Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section)
Encyclopedia
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section) – The Farmer-Labor Party of Ontario, or more informally and commonly known as The Ontario CCF, was a democratic socialist
political party that existed from 1932 to 1961. It was the provincial wing of the National CCF
. The party officially had no leader in the beginning, being governed by a provincial council and executive. The party elected its first Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the 1934 Ontario general election. In the 1937 general election, it did not elect anyone to the Ontario Legislature. In 1942, the party elected Toronto lawyer Ted Jolliffe
as its first leader. He led the party to within a few seats of forming the government in the 1943 Ontario general election; instead, it formed the Official Opposition. In that same election, it managed to elect the first two women to the Ontario Legislature, Agnes Macphail
and Rae Luckock
. The 1945 election was a setback, as the party lost most of its seats in the legislature, and Jolliffe even lost his own. The party once again became the Official Opposition after the 1948 Ontario general election, even defeating the Conservative premier George Drew in his own seat, when Bill Temple
unexpectedly won in the High Park
constituency. The middle and late 1940s were the peak years for the Ontario CCF. After that time, its electoral performances were dismal, as it was reduced to a rump of two seats in the 1951 election, three seats in the 1955 election, and five seats in the 1959 election. Jolliffe stepped down as leader in 1953, and was replaced by Donald C. MacDonald
. The period between the 1951 defeat and the founding of the Ontario New Democratic Party
was one of much internal strife, but MacDonald managed to keep the party together, despite the constant electoral defeats. In October 1961, the party formally dissolved, and became part of the New Democratic Party.
–Labour coalition
that formed the government in Ontario under Ernest C. Drury. While United Farmer Members of the Legislative Assembly
(MLAs) joined the Ontario Liberal Party
, the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO), as an organization, participated in the formation of the Ontario CCF, and was briefly affiliated with the party.
After a meeting in Ottawa on 26 May 1932, that brought together all the Members of Parliament that belonged to the Ginger Group, and some members of the League for Social Reconstruction
(LSR), the CCF was formed, making J. S. Woodsworth
the defacto leader, and giving responsibility for organizing Ontario to Agnes Macphail
of the UFO. Macphail, as president of the Ontario Provincial Council, persuaded her fellow delegates at the December 1932 UFO convention to affiliate with the CCF provincial council. After the 1933 Regina convention, the formal name of the party was introduced as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section) – The Farmer-Labor Party, though the shorter Ontario CCF was the most commonly used name.
Macphail, served as the first president of the Ontario CCF from 1932 until 1934. As a UFO Member of Parliament (MP) in the Canadian House of Commons, she was forced to officially resign from the CCF after the UFO withdrew from the party after alleging Communist influence in it. She subsequently served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
as the CCF Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP)In 1938, Members of the Ontario Legislative Assembly (MLAs) passed a motion to adopt the title "Members of Provincial Parliament" (MPP). for York East
from 1943 to 1945 and again from 1948 to 1951.
Graham Spry
, a publisher and broadcaster who was also a member of the LSR, served as the Ontario CCF's vice-president of its provincial council from 1934 to 1936. He was the first federal CCF candidate in Ontario, running in the 24 September 1934 by-election in Toronto East
. Other prominent members were Elmore Philpott
, a former Liberal
Philpott joined the CCF in 1933 and became president of the Ontario Association of CCF Clubs before resigning from the party and rejoining the Liberals in 1935 over the A. E. Smith affair, that caused the UFO to leave as well. The disagreement was in regards to how much support the fledgling CCF should give Smith, leader of the Canadian Labour Defence League
, who had been charged with sedition for claiming that the state had attempted to assassinate imprisoned Communist Party of Canada
leader Tim Buck
. The CLDC was a communist front
group. Woodsworth, along with the Ontario CCF provincial council, opposed the CCF having any formal links with it or any other Communist group. Some individual CCFers ignored this policy as did one section of the Ontario CCF, which was expelled. Nevertheless, Philpott and the UFO saw the Smith affair as evidence that the CCF had been infiltrated by Communists and left. The issue of what relationship the CCF should have with the Communist Party would come to the fore again in 1936 with the party voting to ban any united front
with Communists, over the objections of prominent CCFers such as East York
reeve Arthur Henry Williams
.
The CCF contested its first Ontario provincial election in 1934
. It received 7.1 percent of the vote, and won its first seat in the Ontario legislature: Samuel Lawrence
elected in Hamilton East. The Ontario CCF failed to win any seats in the 1937 election
.
At the Ontario CCF's tenth annual convention in Toronto, the first leadership election was held. Two candidates came forward: Toronto lawyer, and Ontario CCF vice-president Ted Jolliffe
, and union activist and former Ontario CCF Youth Movement organizer Murray Cotterill
. On 4 April 1942, Jolliffe won the election, but the voting results were not publicly announced. The newly created Leader position's role was as political leader, while internal CCF affairs and administration would remain the president's domain.
