From Western Protesters to National Party: a timeline with Canada's Progressives

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From Western Protesters to National Party: a timeline with Canada's Progressive Party

In 1921, Canada had been governed by the Conservative Party for ten years. In 1911, Robert Borden's Conservatives had defeated Wilfrid Laurier's Liberals on a platform of opposition to reciprocity with the United States. In the years since then, the old National Policy of the Conservatives - high tariffs to protect Central Canada's burgeoning manufacturing industry at the expense of Western farmers. Though the Liberals had committed themselves to lowering tariffs at their 1919 convention, their new leader, William Lyon Mackenzie King, a keen compromiser in Laurier's style, sought to cater to the protectionist interests of Quebec. Quebec had emerged as the Liberal Party's core base in the 1917 election, when it had been the lone holdout to Borden's pro-conscription Union Government. Quebec's 65 seats were crucial to Liberal hopes to win powers, and thus Mackenzie King did his utmost to cater to Quebec's protectionists.

In doing so, he alienated the Western farmers who had supported reciprocity - and the Liberals - in 1911. High tariffs at the American border meant that farmers were forced to sell their agricultural products at lower prices, and buy farm equipment and manufactures from Central Canada at higher prices. Opposition to high tariffs fueled the farmers' movement, which formed the Canadian Council of Agriculture in November 1918 and political groups/lobbies at the provincial levels, such as the United Farmers of Ontario who went on to win power in the 1919 provincial election. The trigger to the real birth of the farmers' movement as a political organization came with the 1919 Unionist budget which increased the tariff. Western Liberal Unionists, led by Agriculture Minister Thomas A. Crerar walked out. Working with the Canadian Council of Agriculture, this group started their own political action which was fed by a string of landslide by-election wins in late 1919 and which finally culminated in the February 26, 1920 creation of the Progressive Party by Crerar and 10 fellow MPs.

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Angry Farmers in Provincial Legislatures

Prior to the foundation of the Progressive Party in 1920, the political implantation of the farmers' movement was preceded by implantation at the provincial level. Part of this provincial base stemmed from the same issue(s) which led to the foundation of a federal party in 1920, but as the tariff was a federal policy, other issues played an important role. A lot of it was disillusionment or anger at the traditional Liberal and Conservative Parties which alternated in power in all provinces since Confederation. Farmers viewed these parties as corrupt and out of touch with their interest, concerned only with catering to their urban bases and party backrooms.

A series of more or less organized farmers' movement sprang up in all provinces, growing out of old or new farmers' lobbies or organizations who decided to throw their weight into the political game.

The United Farmers of Ontario had shocked everybody, themselves included, when they won power in Ontario in October 1919, defeating Premier William Hearst's governing Conservatives. However, the strongest movements were, naturally, found in the Prairies where even disorganized they had already won 12 seats in the 1920 Manitoba election and reduced the Liberals to a minority. Even in Nova Scotia, farmers had managed 6 seats in a July 1920 provincial ballot.

The Prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan, due to vote on July 18 and June 9 1921 respectively, were to be key to the farmers' movement hopes to win power. In both provinces, the Liberals had dominated politics since entrance into Confederation in 1905. In both provinces, the Liberals had become embroiled in corruption scandals which had forced Saskatchewan Premier Walter Scott to resign in favour of William M. Martin in 1916 and were taking their toll on Alberta Liberal Premier Charles Stewart. Farmer discontent was high in those landlocked Prairie provinces, where beyond discontent with the Conservative tariff policy and railroad rates, was burgeoning opposition to the federal government was growing, fueled by the fact that neither province had control over their natural resources - upon entering Confederation in 1905, the federal government kept responsibility over these province's natural resources. In Alberta, the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA), originally a lobby group for farmers, transformed itself into a political organization ahead of the 1921 election. In Saskatchewan, a Progressive Party was organized but the Saskatchewan Liberal Party, led by William Martin, was quick to co-opt the rising farmer movement. Martin's cabinet included Charles A. Dunning, a popular advocated for farmers' interests, who was able to prevent the Liberals from falling to the tide which had already engulfed Ontario and might well take Alberta.

The Liberals held power in Saskatchewan on June 9, but the Progressives did surprisingly well - electing all seven of their candidates - and made significant inroads into the Liberal base while the Conservatives collapsed further.

Liberal 45 seats (-6)
Independents 8 seats (+7)
Progressive 7 seats (+7)
Conservative 2 seats (-5)
Labor 1 seat (+1)

In Alberta, the Liberal government of Premier Charles Stewart saw its standing weaken when a scandal involving Liberal attempts to build and ship telephone polls to rural communities where it had no intention of installing phone lines. The UFA had won a by-election in May 1919 and it seemed likely to form government. The Conservatives, up to then the main opposition, were split with their former leader joining the UFA. In cooperation with the Dominion Labor Party, the UFA won a huge majority and formed government with Herbert Greenfield as Premier after UFA leader Henry Wise Wood declined.

United Farmers 38 seats (+38)
Liberal 15 seats (-19)
Dominion Labor 4 seats (+3)
Independents 3 seats (+1)
Conservative 1 seat (-18)

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The 1921 Election

Arthur Meighen replaced Borden as Prime Minister in July 1921. Meighen presided an unpopular government, and was by all regards the wrong man to lead the party. He faced internal opposition to his attempt to perpetuate the old Unionist coalition (of course, the Unionist Liberals had no interest in doing so either). But even more than that, his support of conscription in 1917 alienated Quebec. The Conservative National Policy of high tariffs cost him all support in the Prairies. His role in putting down the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike had won him labour's enmity.

His electoral strategy ahead of the December 1921 election showed how far down his party had come, because he totally wrote off Quebec and the Prairies and focused all he had on Ontario, the Maritimes and British Columbia. The Conservatives campaigned in support of their National Policy, popular in Ontario, but promised not to raise tariffs any further.

