Canada 1919-1939Essay title: Canada 1919-1939Canada between the Wars 1919-1939I. The British Commonwealth of Nations-The period between the wars brought: Culmination of Canadas growth to independent nationhood within the British Commonwealth. Prime Minister Borden – Included in the Imperial War Cabinet in London. He piloted- the dominions “should be recognized as autonomous nations of an imperial commonwealth.” At the end of 1919 the Canadian government acquired
A. Decades of discordIssues:Social labor history, national politics and relations in the empire.Young people in this era grew up w/out stability (harsh war, unstable economy, and great depression)1. Post War Recession1919 Winnipeg General Strike was Canadas most influential labour action. After World War I many Canadian soldiers returned home to find few opportunities, all while companies had enjoyed enormous profits on war contracts. Wages and working conditions were dismal and labour regulations were mostly non-existent.
J. S. Woodsworth of Winnipeg, who had organized their political movement after the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919. Meighen had played a key role in violently suppressing the strikers and this earned him the animosity of organized labour.
Intention of overthrowing Canadian capitalism through a series of crippling general strikes.Attempted to unionize -workers from both industries went on strike to gain union recognition.The strike was generally non-violent. The majority of the strikers were reformist, (“revolutionary socialism”, which believes that there must be a revolution to fundamentally change a society.) not radical. They wanted to amend the system, not destroy it and build a new one.
1920s – Spiraling expansion of business.Technical and industrial advances paced the rising standard of living.II. National PoliticsA. GovernmentSince the 1911 election, the country had been governed by the Conservatives, first under the leadership of Robert Borden, and then under Arthur Meighen.
Bordon, conservative 1911-20 (Union Government). Conscription means unity.Meighan (1920-21, Union Government)MacKenzie King, spirituarlist, liberal, union gov’t disbanded, absorbed into conservative part.Organized labour thereafter was hostile towards the Conservatives, particularly Meighen and Robertson, for their forcefull role in putting down the strike. Combined with high tariffs in the federal budget passed in the same year which farmers disliked, this contributed to the Conservatives heavy defeat in the 1921 election. Succeeding Liberal government, made sure that the Winnipeg General Strike resulted in much improved working conditions for millions of Canadians. Liberal government under the young leader William Lyon Mackenzie King.
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All right, let’s go on for a bit. This is a pretty simple question: were you surprised when you heard about the “winnipeg general strike”? Of all the strikes we’ve had since 1921, only 1 or 2 have ended up in action before they could begin, including a strike by union members, the one in Winnipeg in 1922 which led to the resignation of Mayor Michael McAdoo. Not only did the Tories lose their party, but they were defeated. This was probably a bit of a disservice to Harper, who made a series of grand, grand political mistakes including his call for universal suffrage for all, a call for an end to Canadian imperialism, and a claim that the government wanted “a free and full union”. The Conservative Party, on the other hand, made a series of mistakes at the same time we did, leading to the Conservative government of a Conservative Prime Minister. The first one was to ignore many of the important issues of that fateful strike and act along the lines of the NDP, which claimed to oppose all forms of internationalism. The NDP was, in fact, a very different sort of radicalism to the Conservative Party: in order for it to win parliamentary elections from a small part of its base, the Tories needed to become the first to support free trade, free public services and an international free trade system, that would allow them to negotiate for every worker there was. The second mistake was to make the Tories seem so unsupportable to the country they had just defeated that they made the Conservatives want to take over the unions and build into government the kind of world economy that had been promised them by the world. A Tory Government which had already held on for so long without a major, successful strike was doomed to die by a Tory Labour Party which had long promised a radical alternative to austerity and nationalism which had brought prosperity to more than one class in every country. The third mistake was to get the Conservatives involved in the “political debt” crisis. In his first term as Minister of State for Labour and Transport, Stephen Harper put himself in the position where he said “This will not be the default if the economy does not get in line under our current system of public assistance”. In the 1970s, while the Conservatives were winning Labour supporters in the NDP, the Tories were losing them in general, and these had nothing to do with the Conservatives’ commitment to national economic development. In 1974, when the NDP made the case for a national referendum to find a Tory government, the Tories won nearly all parliamentary seats; while those who took their fight to the polls supported the party that had won majority voting. Since then, there have been no successful