The party achieved a major breakthrough under Jolliffe, in the 1943 Ontario general election
, forming the Official Opposition
with 32 percent of the vote and 34 seats. The CCF was just four seats short of George Drew's Progressive Conservatives
("Tories"), who formed a minority government
that was the beginning of what became a 42-year political dynasty.
, Premier Drew ran an anti-Semitic, union bashing, Red-baiting
campaign. The previous two years of anti-socialist attacks by the Conservatives and their supporters, like Gladstone Murray and Montague A. Sanderson, were devastatingly effective against the previously popular CCF. Much of the source material for the anti-CCF campaign came from the Ontario Provincial Police
(OPP)'s Special Investigation Branch's agent D-208: Captain William J. Osbourne-Dempster. His office was supposed to be investigating war-time 5th column saboteurs. Instead, starting in November 1943, he was investigating, almost exclusively, Ontario opposition MPPs, mainly focusing on the CCF caucus
. The fact that Jolliffe knew about these 'secret' investigations as early as February 1944 led to one of the most infamous incidents in 20th-century Canadian politics.
in Ontario. In the speech excerpt below, Jolliffe alleged that a secret department of the Ontario Provincial Police
was acting as a political police – spying on the opposition and the media.
Jolliffe's inflammatory speech became the main issue of the campaign, and dominated coverage in the media for the rest of the election. Drew, and his Attorney-General Leslie Blackwell
vehemently denied Jolliffe's accusations, but the public outcry was too much for them to abate. On 26 May 1945 during his own radio speech, Drew announced that he would be appointing a Royal Commission to investigate these charges. Jolliffe's CCF and Mitchell Hepburn
's Ontario Liberal party wanted the election suspended until the Commission tabled its report, with Hepburn going as far as sending Drew a personal telegram stating he would stop campaigning if the commission were held immediately. Drew ignored these requests and continued to hold the election on its original date, despite it being many months before the Commission's findings would be made available.
Monday, 4 June 1945, was one of Ontario's most important elections in the 20th century according to Caplan and David Lewis
. It shaped the province for the next 40 years, as the Conservatives won a massive majority in the Legislature, and would remain in government for the next 40 consecutive years–most of that time with majority governments until the mid-1970s.
After going from 34 seats to 8, as Caplan puts it, "June 4 and June 11 [federal election], 1945, proved to be black days in CCF annuals: Socialism was effectively removed from the Canadian political agenda." The CCF would never fully recover from this defeat and would eventually cease as a party and morph into the Ontario New Democratic Party
. Only then, and in the 1970s, did a social democratic party attain the popularity it had under Jolliffe in 1943.
For Ted Jolliffe, another election consequence was his tenure as the MPP from York South ended, at least for the time being. He lost the election but did better than any other CCF candidate in Toronto or in the outlying Yorks.
. His terms of reference were restricted to the question of whether Drew was personally responsible for the establishment of "a secret political police organization, for the purpose of collecting, by secret spying, material to be used in attempt to keep him in power. Wider questions like why the OPP, Ontario Civil Servants, were keeping files on MPPs were not allowed.
Jolliffe would act as his own counsel throughout the commission, but was assisted by fellow CCF lawyer, Andrew Brewin
. Both he and Brewin were able to establish, from several eye-witnesses, that agent D-208, Dempster, was spying on the CCF. What they could not prove, because they did not have access to the information in 1945, were the letters that Drew wrote to his supporter M.A. (Bugsy) Sanderson suggesting that he would finance any lawsuits or other charges stemming from the information provided by Dempster in his advertisements. Sanderson was, in late 1943 to 1945, along with Gladstone Murray, leading the libelous advertisement campaigns against the CCF in newspapers and bill-boards, with information gleaned from Dempster's briefings. Jolliffe presented several witnesses that claimed to have seen these documents. But Jolliffe could not produce the actual letter, and Drew would deny ever writing it.
On 11 October 1945 Justice LeBel issued his report that essentially exonerated Drew and Blackwell. Due to Jolliffe presenting only circumstantial evidence that linked Drew to Dempster, Murray and Sanderson, the Commissioner found the information unconvincing, even though LeBel believed Dempster's interaction with Sanderson and Murray was inappropriate.
Jolliffe's motives regarding his accusations, as well as his choice of words, would be questioned for many years afterwards. That would change. In the late 1970s, when David Lewis
was doing research for his Memoirs he came across archival evidence proving the charge. Due to Lewis's discovery, Drew's son Edward, placed extremely restrictive conditions on his father's papers housed in the Public Archives of Canada
that continue as of 2011.
As Lewis pointed out in his memoirs, "We found that Premier Drew and Gladstone Murray did not disclose all information to the Lebel Commission; indeed, they deliberately prevaricated throughout. The head of the Government of Ontario
had given false witness under testimony.... The perpetrator of Ontario's Watergate
got away with it."