Mackenzie King's Liberals had no commitment on the tariff, a reflection of King's Laurier-like desire to compromise and of the protectionist interests of the Montreal Liberal circles. He focused his campaign on attacking the Conservatives and remaining vague in his promises.

Crerar's Progressives obviously supported abolishing the tariff, which was all they needed in the West, but also focused on other issues, such as high railroad rates (freight rates in the West with the CPR were 50% higher than in the east); the corruption of both parties; the power of special interests and advocated various progressive reforms such as proportional representation, recall, initiative and other liberal reforms. The Progressives ran only 140 or so candidates for 235 seats, largely absent in Quebec, and cooperated with UFA/UFO candidates as well as various provincial Labour parties.

On Election Day, the Progressives swept the Prairies and did very well in Ontario; taking 77 seats overall. The Conservatives were shut out of all provinces except Ontario, where they managed a sizable 24 seats and British Columbia, where the Tories managed to do surprisingly well. Overall, the Conservative bench was reduced to a meager 31, and Prime Minister Arthur Meighen was rather badly defeated himself in Portage la Prairie, Manitoba. Outside of those two provinces, however, the Tories were badly trounced: shut out not only of Quebec, where the Liberals won all seats, but also of the Maritimes where the Liberals dominated. Quebec's 65 seats, which all went Liberal, provided King with a majority of his new caucus and proved crucial to his victory.





Mackenzie King's Liberals ended up one or two seats from an overall majority At first, some Progressives wanted to form a coalition with the Liberals, the natural party of free trade and the old party of Western farmers, but the Montreal interests of the Liberal Party and the more left-wing radical grassroots of the Progressives precluded such a deal. King's hopes to win over the Progressives slowly with piecemeal concessions to their diverse bench were dashed when Crear announced that the Progressives would form the Official Opposition. The party's more independent MPs opposed this move, but Crear convinced most of them that the party should establish itself as a major political party and not a disunited coalition after its very successful showing. [/size]

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Does nobody even give a sh**t?

[Antonio the Sixth]

This looks great, but I have yet to take the time reading it. Sorry, I promise to have a look at it soon.

[Hash]

Obviously nobody is reading this, but I like this, so screw you all.

The King Government: Balancing Act

Mackenzie King was a master at the art of compromise, pragmatism and political seduction, like his mentor Laurier had been in his days. Mackenzie King, as newly elected Prime Minister of Canada, would need all those skills as he presided over a near-majority Liberal minority where the vast majority of MPs came from Quebec. His attempts to lure the Progressives had failed, despite the Liberal roots of Progressives such as Thomas Crerar and Robert Forke. The protectionist Montreal interests of the Liberal Party, prominent within the party since 1896, had opposed a coalition with the radical free trading agrarians while on the other hand, the most radical Progressives - most of them Albertans - had opposed a coalition with the Liberals. Despite the reservations of independent-minded Progressives and Progressives who sought to use the party only as a means to reshape the Liberal Party to their goals, Crerar had managed to get them to accept the idea that the party would form the Official Opposition. As King took office, the Liberals would have to govern in a centrist manner and try working with the Progressives while not alienating supporters of the National Policy in Central Canada. The Progressives would need to assert themselves as a united, cohesive force after its impressive 77-seat harvest in December 1921. Finally, Arthur Meighen's Conservatives had hoped that Crerar would turn down being opposition leader and allow him to emerge as the voice and figure of the opposition.

Mackenzie King's cabinet included capable and experienced men. Former Quebec Premier Lomer Gouin was Justice Minister. The federal Liberal boss of Quebec, Ernest Lapointe, whose support had been crucial to King's leadership victory in 1919, was Minister of Fisheries and the Navy. Former Alberta Premier, defeated in 1921 by the UFA, became Interior Minister in addition to the Mines and Indian Affairs portfolio. Former Nova Scotia Premier and King's opponent in the 1919 convention, William Stevens Fielding, became Finance Minister.

Mackenzie King needed to play a delicate balancing act on the issue of the tariff. On one hand, the Progressives clamored for a cut or elimination of the tariff. On the other, Quebec Liberals and a good number of Ontarians were protectionists supportive of Sir John A. Macdonald's old National Policy of tariffs. King decided to go for small cuts in the tariff, which slightly irked Ontarian industrialists while not calming the Progressive's clamors for cuts. King also cut railroad rates slightly, which pleased Progressives and western farmers who resented the exorbitant freight rates charged by the CPR, though Ontario and Quebec were largely ambivalent on the issue, themselves paying much less and some being supportive of making western farmers pay for the unproductive stretch of rail in northern Ontario.

The Progressives had managed an excellent showing in the 1921 election, but the hardest part for them was to present a united, cohesive front against the dominant Liberal and Conservative Parties. Despite agreement on tariffs and railroad rates, they agreed on little else and were prematurely split between radical, socialist Gingers and more moderate, some downright conservative mainstream. The Gingers opposed any cooperation with the Liberals and were wary of partisan organizations, while the mainstream included a lot of former Liberals (such as Crear and Forke), some of whom aimed to reunite with the mother party in the near future. Mackenzie King called them "liberals in a hurry", which was not far from the truth for many Progressives. A majority of Progressives were wary of strict, Westminster partisan politics and bureaucracy and a lot of Progressive MPs sought to act as independent representatives for their ridings unconcerned by party discipline or the party's interest. These MPs largely supported an American-like party system, with generally weak parties. It had taken a lot of convincing on Crear's behalf to get them to accept some semblance of discipline in forming the Official Opposition, but the bulk of the work remained to be done. Crerar himself was committed to building a national, traditional party and was a capable Opposition leader thanks to his charisma and energy (which in fact contrasted with King's lack of charisma and coldness)¹.

