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30-568: The CLP was founded in 1917, on the initiative of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada (TLC). It was intended to be the Canadian equivalent of the British Labour Party and endorsed a variety of reformist labour initiatives. In this sense, it was ideologically closer to A. W. Puttee 's original Winnipeg Labour Party than to the revolutionary Socialist Party of Canada . The CLP endorsed

60-513: A list of Alberta Labour representatives in the Alberta legislature Although the CLP did not provide a coherent framework for the various labour organizations across the country, it should get partial credit for the 1920s elections of Calgary's CLP/DLP MPs William Irvine and Joseph Tweed Shaw and Winnipeg's ILP MP J. S. Woodsworth. The party was a prototype for later pan-Canadian labour parties such as

90-658: A near-majority to Edmonton's city council in 1929 and held power on Edmonton city council in 1934 and 1935. It federated with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) in 1935, but the Social Credit wave drastically reduced popular support. It maintained a semi-autonomous existence until 1942 when it formally merged with the Alberta CCF . See Labour candidates and parties in Canada#In Alberta for

120-717: A number of candidates in the 1917 election, although none were elected. In 1918, the Canadian TLC leaders adopted a "non-partisan" policy advocated by the American Federation of Labor and the CLP was largely abandoned. Its work was taken up by the Dominion Labor Party, formed in 1918. The DLP was active in Manitoba and also in Alberta (especially in Calgary). The party was revived in 1921 by James Simpson . It again espoused

150-482: A reformist platform, including the nationalization of banks and public utilities, major extensions in social and labour legislation, and lower taxes on the working class . The CLP was intended to be an "umbrella" organization for the various regional labour parties within Canada. Its primary failure on this front was its inability to convince the leaders of Manitoba 's Independent Labour Party to affiliate. Initially, this

180-461: A sixth, Rice Sheppard had been elected as independent labour candidate as was sympathetic to Labour's views). Lionel was still in office at the time of his death. Gibbs sought provincial office as a member of the Labour Party in the riding of Edmonton during the 1926 provincial election . At the time, the riding had five seats, elected using a single transferable vote electoral system. On

210-567: A strike for union recognition. In 1939, CIO supporters were expelled from the TLC and joined with the national All-Canadian Congress of Labour to form the rival Canadian Congress of Labour (CCL) in 1940. The TLC continued to be the voice of skilled trades workers in the country. Just as the Cold War and the rise of anti-Communism led to the purge of leftists from the union CIO in the United States and

240-486: The 1910 election , when he ran for alderman on the Edmonton City Council . He finished ninth of eleven candidates, and was not elected (the top five were). After this, he did not seek election again until 1914 , when he was elected as a school trustee. He served his two-year term in this position, but did not seek re-election at its conclusion. In the 1924 election , Gibbs was elected as an alderman running on

270-590: The Labour slate, finishing fourth of eleven candidates. He finished first of twelve candidates in his 1926 re-election attempt , and was similarly re-elected in the 1928 (first of fourteen candidates), 1930 (second of twelve), and 1932 (first of fifteen) re-election attempts. While on city council, he participated in Labour's first de facto majority on Council (while Labour only had five aldermen - Gibbs, L.S.C. Dineen , James East , Alfred Farmilo , and James Findlay -

300-703: The Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1926 until his death. Gibbs was born November 11, 1877, in Newport , Monmouthshire , Wales and was educated at Surrey and Oxford , training as an architect. He emigrated to Canada in 1907, and established an architecture firm in Edmonton, Barnes and Gibbs, that same year. He also taught at the Edmonton Technical High School, and chaired the city's Parks Commission in 1912. Gibbs first sought elected office in

330-589: The eight-hour day . Although few members were factory workers, it helped lobby for factory acts in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba and Nova Scotia. It supported the Liberal Party move in 1900 to create the federal Department of Labour, with a system of negotiations to settle Labour disputes. It was challenged by the American-based American Federation of Labor led by Samuel Gompers , who sought to unite

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360-592: The 1920s. In other regions, the CLP was more successful. The Alberta DLP did not fall into the hands of rightist labourites, and there was no controversy when this party became part of the CLP, although the DLP stayed separate in southern Alberta - it later, on its own, federated with the CCF. Alberta Labour MLAs and MPs, among them William Irvine and Lionel Gibbs , were elected and re-elected in 1921, 1925, 1926 and 1930. The Federated Labour Party of British Columbia also joined

390-632: The British Empire. While long-lived, the TLC underwent a number of splits and challenges as the labour movement developed. In the twentieth century the TLC faced rivals on the left in the form of syndicalist or socialist movements such as the Industrial Workers of the World and the One Big Union . In failing to respond to the demands of the mostly western workers who wanted more radical actions in

420-633: The CCF and the New Democratic Party . Also of note is the fact that the CLP maintained a formal alliance with labour organizations during its existence, as was done by its successor, the NDP (but was not done by the CCF, except in regards its relationship with the Brotherhood of Railway Employees). Trades and Labour Congress of Canada The Trades and Labor Congress of Canada was a Canada-wide central federation of trade unions from 1886 to 1956. It

450-546: The CLP during this period, or were expelled. In most parts of the country, the resulting loss in membership was enough to bring about the effective demise of the CLP. The one exception to this rule appears to have been in Alberta. Despite the break with Communists, in Alberta, the CLP showed significant successes in the late 1920s and 1930s. Lionel Gibbs was a long-time activist both in the Alberta Legislature and on Edmonton's city council for many years. The CLP elected