On Saturday afternoon, after the grievances were aired, the convention unanimously passed a resolution condemning Premier Drew asking him to stop spying on labour and political officials. After that, the party's establishment candidates held on to their positions: University of Toronto professor, George Grube remained as president, while Jolliffe remained leader.
1946 was the year of major labour strife in Ontario, and the CCF made it clear they were on the side of the unionists. Breaking with tradition, the party's annual convention was held outside of Toronto for the first time. The convention was held at the Royal Connaught Hotel in Hamilton, Ontario
from 9–11 December 1946, the city where the United Steelworkers of America
(USWA) went through a long protracted strike about reducing the work-week to 40 hours. Jolliffe faced a leadership challenge at this convention from former Toronto Controller
Lewis Duncan
. There were rumblings in 1945 that Duncan would take over from Jolliffe, but that was rumoured to be only if he were able to defeat Drew in the High Park constituency, which he failed to do. As party chairman John Mitchell stated at the time, it wasn't even close, as Jolliffe was easily re-elected CCF leader again for the fourth time. Professor Grube stepped down as the president, and Andrew Brewin succeeded him after defeating former York South
MP, Joseph W. Noseworthy
by four votes. The main resolution that would have an impact on the upcoming provincial election was one that condemned Drew's government for its hastily approved legislation allowing for cocktail bars to operate in Ontario.
came about a year sooner than normal, the Ontario CCF had been expecting this, due to the polling information available that indicated that Drew's popularity was falling. The CCF were able to rebound from their previous dismal election performance in 1945, and this time managed to get 21 members elected, including Jolliffe in York South, to once again form the Official Opposition.
The real surprise was that Premier Drew lost his seat, even though his Progressive Conservatives won a majority. In his High Park constituency, Drew was up against his local nemesis William (Bill) Temple
. Temple was a temperance
campaigner and made Drew's cocktail bar legislation the main campaign issue. Temple castigated Drew for softening Ontario's liquor laws, claiming the Premier was the captive of "liquor interests" due to the government's decision to allow liquor sales in cocktail bars. While Drew's party swept to victory across the province, Drew himself was defeated by Temple, and decided to resign as premier and move to federal politics.
hysteria of the Cold War
. This rapid decline in their popularity reduced the party to two seats in the 1951 election
and allowed the Ontario Liberal Party
to become the Official Opposition. No social-democratic party would be the Official Opposition again until 1975
, when Stephen Lewis's NDP displaced the Liberals as the second party in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
.
Beginning with the 1951 provincial campaign, the Ontario Federation of Labour
(OFL) played an increased role in the Ontario CCF by lending it organizational, personnel and material support. The increasing role of the trade union leadership in the party was unpopular with some activists like MPP Bill Temple. The "Ginger Group" led by Temple, True Davidson
and others was formed in the wake of the disastrous 1951 electoral result which they blamed on the "bureaucratization" of the party and its movement away from socialist principles and particularly socialist education, developments for which they held what they saw as the conservative, anti-democratic and bureaucratic influence of the OFL as responsible. At the party's 1952 convention, Temple temporarily ran for party leader but withdrew at the last movement, allowing Jolliffe to be acclaimed leader. Temple did not stop from making trouble for the establishment, when he ran for party president, and almost won. He and Davidson were both elected to the party executive as vice-presidents and the Ginger Group elected a number of its followers to the provincial council. They were ultimately unsuccessful in achieving their goals, however. The increasing role of the OFL in the Ontario CCF proved to be a precursor to the eventual fusion of the national CCF and the trade union movement with the creation of the New Democratic Party of Canada at both the federal and provincial levels in 1961.
Donald C. MacDonald
became leader in 1953, and spent the next years rebuilding the party, from two seats when he took over the party's helm, to three in his first election and then five in 1959. Delegates from the Ontario CCF, delegates from affiliated union locals, and delegates from New Party Clubs took part in the founding convention of the New Democratic Party of Ontario held in Niagara Falls at the Sheraton Brock hotel from 7–9 October 1961 and elected MacDonald as their leader. The Ontario CCF Council ceased to exist formally on Sunday, 8 October 1961, when the newly elected NDP executive officially took over. The rebuilding process continued under Macdonald who led a 20 person caucus by the time he stepped down in 1970, ten times what it was when he took office in 1953.
Democratic socialism
Democratic socialism is a description used by various socialist movements and organizations to emphasize the democratic character of their political orientation...
political party that existed from 1932 to 1961. It was the provincial wing of the National CCF
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 party officially had no leader in the beginning, being governed by a provincial council and executive. The party elected its first Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) in the 1934 Ontario general election. In the 1937 general election, it did not elect anyone to the Ontario Legislature. In 1942, the party elected Toronto lawyer Ted Jolliffe
Ted Jolliffe
Edward Bigelow "Ted" Jolliffe, QC was a Canadian social democratic politician and lawyer from Ontario. He was the first leader of the Ontario section of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and leader of the Official Opposition in the Ontario Legislature during the 1940s and 1950s...
as its first leader. He led the party to within a few seats of forming the government in the 1943 Ontario general election; instead, it formed the Official Opposition. In that same election, it managed to elect the first two women to the Ontario Legislature, 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...
and Rae Luckock
Rae Luckock
Margaret Rae Morrison Luckock known as Rae Luckock was a feminist, social justice activist, peace activist and, with Agnes Macphail, one of the two first women elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario....