The Progressive caucus was joined by the three United Farmers MPs (who quickly joined the Progressive Party) but also by the four Labour MPs (including J.S. Woodsworth from Winnipeg Centre), one Socialist (Robert Boyd Russell from Winnipeg North) and one independent (Angus McDonald from Timiskaming). Hoping to create a national party organization despite the Canadian Agricultural Council's reluctance to dive into partisan politics and opposition from Gingers and mavericks, Crerar called a National Progressive Convention in Winnipeg, Manitoba for June 1922. Part of it was to launch a concerted Progressive campaign for the July 1922 Manitoba elections, but Crerar managed to force the adoption of the Winnipeg Declaration² which dashed King's hope to seduce Progressives into rejoining their old party by laying down the principles of the Progressive Party.

The Winnipeg Declaration reiterated what the Progressives had fought on in 1921: lowering drastically or eliminating the tariff and cutting railroad freight rates. In addition, the Winnipeg Declaration supported political reform: Senate reform, proportional representation, recall, legislative initiative and plebiscites. Through the activism of social activist J.S. Woodsworth, a prominent leader in the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919 and a voice of social activism and Christian progressive gospel, the Winnipeg Declaration included demands for social reform including introduction of old age pensions. In its preamble and conclusion, the Winnipeg Declaration's attacks on the "corrupt parties, funded by big business and railroad barons" killed off most hopes of any quick reunification with the Liberals. Through some of the language was radical, Crerar denied that he supported a class-based government and reiterated his beliefs in the "spirit of liberalism" and reform.

The Winnipeg Convention also created united the various United Farmers organizations. Alberta's UFA and Ontario's UFO, which formed government in their respective provinces, adopted the name "Progressive" and tied themselves more or less closely to the federal party. In Manitoba, the UFM which had done well in the 1920 election and hoped to do well in July 1922's snap election rebranded itself as Progressive. In Saskatchewan, the Progressive Party had been very weak provincially, barely fielding a handful of candidates in 1921. The causes laid in Liberal Premier William Martin's ability to garner the support of the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association (SGGA) and prominent SGGA activists such as Charles A. Dunning and John Maharg. Martin ran into trouble with the SGGA when he supported King's federal Liberals over the Progressives in Regina in the 1921 election, which forced him out of office in April 1922. There had been hope that the SGGA's resentment at Martin's actions would throw them into launching a true party, but Dunning became Premier in Martin's stead with the blessing of the SGGA. Getting New Brunswick's 9 and Nova Scotia's 6 provincial United Farmers aboard was tougher, but eventually provincial Progressive parties with the name of its federal brother and more or less direct ties to it were formed in all provinces except Quebec (where the Progressives were weak and Francophone agrarian activists wary of uniting with Western farmers). Labour activists divided, some - like Woodsworth - joining the Progressives, others remaining independent.

Manitoba's minority Liberal government led by Premier Tobias C. Norris collapsed after two years and Manitobans headed to the polls on July 18, 1922. Despite Norris' government's progressivism, the Progressive tide practically doomed the Liberals. With the support of labour, which had been very strong in the 1920 election and had a major base in Winnipeg, the Progressives swept to power. John Bracken became Premier after Crerar, Forke and Robert Hoey declined the invitation to govern.

Progressive 32 seats (+20)
Liberal 8 seats (-8)
Conservative 7 seats (-1)
Independents 8 seats (+5)

Mackenzie King's domestic policy was rather unimpressive. Despite his commitment to an early social welfare state, he did little on that front, leading a largely laissez-faire policy. Conservatives attacked King as a procrastinator, who was unable to take a clear stance on policy.

Mackenzie King had far more success internationally, notably in the 1922 Chanak Crisis. In September 1922, British and French troops stationed near Çanakkale (Chanak) to guard the Dardanelles neutral zone were threated by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk's Turkish forces. The Turkish troops had recently defeated Greek forces and recaptured İzmir (Smyrna). David Lloyd George's Cabinet agreed that the British should defend their positions, and threatened Turkey with war in an aggressive communiqué. Raymond Poincaré had already decided to pull out French troops, which enraged Foreign Secretary Lord Curzon, who nevertheless managed to get Poincaré to accept an armistice negotiation with the Turks. David Lloyd George in his September 16 had assumed that British Dominions, including Canada, would join with British troops in case of a potential war. Lloyd George had done this without consulting Dominion Prime Ministers previously, which angered Mackenzie King who publicly said that Canada's Parliament - which was not in session then - would decide on Canada's course of action.

Mackenzie King's action during Chanak showed his desire to assert Canada as an independent middle-power nation, a message which he took with him to the Imperial Conference in 1923. Lord Curzon found him "stubborn, tiresome and stupid" but Canada won out when the Conference informally approved Canada's request to be considered as a self-governing dominion.

¹ The guy talked to his dead mother and dead animals, for Christ's sake.
² Using Regina Declaration would make me an unoriginal failure like a certain Harry Turtledove.
³ Including 'Progressive-Labour' MLAs. In real life, there were 6 Independent Labour MLAs plus one or two social democratic independents.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

This is a great TL, I dont much about Canada, but I know enough to find this very interesting.

[FEMA Camp Administrator]

I'm sure this is a great timeline. However, I'm too damn lazy to try to comprehend a timeline about foreign politics. I might start reading it soon, though.