480-442: The CLP, and many other reformist labour organizations throughout the country had some connections to the larger organization. In spite of this, the CLP never became a coherent national party. Most provincial labour parties remained focused on their own local concerns, and the national party organization was comparatively weak (though it was usually successful in preventing vote-splitting among its affiliated groups). The national CLP

510-550: The Chinese, who were seen as unsavory pawns used by capitalists to lower wages and undermine unions. The TLC developed a ‘Platform of Principles’ comprising 16 points. Added to its first adopted policies were: In 1913 the vote for women was added as a 17th principle. By 1900 the TLC had become the country's first truly national body. As the Knights of Labor declined in number unions representing skilled trades workers came to dominate

540-588: The Knights along with the purely Canadian unions were banned from membership. The AFL came to dominate the Canadian union movement, although there were also radical unions in British Columbia and Catholic ones in Quebec. Under President James Watters (1911–18), the TLC was initially opposed to the First World War but reversed its position as their members rushed to the patriotic call of the federal government and

570-632: The Ontario CLP withdrew from the organization to create their own Independent Labour Party. In the same year, J. S. Woodsworth accused the CLP of being controlled by Communist interests, and called for a new national alliance of Independent Labour Parties to take its place. The CLP's alliance with the Communist Party ended in 1928-29, following a shift in Comintern policy away from the "united front" strategy. The provincial Communist parties either left

600-918: The Salvation Army for its alleged efforts to bring London’s poor to Canada; it opposed any Asian immigration, called for female factory inspectors to protect women workers, a single tax system, government only issued currency (Banks issued money at this time), the end of child labour , and the use of convict labour. The Toronto Trades and Labour Council began in 1881, and similar citywide coordinating bodies were soon formed in Montreal, Vancouver, Brantford, Ottawa and other cities. They banded together in 1886 as The Trades and Labour Congress of Canada. At first it primarily represented Ontario and Quebec. It helped resolve jurisdictional disputes among its member unions. It used lobbying to secure wage and protective legislation, workmen's compensation, sanitary regulation of workshops, and

630-508: The TLC. By the 1890s Samuel Gompers in the U.S. was planning an international federation of labour, starting with the expansion of AFL affiliates in Canada, especially Ontario. He helped the Trades and Labour Congress with money and organizers, and by 1902. At the 1902 TLC conference in Berlin (Kitchener), Ontario, under the influence of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and its unions in Canada,

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660-604: The creation of the AFL–CIO in 1955, the same phenomenon in Canada led to the merger of the TLC and the CCL in 1956 to create the modern Canadian Labour Congress . Lionel Gibbs Charles Lionel Gibbs (November 11, 1877 – September 5, 1934) was a Canadian politician based in Alberta . He served as a municipal councillor in Edmonton from 1924 until his death and, concurrently, a member of

690-403: The first count, he finished ninth of eighteen candidates; however, on subsequent counts the redistribution of votes from defeated candidates made him the third of five candidates elected. He was re-elected in the 1930 election , when he finished third of seventeen candidates on the first count. His vote total was more than enough to be elected, and he with Lymburn and Duggan were awarded seats on

720-564: The late 1920s, Communist groups had come to dominate the CLP in some regions of the country. (It may be noted that the Communist Party seems to have accepted the CLP's ban on electoral competition between affiliated groups, even to the point of endorsing some rightist labour candidates in whom they had little confidence.) The Communist presence did not always provoke internal dissension (several Communist delegates were greeted with cheers at CLP conventions), but it did prevent some moderate social democrats from joining. In 1927, social democrats in

750-645: The movements in Canada and the U.S. In 1902 Gompers effectively took control of the Congress. Gompers's policies tended to ignore the particularities of the Canadian labour force, especially the French-Canadian separatism in Quebec, the political impulses in the Prairies, and the left-wing socialism of the coal miners in Nova Scotia. The Trades and Labor Congress of Canada also agitated against immigrant workers, especially

780-723: The new mass industries of automobile, steel and rubber broke with the AFL and formed the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). The latter's strategy of industrial unionism was a direct challenge to the TLC (and AFL's) craft unionism . Interest in the CIO was sparked in Canada when in 1937 more than 4,000 workers at General Motors in Oshawa joined the United Automobile Workers , a CIO union, and fought

810-628: The years following World War I, the TLC lost their confidence. They broke away from their AFL/TLC unions and formed the One Big Union following the Winnipeg General Strike in 1919. The leadership of Canadian labour was challenged at the start of the Great Depression with the establishment of the Workers' Unity League (1929–1936). In 1935 unions that wanted to organize unskilled workers in

840-481: Was also weakened by controversies concerning the role of Communists within the party. In its earliest years, the Communist Party of Canada supported a united front against the capitalist class. Its provincial organizations joined the CLP in various stages between 1922 and 1924, and the leaders of the Communist Party believed that they would eventually be able to shift CLP policy to reflect their own policies. By

870-514: Was due to a local split in the Winnipeg labour movement—the regional Dominion Labour Party (DLP) had been taken over by rightist elements, and the parliamentary labour caucus had retaliated by creating a separate ILP organization. When the DLP affiliated with the CLP, the ILP refused to do the same. ILP leaders such as J. S. Woodsworth and A. A. Heaps remained outside the CLP network throughout

900-920: Was founded at the initiative of the Toronto Trades and Labour Council and the Knights of Labor . It was the third attempt at a national labour federation to be formed in Canada: it succeeded the Canadian Labour Union which existed from 1873 to 1877 and the Canadian Labour Congress which held only one conference in 1881. The first meeting was called by the Toronto Trades Council and the Knights of Labor. It attracted mainly Toronto unionists with no one attending from outside of Ontario. It adopted policies which denounced government supported immigration,

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