. The 1945 election was a setback, as the party lost most of its seats in the legislature, and Jolliffe even lost his own. The party once again became the Official Opposition after the 1948 Ontario general election, even defeating the Conservative premier George Drew in his own seat, when Bill Temple
William Horace Temple
William Horace Temple , nicknamed "Temperance Bill" or "Temperance Willie", was a Canadian democratic socialist politician, trade union activist, businessman and temperance crusader. As a youth he worked for the railway. During World War I, and World War II he was a soldier in the Royal Naval...
unexpectedly won in the High Park
High Park (electoral district)
High Park was a federal electoral district in the west end of the city of Toronto, in the province of Ontario, Canada...
constituency. The middle and late 1940s were the peak years for the Ontario CCF. After that time, its electoral performances were dismal, as it was reduced to a rump of two seats in the 1951 election, three seats in the 1955 election, and five seats in the 1959 election. Jolliffe stepped down as leader in 1953, and was replaced by Donald C. MacDonald
Donald C. MacDonald
Donald Cameron MacDonald, CM, O.Ont was a long time Canadian politician and political party leader and had been referred to as the "Best premier Ontario never had." He represented the provincial riding of York South in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1955 to 1982...
. The period between the 1951 defeat and the founding of the Ontario New Democratic Party
Ontario New Democratic Party
The Ontario New Democratic Party or , formally known as New Democratic Party of Ontario, is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961, a few months after the federal party. The ONDP had its...
was one of much internal strife, but MacDonald managed to keep the party together, despite the constant electoral defeats. In October 1961, the party formally dissolved, and became part of the New Democratic Party.
Origins
The Ontario CCF was indirectly the successor to the 1919–23 United Farmers of OntarioUnited 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 coalition
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...
that formed the government in Ontario under Ernest C. Drury. While United Farmer 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) joined 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...
, the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO), as an organization, participated in the formation of the Ontario CCF, and was briefly affiliated with the party.
After a meeting in Ottawa on 26 May 1932, that brought together all the Members of Parliament that belonged to the Ginger Group, and some members of the League for Social Reconstruction
League for Social Reconstruction
The League for Social Reconstruction was a circle of Canadian socialist intellectuals officially formed in 1932, though it had its beginnings during a camping retreat in 1931. These academics were advocating radical social and economic reforms and political education. Industrialization,...
(LSR), the CCF was formed, making J. S. Woodsworth
J. S. Woodsworth
James Shaver Woodsworth was a pioneer in the Canadian social democratic movement. Following more than two decades ministering to the poor and the working class, J. S...
the defacto leader, and giving responsibility for organizing Ontario to 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 the UFO. Macphail, as president of the Ontario Provincial Council, persuaded her fellow delegates at the December 1932 UFO convention to affiliate with the CCF provincial council. After the 1933 Regina convention, the formal name of the party was introduced as the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Ontario Section) – The Farmer-Labor Party, though the shorter Ontario CCF was the most commonly used name.
Macphail, served as the first president of the Ontario CCF from 1932 until 1934. As a UFO Member of Parliament (MP) in the Canadian House of Commons, she was forced to officially resign from the CCF after the UFO withdrew from the party after alleging Communist influence in it. She subsequently served in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Legislative Assembly of Ontario
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...
as the CCF Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP)In 1938, Members of the Ontario Legislative Assembly (MLAs) passed a motion to adopt the title "Members of Provincial Parliament" (MPP). for York East
York East
York East was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons at different times, and a provincial electoral district. It was located in the province of Ontario.-Federal electoral district :...
from 1943 to 1945 and again from 1948 to 1951.
Graham Spry
Graham Spry
- Further reading :*Babe, Robert. "Graham Spry" in Canadian Communications Thought: Ten Foundational Writers. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 0-8020-7949-0.*McChesney, Robert W. , Canadian Journal of Communication 24....
, a publisher and broadcaster who was also a member of the LSR, served as the Ontario CCF's vice-president of its provincial council from 1934 to 1936. He was the first federal CCF candidate in Ontario, running in the 24 September 1934 by-election in Toronto East
Toronto East
Toronto East was a federal electoral district represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1867 to 1935. It was located in the city of Toronto in the province of Ontario. It was created by the British North America Act of 1867.East Toronto initially consisted of St. Lawrence, St. Davids and...
. Other prominent members were Elmore Philpott
Elmore Philpott
Elmore Philpott was a Canadian politician and journalist. Philpott joined the Canadian military during World War I and was badly wounded - he needed two canes to help him walk for the rest of his life....