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Provincial Update

Ontario had been governed since 1919 by Progressive Ernest Drury, who had adopted various progressive policies including early welfare measures, fair wage provisions in government contracts, widow and child allowances, a minimum wage for women and expanded loans to farmers through the Province of Ontario Savings Office. A general election was scheduled for June 25, 1923, an election which was to be a major test for all parties in Canada's dominant province. Drury's government had run into trouble, hit by the opposition of UFO leader James J. Morrison, a bond scandal and troubles with the left-wing ex-Labour MPPs who supported his government. The Conservatives, led by George Howard Ferguson, were hoping to bounce back after a terrible showing in 1919 and in the 1921 federal election. Ferguson took on the Conservative Party's traditional line in Ontario, support for tariffs and baiting linguistic tensions in the province (a Conservative government had adopted Regulation 17 in 1912, which drastically cut French education in the province with a sizable Franco-Ontarian minority). The Liberals, led by hapless Wellington Hay, were not thought to have much of a chance. The results shocked the establishment, as Drury's Progressives were returned to office despite a sizable swing towards the Conservatives. With supports from some Liberals, Drury was able to form a rather solid majority. Despite the significant swing towards Ferguson's Conservatives, the election proved a major blow to the federal and provincial Conservatives.

Progressive 54 seats (-4)¹
Conservative 43 seats (+18)
Liberal 12 seats (-15)
Independent Labour 1 seat (+1)
Independent 1 seat (+1)

An election had been held in Quebec in February 1923. Louis-Alexandre Taschereau had replaced longtime Premier Lomer Gouin in 1920, and largely continued Gouin's industrialization policies such as road construction and exploitation of hydroelectric power in cooperation with American companies. Taschereau and Gouin's Liberals had governed Quebec with solid majorities since 1897, leading a rather conservative agenda which placated the Catholic Church (despite ultramontane opposition from theocrats). Gouin had managed 74 of 81 seats in 1919, and in general Arthur Sauvé's Conservatives were a sad joke of an opposition force. Taschereau's Liberals swept to another victory, albeit with a reduced majority after some major Conservative gains in working-class areas. The Progressives barely existed in Quebec as an organization and fielded no candidates.

Liberal 64 seats (-10)
Conservative 20 seats (+15)
Independent 1 seat (+1)
Ouvrier 0 seats (-2)

Prince Edward Island held a provincial election in October 1923, an election in which Premier John Howatt Bell's Liberals were on the defensive against a resurgent Conservative Party led by James David Stewart, who attacked an unpopular highway improvement tax implemented by the Liberals. The Progressives had done well on the island in 1921, and fielded roughly 15 candidates for 30 seats. In another blow to the Tories, Bell's Liberals narrowly defeated the Tories despite major Conservative gains

Liberal 15 seats (-12)
Conservative 13 seats (+10)
Progressive 2 seats (+2)

Finally, in June 1924, an election was held in British Columbia. The Liberals had defeated a corrupt and unpopular Conservative government back in 1916, and had won reelection in 1920. Premier John Oliver and his predecessor Harlan Carey Brewster had brought in progressive reforms, women's suffrage and prohibition and were generally popular with voters. British Columbia, despite being the most Western province, stood apart from the Prairies in that the Progressives were weak in the province (only 3 seats in 1921) and the Conservatives, federally at least, generally dominant. British Columbia's more industrial economy, which including mining in Nanaimo, demanded high tariffs and the population centres opposed Progressive demands for a lower tariff. Yet, the BC United Farmers united with provincial Conservatives in 1923 to form the Provincial-Progressive Party, which was more silent on the tariff that was usual but supported lower freight rates, immigration restrictions (federal legislation drastically reducing Chinese immigration was passed in 1923) and denounced both major parties as corrupt. The Liberals were reelected to a minority, with the Premier losing his own seat, while the Provincial-Progressives surged onto the scene at the expense of both parties. The Conservatives, led by former Premier William John Bowser, were disappointed by their showing.

Liberal 22 seats (-3)
Conservative 13 seats (-2)
Provincial-Progressive 8 seats (+8)
Canadian Labour 3 seats (+3)
Independent 2 seats (-1)

¹ Compared to 44 UFO, 11 Labour, 1 Labour-UFO, 1 Liberal-UFO and 1 Soldier-UFO MPPs in 1919.

[America™]

This is quite interesting. Please continue

[feeblepizza]

It's a great read and I'm learning about the Canadian political system in the process.

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Election in Regina to Election in Ottawa

Talk for a federal election was creeping up in 1925. Mackenzie King's near-majority Liberal government had held out against a lot of odds during the key 1922, 1923, 1924 and seemingly the 1925 budgets. In 1923 and 1924, King had been able to get support from certain Progressives to pass his budgets. He repeated that feat in March 1925. His budgets had shown his government's ability to dance around conflicting interests and goals and his ability to strike compromises. The budgets didn't really please anyone, rather they satisfied most. The budgets had lowered the tariffs on certain manufactures, which satisfied some Progressives and irked Conservatives and his budgets supported a tariff on revenue only, which displeased Progressives but satisfied Ontarian and Quebec Liberals.

King decided that he would call an election following Saskatchewan's provincial election on June 2 in which the Liberal majority government of King's ally and Liberal-cum-Progressive Charles A. Dunning faced the voters. Dunning had been in power since 1922 and had governed with the approval of the influential SGGA which had prevented the rise of a farmers' political movement similar to that which had taken root in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario. Still, there was a small but sizable provincial Progressive Party which had done well in 1921 and which was looking out to gain strength in 1925. Dunning won reelection easily, taking a huge majority and a 50% of the vote, while holding the Progressives to a disappointing 5-seat gain despite polling 30.5% of the vote. Conservatives gained votes after their horrible 1921 showing, winning 9% but gained nothing.

Liberal 45 seats (nc)
Progressive 12 seats (+5)
Independent 3 seats (-5)
Conservative 2 seats (nc)
Labour-Liberal 1 seat (nc)

Nova Scotia went to the polls shortly afterwards, on June 25. In office since 1896, Liberal Premier George Henry Murray had stepped down in 1923 and was replaced by the far less popular and far less competent Ernest Howard Armstrong. Armstrong's government faced uproar when he proposed to distribute the provincial surplus between member of the House of Assembly, and further faced labour unrest in Cape Breton fueled by economic downturn and a powerful Maritime Rights Movement channeling feelings of regional alienation. He faced opposition from a Conservative Party which had been out of power since 1882 but rejuvenated under a Maritime Rights platform expressed by Edgar Nelson Rhodes. The United Farmers/Progressives, who had taken 6 seats (plus 5 Labour) in 1920, were also running on a similar platform and on a progressive platform of workers' rights which struck a chord with miners on Cape Breton Island. The Liberals were swept out of office.