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All right, let’s go on for a bit. This is a pretty simple question: were you surprised when you heard about the “winnipeg general strike”? Of all the strikes we’ve had since 1921, only 1 or 2 have ended up in action before they could begin, including a strike by union members, the one in Winnipeg in 1922 which led to the resignation of Mayor Michael McAdoo. Not only did the Tories lose their party, but they were defeated. This was probably a bit of a disservice to Harper, who made a series of grand, grand political mistakes including his call for universal suffrage for all, a call for an end to Canadian imperialism, and a claim that the government wanted “a free and full union”. The Conservative Party, on the other hand, made a series of mistakes at the same time we did, leading to the Conservative government of a Conservative Prime Minister. The first one was to ignore many of the important issues of that fateful strike and act along the lines of the NDP, which claimed to oppose all forms of internationalism. The NDP was, in fact, a very different sort of radicalism to the Conservative Party: in order for it to win parliamentary elections from a small part of its base, the Tories needed to become the first to support free trade, free public services and an international free trade system, that would allow them to negotiate for every worker there was. The second mistake was to make the Tories seem so unsupportable to the country they had just defeated that they made the Conservatives want to take over the unions and build into government the kind of world economy that had been promised them by the world. A Tory Government which had already held on for so long without a major, successful strike was doomed to die by a Tory Labour Party which had long promised a radical alternative to austerity and nationalism which had brought prosperity to more than one class in every country. The third mistake was to get the Conservatives involved in the “political debt” crisis. In his first term as Minister of State for Labour and Transport, Stephen Harper put himself in the position where he said “This will not be the default if the economy does not get in line under our current system of public assistance”. In the 1970s, while the Conservatives were winning Labour supporters in the NDP, the Tories were losing them in general, and these had nothing to do with the Conservatives’ commitment to national economic development. In 1974, when the NDP made the case for a national referendum to find a Tory government, the Tories won nearly all parliamentary seats; while those who took their fight to the polls supported the party that had won majority voting. Since then, there have been no successful
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All right, let’s go on for a bit. This is a pretty simple question: were you surprised when you heard about the “winnipeg general strike”? Of all the strikes we’ve had since 1921, only 1 or 2 have ended up in action before they could begin, including a strike by union members, the one in Winnipeg in 1922 which led to the resignation of Mayor Michael McAdoo. Not only did the Tories lose their party, but they were defeated. This was probably a bit of a disservice to Harper, who made a series of grand, grand political mistakes including his call for universal suffrage for all, a call for an end to Canadian imperialism, and a claim that the government wanted “a free and full union”. The Conservative Party, on the other hand, made a series of mistakes at the same time we did, leading to the Conservative government of a Conservative Prime Minister. The first one was to ignore many of the important issues of that fateful strike and act along the lines of the NDP, which claimed to oppose all forms of internationalism. The NDP was, in fact, a very different sort of radicalism to the Conservative Party: in order for it to win parliamentary elections from a small part of its base, the Tories needed to become the first to support free trade, free public services and an international free trade system, that would allow them to negotiate for every worker there was. The second mistake was to make the Tories seem so unsupportable to the country they had just defeated that they made the Conservatives want to take over the unions and build into government the kind of world economy that had been promised them by the world. A Tory Government which had already held on for so long without a major, successful strike was doomed to die by a Tory Labour Party which had long promised a radical alternative to austerity and nationalism which had brought prosperity to more than one class in every country. The third mistake was to get the Conservatives involved in the “political debt” crisis. In his first term as Minister of State for Labour and Transport, Stephen Harper put himself in the position where he said “This will not be the default if the economy does not get in line under our current system of public assistance”. In the 1970s, while the Conservatives were winning Labour supporters in the NDP, the Tories were losing them in general, and these had nothing to do with the Conservatives’ commitment to national economic development. In 1974, when the NDP made the case for a national referendum to find a Tory government, the Tories won nearly all parliamentary seats; while those who took their fight to the polls supported the party that had won majority voting. Since then, there have been no successful
The election was the first in which the majority of Canadian women were allowed to vote. Four women also ran for office. Agnes Macphail of the Progressive Party was elected as the first woman MP in Canada.
B. Parliament splitKings Liberals won a majority government Quebec, much of the Maritimes, and a good portion of Ontario.The Progressive Party won the second largest number of seats, dominating the West, and