, a former Liberal
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...
Philpott joined the CCF in 1933 and became president of the Ontario Association of CCF Clubs before resigning from the party and rejoining the Liberals in 1935 over the A. E. Smith affair, that caused the UFO to leave as well. The disagreement was in regards to how much support the fledgling CCF should give Smith, leader of the Canadian Labour Defence League
Canadian Labour Defence League
The Canadian Labour Defence League was a legal defence organization founded and led by Reverend A.E. Smith. The league was in 1925 as a civil rights organization dedicated to protecting striking workers from persecution. It was allied with the Communist Party of Canada and functioned as a front for...
, who had been charged with sedition for claiming that the state had attempted to assassinate imprisoned Communist Party of Canada
Communist Party of Canada
The Communist Party of Canada is a communist political party in Canada. Although is it currently a minor or small political party without representation in the Federal Parliament or in provincial legislatures, historically the Party has elected representatives in Federal Parliament, Ontario...
leader Tim Buck
Tim Buck
Timothy "Tim" Buck was a long-time leader of the Communist Party of Canada...
. The CLDC was a communist front
Communist front
A Communist front organization is an organization identified to be a front organization under the effective control of a Communist party, the Communist International or other Communist organizations. Lenin originated the idea in his manifesto of 1902, "What Is to Be Done?"...
group. Woodsworth, along with the Ontario CCF provincial council, opposed the CCF having any formal links with it or any other Communist group. Some individual CCFers ignored this policy as did one section of the Ontario CCF, which was expelled. Nevertheless, Philpott and the UFO saw the Smith affair as evidence that the CCF had been infiltrated by Communists and left. The issue of what relationship the CCF should have with the Communist Party would come to the fore again in 1936 with the party voting to ban any united front
United front
The united front is a form of struggle that may be pursued by revolutionaries. The basic theory of the united front tactic was first developed by the Comintern, an international communist organisation created by revolutionaries in the wake of the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution.According to the theses of...
with Communists, over the objections of prominent CCFers such as East York
East York, Ontario
East York is a former municipality within the current city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was a semi-autonomous borough within the overall municipality of Metropolitan Toronto before East York, North York, York, Scarborough, Etobicoke and Toronto were amalgamated into the new "megacity" of Toronto...
reeve Arthur Henry Williams
Arthur Henry Williams
Arthur Henry Williams was a Canadian trade union organizer and politician who served in both the Ontario legislature and the Canadian House of Commons on behalf of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation...
.
The CCF contested its first Ontario provincial election in 1934
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 ....
. It received 7.1 percent of the vote, and won its first seat in the Ontario legislature: Samuel Lawrence
Samuel Lawrence
Samuel Lawrence was a Canadian politician and trade unionist.Lawrence was born in Somerset, England and went to work in a quarry at the age of 12 and became a shop steward in the mason's union at the age of 17. He entered politics running for election in Battersea in London. Known as "Mr...
elected in Hamilton East. The Ontario CCF failed to win any seats in the 1937 election
Ontario general election, 1937
The Ontario general election, 1937 was held on October 6, 1937, to elect the 90 Members of the 20th Legislative Assembly of Ontario . It was the 20th general election held in the Province of Ontario, Canada....
.
Breakthrough
Ted Jolliffe
Edward Bigelow "Ted" Jolliffe, QC was a Canadian social democratic politician and lawyer from Ontario. He was the first leader of the Ontario section of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and leader of the Official Opposition in the Ontario Legislature during the 1940s and 1950s...
, and union activist and former Ontario CCF Youth Movement organizer Murray Cotterill
Murray Cotterill
Murray Cotterill was a Canadian trade union activist and organizer for the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation ....
. On 4 April 1942, Jolliffe won the election, but the voting results were not publicly announced. The newly created Leader position's role was as political leader, while internal CCF affairs and administration would remain the president's domain.
The party achieved a major breakthrough under Jolliffe, in the 1943 Ontario general election
Ontario general election, 1943
The Ontario general election of 1943 was held on August 4, 1943, to elect the 90 Members of the 21st Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
, forming the Official Opposition
Leader of the Opposition (Ontario)
The Leader of the Opposition in Ontario is usually leader of the largest party in the Ontario legislature which is not the government. The current official opposition is formed by the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, and Tim Hudak is the current Leader of the Opposition.Ontario's first...
with 32 percent of the vote and 34 seats. The CCF was just four seats short of George Drew's Progressive Conservatives
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario , is a right-of-centre political party in Ontario, Canada. The party was known for many years as "Ontario's natural governing party." It has ruled the province for 80 of the years since Confederation, including an uninterrupted run from 1943 to 1985...
("Tories"), who 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...
that was the beginning of what became a 42-year political dynasty.