Conservative 27 seats (+24)
Progressive-Labour 14 seats (+3)¹
Liberal 2 seats (-27)

New Brunswick, finally, voted on August 20. Although parties had no legal status, the Liberals were in power provincially under Peter J. Veniot, who unofficially supported the Maritime Rights Movement. The Conservatives, also led by a Maritime Rights supporter, former Meighen cabinet minister John B. M. Baxter, won power in a hung legislature while the Progressives increased their representation.

Conservative 19 seats (+6)
Liberal 15 seats (-9)
Progressive 14 seats (+3)²

[...]

Buoyed by Dunning's major victory in Saskatchewan, King asked and received an election for September 1925. King gambled that he could use Dunning's Liberals in Saskatchewan to gain seats out west, while holding the quasi-entirety of Quebec and a sizable minority in Ontario - compensating for likely loses in the Atlantic provinces where the Tories had been entirely shut out from in 1921. With little achievement to go for aside Chanak and nationalism (and reminding French-Canadians about the loathed conscriptionist Meighen who had advocated jumping right in with the British into a potential war in Turkey), King campaigned on a vague record of "good government" which pleased few but alienated few as well.

Arthur Meighen had stayed on at the helm of a demoralized and limping Conservative Party despite losing his seat and a pathetic showing in 1921. He returned to the House through a by-election in the Tory eastern Ontario stronghold of Grenville in 1922 and had managed to build up a capable Conservative opposition to King's Liberal government. Meighen attacked King's government as waffling and incompetent, incapable of taking a stand on anything. Meighen's powerful oratory skills - he was perhaps the best debater in Canada - certainly did help him out a lot. But he had a similarly powerful list of defects which hurt him. He was an egomaniac and had a talent to annoy people. His political views were reactionary and he seemed incapable of understanding the evolution of Canada as a nation. In Quebec, he was viewed as the reactionary imperialist habitant-gobbling bloodthirsty maniac which certainly didn't help matters much. His obstinate clinching on to the tariff issue killed off any chance of a Prairie comeback (he himself stayed in Grenville for the election, rather than seek to defeat his 1921 Progressive victor in Portage la Prairie). Meighen also campaigned on the tariff and sought to win seats in Quebec through downplaying his conscriptionist attitude of 1917. Neither did much to help his case overall.

The Progressives campaigned on much of the same that they had campaigned on in 1921, aiming their guns mostly towards Meighen's National Policy rhetoric. The Progressives were pretty entrenched in the Prairies, where King's efforts to lure Progressive MPs and voters had largely fallen flat despite his cuddling up with Dunning. They focused their guns on Ontario, where they had a large caucus to defend and which was very vulnerable to both parties.

The Tories made no secret that their objective was at least to regain official opposition status and forget the 1921 rout. Meighen was confident of gains in the Maritimes, BC and especially Ontario. And he needed them if he was to shield himself from a leadership challenge which would certainly come, either from Vancouver's H.H. Stevens or Toronto's Sir Henry Drayton, in case of another bad election. The routed Tories had kept with Meighen in 1921 mainly for lack of better and a belief that 1921 was an aberration which would be righted by 1925. If it wasn't, then Meighen would be turfed.

¹ Compared to 6 UF and 5 Labour in 1920.
² Compared to 9 UF and 2 Labour in 1920.

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The 1925 Election

Canada voted on September 17, 1925. Mackenzie King's Liberals were reelected to reduced minority of 112 seats out of 245 seats with a good majority of them coming from Quebec where the Liberals had won all but two seats. The Liberals improved significantly from their 1921 showing in Ontario. The Progressives swept the west and won Ontario, and improved their showing to win 89 seats. The Conservatives slightly improved on their disastrous 1921 showing, but Meighen's 43 seats were a far cry from their goal of forming the Official Opposition. Furthermore, the Tories suffered loses in Ontario and only managed to improve in the Maritimes where an economic downturn and Maritime alienation helped them.

The Conservatives picked up a seat in Alberta, in Calgary West, where former cabinet minister and businessman Richard B. Bennett picked up a Labour-Progressive seat. Mackenzie King was narrowly reelected in York North. In Labelle, Quebec the nationalist leader and editor of Le Devoir Henri Bourassa was elected as the 15th Parliament's sole independent.

On Election Day, a sizable number of Conservative voters voted Liberal as a block to the more radical Progressives (some voted Progressive, perhaps as a block to the Liberals). Meighen had proved unable to convince voters that the Tories were a credible alternative to the governing Liberals and opposition Progressives, mainly because of his stubborn refusal to campaign on things other than the tariff. If the Conservatives wanted to prevent further destruction, they would need to break through beyond their stale bases and move into the Prairies and rural Ontario.

[Hatman 🍁]

Good stuff

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Trouble Brewing

Mackenzie King was freshly reelected to a reduced minority, facing a stronger Progressive opposition and a small but vocal Conservative third-party opposition. Mackenzie King's alleged tact and skill in compromise and political seduction, which he had used on Prairie farmers and their Progressive representatives since 1921, obviously did not give him much in return. Liberal hopes for major gains in Saskatchewan where Premier Dunning's provincial Liberals were popular were dashed as the province returned 19 Progressives and only two Liberals - both in urban ridings. Although Mackenzie King had managed reelection despite an unimpressive four years, most thought that the split in the opposition vote between the Tories and Progressives had helped him considerably. There were already grumblings inside the Liberal Party to dump the weak and waffling Prime Minister in favour of somebody else, most likely Saskatchewan Premier Charles Dunning.

