Progressive Party of Canada

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Progressive Party of Canada
Parti progressiste du Canada
founding 1920
resolution 1930
Alignment Progressivism
Agrarianism

The Progressive Party of Canada ( English Progressive Party of Canada, French Parti progressiste du Canada ) was a political party in Canada that existed in the 1920s and 1930s. After the unionist coalition formed during the First World War failed to reform the system of export tariffs, which was harmful to agriculture, various peasant movements radicalized and became politically active at the provincial level. At the federal level, the Progressive Party served as a loose bracket for these organizations. Politically, the progressives were closely linked to the United Farmers movement , although the ideological boundaries were mostly fluid.

history

origin

The emergence of the Progressive Party can be traced back to the economic policy of the federal government. The main concern of Western Canada's farmers at the time was free trade with the United States . The National Policy , introduced by John Macdonald in the early 1890s , a protectionist course in economic policy, forced farmers to pay higher prices for their equipment while getting less for their produce. After the First World War , however, neither of the two major parties advocated free trade.

Radical political ideas developed in Western Canada after the turn of the century. Progressivism came from the USA, and the ideas of the Fabian Society from Great Britain . This mixture of ideology and discontent led to the establishment of agrarian-populist organizations. Immediately after the end of the First World War, the Canadian farmers' organizations became increasingly politically active and celebrated their first electoral successes at the provincial level.

Thomas Crerar , Agriculture Minister in the unionist coalition government of Prime Minister Robert Borden , left the cabinet in protest in June 1919 because Treasury Secretary Thomas White had presented a budget that barely considered the concerns of farmers. In 1919 and 1920, independent peasant candidates won several by-elections . In 1920, on Crerar's initiative, the Progressive Party was founded, which was supposed to represent the various organizations at the federal level.

Electoral success

In the 1921 general election , the new party immediately won 58 seats and became the second strongest force. However, the distribution of the seats was unbalanced. While the progressives in Alberta , Manitoba and Saskatchewan won over half of the seats to be distributed, they were represented by only one MP in the maritime provinces and not represented at all in Quebec . The voter share ranged from 3.1 percent in Quebec to 61.7 percent in Saskatchewan; the national average was 21.1%.

The Progressive Party had a very decentralized structure. Thomas Crerar was not a national party leader, but only a group leader in parliament. The media saw him as a leader of the party, although he held no official position outside of parliament. The party also did not have a national organization, but used the structures of the Canadian Agriculture Council for coordination. Each candidate was free to express their own political views. Support for the reform of the customs system was a unifying element, but even this concern did not meet with everyone.

The Liberal Party had won the most seats but missed an absolute majority and formed a minority government under the leadership of William Lyon Mackenzie King . The progressives disagreed on how to proceed. A significant group of ex-liberals, including Crerar, supported the formation of a coalition government. Both the Montreal liberals and radical progressives opposed this . The latter wanted to maintain the decentralized structure in which an MP simply represented his constituency. The two currents of the Progressive Party agreed to hand over the role of the official opposition to the third largest faction, the Conservative Party .

Decline

Crerar tried to make progressive MPs a more effective group by introducing elements of a traditional party like Whips and a national party organization. However, these efforts met resistance, whereupon Crerar resigned in 1922. In his place was Robert Forke , also a former liberal who agreed with his predecessor on many points. In parliament, the progressives proved to be largely unsuccessful and the already poor support in eastern Canada continued to decline, as Forke limited his work to the western Canadian provinces. In the 1925 general election , the progressives only won 22 seats; with the exception of two constituencies in Ontario , they were no longer represented in the east of the country.

As a result, the radical Alberta wing began to dominate the party. Robert Forke resigned on June 30, 1926, one day after King's resignation as Prime Minister. Forke and the Manitoba Progressives reached an agreement with the Liberal Party and stood as Liberal Progressives in the 1926 general election , which was proclaimed as a Liberal Progressive due to the failure of Arthur Meighen's conservative transitional government . With the support of the eight liberal-progressive MPs, the Liberals were able to form a stable minority government and Forke was appointed immigration minister in King's cabinet.

The progressives from Alberta were newly constituted as representatives of the United Farmers of Alberta (UFA). In 1926 eleven candidates were successful, in 1930 nine candidates. Most of these MPs were members of the Socialist Ginger Group, which also included MPs from the Labor Party and the United Farmers . After the 1930 election, only three Progressive Party MPs remained, including Agnes Macphail , the first woman elected to the House of Commons.

Aftermath

After the party collapsed, most progressive voters returned to the Liberal Party. The Liberals had always viewed the Progressives as "liberals in a hurry," with basically the same goals, but simply impatient. Thomas Crerar was one of the most important liberal personalities for decades, first as a member of the House of Commons and later as a senator.

The more radical progressives split into two movements. The Social Democratic Co-operative Commonwealth Federation , the predecessor of today's New Democratic Party , emerged from the Ginger Group . Populist circles turned to the ideology of social credit .

Election results

Results of the House of Commons elections :

choice
 
Total seats		 candidates
data 		Weighted
seats 		be right
  		proportion of
 
1921 235 137 58 658.976 21.09%
1925 245 68 22nd 266,319 8.45%
1926 245 28 11 128.060 3.93%
1930 245 15th 3 70,822 1.82%

Party leader

See also

literature

  • WL Morton: The Progressive Party in Canada. University of Toronto Press, Toronto 1950.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Results of past general election - Elections Canada