1945 "Gestapo" campaign
In the 1945 Ontario electionOntario general election, 1945
The Ontario general election of 1945 was held on June 4, 1945, to elect the 90 members of the 22nd Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
, Premier Drew ran an anti-Semitic, union bashing, Red-baiting
Red-baiting
Red-baiting is the act of accusing, denouncing, attacking or persecuting an individual or group as communist, socialist, or anarchist, or sympathetic toward communism, socialism, or anarchism. The word "red" in "red-baiting" is derived from the red flag signifying radical left-wing politics. In the...
campaign. The previous two years of anti-socialist attacks by the Conservatives and their supporters, like Gladstone Murray and Montague A. Sanderson, were devastatingly effective against the previously popular CCF. Much of the source material for the anti-CCF campaign came from the Ontario Provincial Police
Ontario Provincial Police
The Ontario Provincial Police is the Provincial Police service for the province of Ontario, Canada.-Overview:The OPP is the the largest deployed police force in Ontario, and the second largest in Canada. The service is responsible for providing policing services throughout the province in areas...
(OPP)'s Special Investigation Branch's agent D-208: Captain William J. Osbourne-Dempster. His office was supposed to be investigating war-time 5th column saboteurs. Instead, starting in November 1943, he was investigating, almost exclusively, Ontario opposition MPPs, mainly focusing on the CCF caucus
Caucus
A caucus is a meeting of supporters or members of a political party or movement, especially in the United States and Canada. As the use of the term has been expanded the exact definition has come to vary among political cultures.-Origin of the term:...
. The fact that Jolliffe knew about these 'secret' investigations as early as February 1944 led to one of the most infamous incidents in 20th-century Canadian politics.
24 May 1945 radio speech
As can be discerned from the previous description, the 1945 campaign was anything but genteel and polite. Jolliffe replied by giving a radio speech – written with the assistance of Lister Sinclair – that accused Drew of running a political GestapoGestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...
in Ontario. In the speech excerpt below, Jolliffe alleged that a secret department of the Ontario Provincial Police
Ontario Provincial Police
The Ontario Provincial Police is the Provincial Police service for the province of Ontario, Canada.-Overview:The OPP is the the largest deployed police force in Ontario, and the second largest in Canada. The service is responsible for providing policing services throughout the province in areas...
was acting as a political police – spying on the opposition and the media.
Jolliffe's inflammatory speech became the main issue of the campaign, and dominated coverage in the media for the rest of the election. Drew, and his Attorney-General Leslie Blackwell
Leslie Blackwell
Leslie Egerton Blackwell was a Canadian politician.A graduate of Osgoode Law School, Blackwell was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in the 1943 election that brought George Drew's Ontario Progressive Conservative Party to power with a minority government...
vehemently denied Jolliffe's accusations, but the public outcry was too much for them to abate. On 26 May 1945 during his own radio speech, Drew announced that he would be appointing a Royal Commission to investigate these charges. Jolliffe's CCF and Mitchell Hepburn
Mitchell Hepburn
Mitchell Frederick Hepburn was the 11th Premier of Ontario, Canada, from 1934 to 1942. He was the youngest Premier in Ontario history, appointed at age 37....
's Ontario Liberal party wanted the election suspended until the Commission tabled its report, with Hepburn going as far as sending Drew a personal telegram stating he would stop campaigning if the commission were held immediately. Drew ignored these requests and continued to hold the election on its original date, despite it being many months before the Commission's findings would be made available.
Election Day, 4 June 1945
Jolliffe's CCF went from 34 seats to 8, but almost garnering the same number of actual votes cast, though their percentage of the popular vote dropped from 32 to 22 percent. A Gallup poll done a month earlier showed the CCF at essentially the same percentage, making it questionable whether or not the "Gestapo" speech had an effect on the campaign. Drew, with his attack campaign, successfully drove the voter turn-out up, thereby driving the CCF's percentage and seat totals down.Monday, 4 June 1945, was one of Ontario's most important elections in the 20th century according to Caplan and David Lewis
David Lewis (politician)
David Lewis, CC was a Russian-born Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1936 to 1950, and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party in 1961...
. It shaped the province for the next 40 years, as the Conservatives won a massive majority in the Legislature, and would remain in government for the next 40 consecutive years–most of that time with majority governments until the mid-1970s.
After going from 34 seats to 8, as Caplan puts it, "June 4 and June 11 [federal election], 1945, proved to be black days in CCF annuals: Socialism was effectively removed from the Canadian political agenda." The CCF would never fully recover from this defeat and would eventually cease as a party and morph into the Ontario New Democratic Party
Ontario New Democratic Party
The Ontario New Democratic Party or , formally known as New Democratic Party of Ontario, is a social democratic political party in Ontario, Canada. It is a provincial section of the federal New Democratic Party. It was formed in October 1961, a few months after the federal party. The ONDP had its...
. Only then, and in the 1970s, did a social democratic party attain the popularity it had under Jolliffe in 1943.