But the grumblings within the Liberal caucus were faint compared to the grumbles on the Conservative benches. Meighen had failed to give his party substantial gains and he fell far from his goal of displacing the Progressives from the opposition. A vast number of potential leadership aspirants began clamoring for the Conservative leadership by 1926. The most prominent candidates were Vancouver MP H.H. Stevens, Toronto MP Sir Henry Drayton and Calgary MP Richard B. Bennett. Meighen remained, however, anchored in his determination to hang on as party leader and kept the lid shut on any potential backbench revolt.

Meighen's hold was made easier in May 1926 when details were leaked of a scandal in the Department of Customs. A Liberal appointee in the department, now led by Quebec MP Georges Henri Boivin, was accused of taking bribes. Meighen made full use of his powerful oratory skills in the Commons with daily attacks on the government's corruption. The Progressives were on the verge of withdrawing their support, already angry about the federal government's lack of action on the Alberta natural resources issue. King bought them out with an parliamentary committee to investigate corruption, a committee in which Conservative H.H. Stevens emerged as the driving force. Stevens, however, failed to win the committee's support for insertion of a clause of censure in the report. When the committee reported to Parliament in late July 1926, it seemed likely that the Progressives would bring the government down. Mackenzie King bought them out again by speeding up the negotiations with Alberta's government on the transfer of natural resources. Lambton East Progressive B. W. Fansher, known for his pro-Tory leanings joined with the 'Ginger' group of left-wing Progressives to move the rest of the Progressive caucus towards bringing down the government. Robert Forke, the pro-Liberal Manitoba Progressive, along with party leader Thomas Crerar, opposed bringing down the government and offered cautious, issue-by-issue support to Mackenzie King. The House adjourned for parliamentary recess in mid July 1926 with the government intact.

However, the moderate Progressives, Crerar top amongst them, were frustrated by the government's slowness on the natural resources issue and thought that King was trying to bury the scandal and call an early election in summer 1927. Crerar got together with Meighen in January 1927 and both leaders agreed that they would bring down the government on a motion of no-confidence.

On February 14, 1927 the Mackenzie King government was brought down by the Progressives and Conservatives on a motion of no-confidence. Governor General Lord Byng of Vimy asked Progressive leader Thomas Crerar if he could form a government, but Crerar promptly informed him that he could not and recommended that he give the Prime Minister the dissolution he would come to ask the next day. Byng granted King a dissolution the following day, setting an election for May 16, 1927.

[...]

Alberta held a general election on June 28 1926. The Progressive-UFA government which had won power in 1921 remained extremely popular, even under the leadership of new Premier John E. Brownlee who had replaced Herbert Greenfield in November 1925. Running on a tough provincial rights platform promising to complete negotiations concerning transfer of authority over the province's natural resources to Alberta, Brownlee led the Progressives to an even larger majority taking 83% of the seats.

Progressive 50 seats (+8)¹
Liberal 7 seats (-8)
Conservative 3 seats (+2)
Independent 0 seats (-3)

¹ Compared to 38 UFA and 4 Dominion Labor in 1921.

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The 1927 Election

The Progressives and Conservatives had hoped to make the customs scandal an issue in the election, but by their own actions they had buried it. The scandal would have been an issue if the government had fallen in June 1926, but the end of the session in July 1926 buried the issue and, like so many other scandals, faded away and entered history books as one of the countless small scandals which plague all governments.

Mackenzie King attacked the opposition parties as "power hungry" for bringing his government for no apparent immediate reason. Furthermore, in a theme which struck a chord with voters, he called for political stability after two successive minority Parliaments since 1921. In Ontario, he presented his Liberals as a moderate, centre of the road party and painted the other parties are ideologues and radicals. He vowed not to lower the tariff significantly and talked of a "tariff on revenue" in vague terms to appeal to Tories, while also talking of the need for ill-defined "social reforms" to appeal to Ginger Progressives. In Quebec, the Liberals needed not campaign too much because the Tories posed no threat to them outside a handful of ridings. To add to Mackenzie King's advantages, the economy was doing well and his budgets had cut taxes.

The Progressives were losing their appeal quickly. The party was wracked by internal divisions between the moderates and pro-Liberals such as Robert Forke and T.A. Crerar and the radical 'Gingers' led by Labour-Progressive MP J.S. Woodsworth and including most of the Progressive-UFA bench from Alberta. The increased factionalism of the party threatened the party's cohesiveness. They did, however, keep a solid base in the Prairies and Mackenzie King's apparent waffling on the tariff issue did help them somewhat, especially out West.

Arthur Meighen was fighting the fight of his life. His political career was hinging on his performance. He had escaped being toppled from the leadership in 1926 thanks to his oratory skills during the customs scandal days. His rivals had put him on probation and were certain to oust him if the party did badly in the election. Meighen led a low-key campaign, talking of tariffs and the custom scandal. He abandoned the Prairies and Quebec almost entirely, putting all his forces in Ontario.

Mackenzie King's rhetoric worked, and voters provided him with a Liberal majority taking 133 out of 245 seats. Gains in Ontario and the Maritimes had proven crucial to this majority. The Progressives held their ground in the Prairies, but they lost a number of seats to the Liberals in Ontario. Ontario Liberals also picked up a number of Conservative held seats, reducing Meighen's Tories to a rump of 16 seats almost exclusively in the Conservative bastions of Toronto, York or Hamilton. The Conservatives, overall, fell to a mere 28 seats though it still won the most votes and seats in British Columbia.

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Provincial Update

The Quebec provincial election was held concurrently with the federal election on May 17, a rare occurrence. Louis-Alexandre Taschereau's conservative pro-business Liberals were assured a triumphant reelection, and they got one with voters giving them nearly 9 out of 10 seats. A rump provincial Progressive Party won 5% but no seats.

