth FederationCo-operative Commonwealth FederationThe Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction...
- New Democratic PartyNew Democratic PartyThe New Democratic Party , commonly referred to as the NDP, is a federal social-democratic political party in Canada. The interim leader of the NDP is Nycole Turmel who was appointed to the position due to the illness of Jack Layton, who died on August 22, 2011. The provincial wings of the NDP in...
- List of political parties in Canada
- Farmers' movementFarmers' movementThe Farmers Movement was, in American political history, the general name for a movement between 1867 and 1896 remarkable for a radical socio-economic propaganda that came from what was considered the most conservative class of American society...