For Ted Jolliffe, another election consequence was his tenure as the MPP from York South ended, at least for the time being. He lost the election but did better than any other CCF candidate in Toronto or in the outlying Yorks.
LeBel Royal Commission
On 28 May, Drew appointed Justice A.M. LeBel as the Royal Commissioner, thereby forming what has become known as the LeBel Royal CommissionLeBel Royal Commission
The LeBel Royal Commission was an Ontario Royal Commission set up on 28 May 1945 to look into charges made against the province's premier George A. Drew that he was operating a secret political police. The charges came from Ontario's Official Opposition Leader Edward Bigelow Jolliffe, during the...
. His terms of reference were restricted to the question of whether Drew was personally responsible for the establishment of "a secret political police organization, for the purpose of collecting, by secret spying, material to be used in attempt to keep him in power. Wider questions like why the OPP, Ontario Civil Servants, were keeping files on MPPs were not allowed.
Jolliffe would act as his own counsel throughout the commission, but was assisted by fellow CCF lawyer, Andrew Brewin
Andrew Brewin
Francis Andrew Brewin was a lawyer and Canadian politician.Brewin was a stalwart in the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and ran numerous times at the federal and provincial levels in the 1940 and 1950s...
. Both he and Brewin were able to establish, from several eye-witnesses, that agent D-208, Dempster, was spying on the CCF. What they could not prove, because they did not have access to the information in 1945, were the letters that Drew wrote to his supporter M.A. (Bugsy) Sanderson suggesting that he would finance any lawsuits or other charges stemming from the information provided by Dempster in his advertisements. Sanderson was, in late 1943 to 1945, along with Gladstone Murray, leading the libelous advertisement campaigns against the CCF in newspapers and bill-boards, with information gleaned from Dempster's briefings. Jolliffe presented several witnesses that claimed to have seen these documents. But Jolliffe could not produce the actual letter, and Drew would deny ever writing it.
On 11 October 1945 Justice LeBel issued his report that essentially exonerated Drew and Blackwell. Due to Jolliffe presenting only circumstantial evidence that linked Drew to Dempster, Murray and Sanderson, the Commissioner found the information unconvincing, even though LeBel believed Dempster's interaction with Sanderson and Murray was inappropriate.
Jolliffe's motives regarding his accusations, as well as his choice of words, would be questioned for many years afterwards. That would change. In the late 1970s, when David Lewis
David Lewis (politician)
David Lewis, CC was a Russian-born Canadian labour lawyer and social democratic politician. He was national secretary of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation from 1936 to 1950, and one of the key architects of the New Democratic Party in 1961...
was doing research for his Memoirs he came across archival evidence proving the charge. Due to Lewis's discovery, Drew's son Edward, placed extremely restrictive conditions on his father's papers housed in the Public Archives of Canada
Library and Archives Canada
Library and Archives Canada is a national memory institution dedicated to providing the best possible account of Canadian life through acquiring, preserving and making Canada's documentary heritage accessible for use in the 21st century and beyond...
that continue as of 2011.
As Lewis pointed out in his memoirs, "We found that Premier Drew and Gladstone Murray did not disclose all information to the Lebel Commission; indeed, they deliberately prevaricated throughout. The head of the Government of Ontario
Politics of Ontario
The Province of Ontario is governed by a unicameral legislature, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, which operates in the Westminster system of government...
had given false witness under testimony.... The perpetrator of Ontario's Watergate
Watergate scandal
The Watergate scandal was a political scandal during the 1970s in the United States resulting from the break-in of the Democratic National Committee headquarters at the Watergate office complex in Washington, D.C., and the Nixon administration's attempted cover-up of its involvement...
got away with it."
1945 election aftermath
After the LeBel Report was published, the Ontario CCF still had to go on with the business of running the party, and hold its annual convention. It had been over 18 months since the previous provincial convention was held. The convention was held from Thursday, 22 November to Saturday, 24 November at the Toronto Labor Lyceum on Spadina Avenue. Jolliffe made it publicly known before the convention that he intended to continue on as leader. He ran despite the elements within the party that blamed him for the election defeat. His critics charged that the CCF did not stress policy enough during the election; that the party's platform was too vague; too leader-based; and was too sloganistic. Jolliffe was attacked for how he handled the last weeks of the campaign, especially over the "Gestapo" speech. These critics also blamed labour's involvement in dumbing-down the campaign, which was seen as the trade unions doing anything to achieve power. It got so bad, that a motion to expel both Jolliffe, and David Lewis over these perceived grievances made it on to the convention floor. The motion read, "the campaign tactics of the 1945 election had been decided by Mr. Jolliffe with the advice of Mr. Lewis and the democratic processes within the CCF had been ignored." It was defeated, but it also demonstrated that the party's establishment had angered its socialist militant base.On Saturday afternoon, after the grievances were aired, the convention unanimously passed a resolution condemning Premier Drew asking him to stop spying on labour and political officials. After that, the party's establishment candidates held on to their positions: University of Toronto professor, George Grube remained as president, while Jolliffe remained leader.