Liberal 74 seats (+10)
Conservative 9 seats (-11)
Independent 1 seat (nc)
Ouvrier 1 seat (+1)

Manitoba voted on June 28, 1927. The Progressives, led by Premier John Bracken, remained very popular and ran on a rather pro-business nonpartisan platform. The Conservatives had hoped to make a good showing, but ended up doing badly again as the Progressives won a huge majority.

Progressive 37 seats (+5)
Liberal 10 seats (+2)
Conservative 7 seats (nc)
Independents 1 seat (-7)

Ontario's Progressive government led by Premier E.C. Drury had managed to win a second term in the much contested 1923 election, and his second term proved smoother than his first term. He had managed to solidify his party's support within the UFO lobby group, though Drury was increasingly perceived by his party as a weak and uninspiring leader. The Drury government remained a staunch supporter of Ontario's strict alcohol prohibition legislation which was unpopular in largely Tory urban areas. The Conservatives, still led by George Howard Ferguson, campaigned on repealing the Ontario Temperance Act and replacing it with state control of liquor sales. The Liberals, after a disastrous showing in 1923, remained weak. The Progressives were returned with a narrow minority dependent on Liberal support. Drury was ousted from office in late 1927 by Attorney General William Raney.

Progressive 49 seats (-5)
Conservative 38 seats (-5)
Liberal 23 seats (+11)
Independent Labour 1 seat (nc)
Independents 1 seat (nc)

Prince Edward Island held a provincial election in June 1927. Liberal Premier John Howatt Bell had fought off a tough Conservative campaign led by James David Stewart in 1923, but in 1927 in a campaign in which alcohol prohibition was a major issue, the Liberals won an increased majority.

Liberal 20 seats (+5)
Conservative 8 seats (-5)
Progressive 2 seats (nc)

British Columbia voted on July 18, 1928. The Liberals, in office since 1916, were now led by Premier John Duncan MacLean following the death of his popular predecessor, John Oliver, in 1927. After their 1924 defeat, the Conservatives had a tough time finding a leader. Federal MP and former cabinet minister Simon Fraser Tolmie was a serious possibility, but he had little interest in provincial politics. Instead, South Okanagan MLA James William Jones took over the party. The Provincial-Progressives, led by the pro-Tory Alexander Duncan McRae, stood to make major gains at the expense of the unpopular Liberals and collapsing Conservatives. The Liberals managed to limit loses and hold a minority government, but the Provincial-Progressives had made major gains, doubling their caucus.

Liberal 21 seats (-1)
Provincial-Progressive 16 seats (+8)
Conservative 9 seats (-4)
Independent Labour 2 seats (-1)
Independent 0 seats (-2)

Nova Scotia went to the polls shortly afterwards, on October 1, 1928. Edgar Nelson Rhodes' Conservatives had swept into power in 1925 on a wave of regional discontent and voter fatigue with Liberals who had governed since 1896. Rhodes' Conservative government managed to hang out to a very narrow minority government dependent on Liberal support as the Progressives were judged too radical to form government.

Conservative 20 seats (-7)
Progressive-Labour 19 seats (+5)
Liberal 4 seats (+2)

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Interlude: Conservative Leadership Convention 1927

After the Conservative Party's defeat in the 1927 election, the knives came out for Arthur Meighen and he was forced to announce the organization of his party's first leadership convention for September 1927, to be held in Winnipeg. However, Meighen announces that he would contest the convention himself.

The convention attracted a surprisingly heavy field of candidates. There were the heavyweights of the party, whose name had circulated since 1925. They were Vancouver Centre MP Henry Stevens, York West MP Sir Henry Drayton and Calgary West MP Richard Bennett. The field also included, alongside Meighen, former cabinet minister Hugh Guthrie, northern Ontario MP Robert Manion and Nova Scotia MP Charles Cahan. As the convention convened, it was anyone's race. Stevens and Bennett split the populist Western Tories, Drayton was the Toronto establishment candidate, Guthrie had support here and there while Manion had support in Quebec.

Cahan and Manion did badly and both were out by the fourth ballot. Stevens was in first, with Bennett and Drayton not that far behind. Meighen placed fourth and Guthrie fifth. Guthrie withdrew after ballot five, and Meighen finally gave up after the seventh ballot. Meighen's support split evenly, but allowed Drayton to overtake Bennett by the final ballots. Bennett's support dropped after ninth ballot, and dropped out after the eleventh ballot. Stevens faced Drayton in the final twelfth ballot, in which Stevens won 576-434 against Drayton.

Stevens' election put the Conservatives on a new, more populist road. Stevens denounced the power of corporations and monopolies. He also had the advantage of not being Arthur Meighen, meaning that he didn't carry as much hatred in Quebec for his role in imposing conscription (even though he had been a Unionist MP in 1917). He favoured cooperation with Progressives and potential riding-by-riding deals with the party. Progressives such as Crerar, Forke and Fansher favoured such cooperation but the Gingers, UFAers and Labour-Progressives didn't. But in May 1927, with the economy in full swing and the opposition divided and weakened, the Mackenzie King Liberals seemed to have found their way as the moderate, catch-all centrist alternative to the radicalized extremes. Prominent intellectuals wrote at lengths of the coming of the "Liberal decades" in which the Liberals would become the party of government isolating the ideologues on right and left. In 1927, it seemed as if the Liberals were going to stay forever...

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Curious, why are you using these particular colours for the Progressives and United Farmers?

[Hash]

Curious, why are you using these particular colours for the Progressives and United Farmers?

A mix of me liking it, Wikipedia using it and it making sense.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Wikipedia. Did you know that many of the election pages were created by a few people, one of them myself. The others used my excel file, on which, I had decided to use those colours. [/brag]

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Calm before the Storm

As Mackenzie King formed his first majority government after two successive minorities, the outlook seemed good for the Liberals and bad for the opposition. The economy was doing very well, the post-war labour and farmer radicalism was dying off and the linguistic tensions of the war and early post-war days were abated. The Liberals had proven in the 1927 election that they could win a majority government and could do so despite lacking an impressive record of governance. In 1927, King had presented his party as the only moderate, big-tent, pragmatic party which could bridge Canada's ethnic and linguistic divisions to build a national governing party. The Progressives and Conservatives were seen as ideological, sectional and regional parties which could not bridge French and English or any other major ethnic or religious fault line in Canada. Farmers were coming back to the Liberals, especially in Ontario, a potential harbinger of bad things to come for the Progressives. King appointed Saskatchewan Premier Charles A. Dunning to cabinet in July 1927 as a clear move to vie Progressive voters over to his big tent.

The Progressive Party's poor prospects led veteran politician and party leader Thomas Crerar to step down as leader of the party in January 1928. The Progressives assembled in Ottawa in March 1928 for their first national leadership convention. The contest featured five candidates: former Ontario Premier Ernest C. Drury; Crerar's right-hand man and Manitoba MP Robert Forke; Labour-Progressive Winnipeg MP J.S. Woodsworth; Alberta Gingerite MP Robert Gardiner and Ontario Gingerite MP William C. Good (an early UFO organizer). Good had hoped to win support from the UFO organization, but most UFO support went to Drury. Gardiner, meanwhile, had little support outside Alberta and was eliminated after the second ballot. Gardiner's Gingerite Albertan base of delegates split pretty evenly, though Woodsworth benefited more though not enough to take second place away from Forke who was left in the final ballot with Drury. Drury won 484-440 on the fourth ballot.



Drury became Leader of the Opposition in early April 1928. King's government continued its rather unimpressive legislative record and laissez-faire policies, moving slowly on most issues. But the economy was doing well overall and few voters were overly concerned with politics as their standard of living increased. The government passed the Natural Resources Transfer Acts in 1930, transferring control of natural resources to the provinces of Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba.

Saskatchewan voted on June 6. Charles Dunning's departure had left James Gardiner as Liberal Premier in his stead. The Liberals, in power since 1905, had become involved in a string of patronage scandals which were exploited by the local Progressives and the rejuvenated Conservatives led by James Anderson. Gardiner's Liberals held a minority as the Conservatives overtook the Progressives to become the second largest party. Gardiner held on until September 1929, when the Conservatives and Progressives got together and passed a motion of no confidence and subsequently formed a coalition government led by Conservative leader James Anderson.

Liberal 26 seats (-19)
Conservative 17 seats (+15)
Progressive 16 seats (+4)
Independent 4 seats (+1)
Labour-Liberal 0 seats (-1)

But it all went tumbling down in October 1929 as the stock market crashed. Canada was hurt especially badly, with the worst effects being felt in the Prairies. Unemployment rose dramatically, income and revenues fell. However, Mackenzie King's government did not do much at all. Believing it to be a temporary crisis, the Prime Minister refused any federal aid to provinces and introduced only moderate relief. At the outset, King was praised for his calm and measured response as most people subscribed to the belief that it was only a temporary crisis.

The Depression did not take its immediate toll on governments. On June 19, 1930 Alberta and New Brunswick voted. In Alberta, Brownlee's government remained popular for winning control of natural resources and his pro-business policies were still popular. His Progressive government shed seven seats and won a reduced minority.

Progressive 43 seats (-7)
Liberal 12 seats (+5)
Conservative 5 seats (+2)
Independent 3 seats (+3)

Similarly, in New Brunswick, Premier John Baxter's Conservatives held their tiny minority which they had maintained since 1925 with Liberal or Progressive support.

Conservative 19 seats (nc)
Liberal 17 seats (+2)
Progressive 12 seats (-2)

In Ontario, Premier William Raney's government was beset by divisions. The UFO, now a large influential farmers' lobby, opposed Raney as he was not a farmer. Many moderate Progressives were increasingly opposed to Raney's stringent enforcement of prohibition as they sought to break through in urban areas. Raney was finally deposed in 1929 after a backbench revolt led by prominent UFO organizer Leslie Oke. The Progressive rising star in Ontario, Harry Nixon, became Premier in October 1929.

Nixon tried to mend bridges between the various wings of the increasingly factionalized Ontario Progressive Party. He retained Raney in his government and promoted Manning Doherty, a moderate known for his Tory sympathies. Simultaneously, he remained on good terms with the UFO faction led by Oke and Farquhar Oliver. In October 1930, Premier Harry Nixon decided to dissolve the legislature and call a snap election.

In doing so, Nixon caught the Conservatives and Liberals off guard. In the context of the early days of the Depression, the Liberals were hurt by their links with the federal Liberals while Stevens carried little appeal to Ontario as a progressive Westerner. Despite the division of the Progressive Party, Nixon retained a stronger personal appeal than either of the other party leaders. As a result, the Progressives were reelected to a fourth term in office.

Progressive 56 seats (+7)
Conservative 39 seats (+1)
Liberal 15 seats (-8)
Independent Labour 1 seat (nc)
Independents 1 seat (nc)

However, as a federal election scheduled for May 1931 approached, the Depression was worsening. Jobs were being lost, industrial production decreased dramatically and labour unrest was mounting. More and more people were demanding radical solutions, and the government's laissez-faire policies didn't cut it any longer.

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Should I continue this?

[Hatman 🍁]

Should I continue this?

Yes

Wikipedia. Did you know that many of the election pages were created by a few people, one of them myself. The others used my excel file, on which, I had decided to use those colours. [/brag]

I had always used purple for the Progressives too.

[Teddy (IDS Legislator)]

Turns out the most often used colour at the time was Red.