1946 was the year of major labour strife in Ontario, and the CCF made it clear they were on the side of the unionists. Breaking with tradition, the party's annual convention was held outside of Toronto for the first time. The convention was held at the Royal Connaught Hotel in Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton, Ontario
Hamilton is a port city in the Canadian province of Ontario. Conceived by George Hamilton when he purchased the Durand farm shortly after the War of 1812, Hamilton has become the centre of a densely populated and industrialized region at the west end of Lake Ontario known as the Golden Horseshoe...
from 9–11 December 1946, the city where the United Steelworkers of America
United Steelworkers
The United Steel, Paper and Forestry, Rubber, Manufacturing, Energy, Allied Industrial and Service Workers International Union is the largest industrial labor union in North America, with 705,000 members. Headquartered in Pittsburgh, U.S., the United Steelworkers represents workers in the United...
(USWA) went through a long protracted strike about reducing the work-week to 40 hours. Jolliffe faced a leadership challenge at this convention from former Toronto Controller
Board of Control
In municipal government a Board of Control is an executive body that usually deals with financial and administrative matters. The idea is that a small body of four or five people is better able to make certain decisions than a large, unwieldy city council...
Lewis Duncan
Lewis Duncan
James Lewis Duncan was a Canadian politician and lawyer.Duncan was the son of a physician and grandson of a Presbyterian minister. He studied at the University of Toronto and in Paris and won a silver medal as a student at Osgoode Hall Law School.He fought in World War I at the Somme, Vimy Ridge...
. There were rumblings in 1945 that Duncan would take over from Jolliffe, but that was rumoured to be only if he were able to defeat Drew in the High Park constituency, which he failed to do. As party chairman John Mitchell stated at the time, it wasn't even close, as Jolliffe was easily re-elected CCF leader again for the fourth time. Professor Grube stepped down as the president, and Andrew Brewin succeeded him after defeating former York South
York South
York South was an electoral district in Ontario, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1904 to 1979, and in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1926 to 1999....
MP, Joseph W. Noseworthy
Joseph W. Noseworthy
Joseph William Noseworthy was a Canadian politician.Noseworthy was born in Lewisporte, Newfoundland and grew up working on fishing boats and getting his education when he could. As a teenager he worked as a lumberman before obtaining his teaching certificate at the age of 18...
by four votes. The main resolution that would have an impact on the upcoming provincial election was one that condemned Drew's government for its hastily approved legislation allowing for cocktail bars to operate in Ontario.
1948 Ontario general election
Though the 1948 electionOntario general election, 1948
The Ontario general election of 1948 was held on June 7, 1948, to elect the 90 members of the 23rd Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
came about a year sooner than normal, the Ontario CCF had been expecting this, due to the polling information available that indicated that Drew's popularity was falling. The CCF were able to rebound from their previous dismal election performance in 1945, and this time managed to get 21 members elected, including Jolliffe in York South, to once again form the Official Opposition.
The real surprise was that Premier Drew lost his seat, even though his Progressive Conservatives won a majority. In his High Park constituency, Drew was up against his local nemesis William (Bill) Temple
William Horace Temple
William Horace Temple , nicknamed "Temperance Bill" or "Temperance Willie", was a Canadian democratic socialist politician, trade union activist, businessman and temperance crusader. As a youth he worked for the railway. During World War I, and World War II he was a soldier in the Royal Naval...
. Temple was a temperance
Temperance movement
A temperance movement is a social movement urging reduced use of alcoholic beverages. Temperance movements may criticize excessive alcohol use, promote complete abstinence , or pressure the government to enact anti-alcohol legislation or complete prohibition of alcohol.-Temperance movement by...
campaigner and made Drew's cocktail bar legislation the main campaign issue. Temple castigated Drew for softening Ontario's liquor laws, claiming the Premier was the captive of "liquor interests" due to the government's decision to allow liquor sales in cocktail bars. While Drew's party swept to victory across the province, Drew himself was defeated by Temple, and decided to resign as premier and move to federal politics.
1951 election disaster and its aftermath
The CCF's return to popularity was short-lived, due to the prosperity of the 1950s and the anti-CommunistAnti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
hysteria of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. This rapid decline in their popularity reduced the party to two seats in the 1951 election
Ontario general election, 1951
The Ontario general election of 1951 was held on November 22, 1951, to elect the 90 members of the 24th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
and allowed 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...
to become the Official Opposition. No social-democratic party would be the Official Opposition again until 1975
Ontario general election, 1975
The Ontario general election of 1975 was held on September 18, 1975, to elect the 125 members of the 30th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada....
, when Stephen Lewis's NDP displaced the Liberals as the second party in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario
Legislative Assembly of Ontario
The Legislative Assembly of Ontario , is the legislature of the Canadian province of Ontario, and is the second largest provincial legislature of Canada...
.
Beginning with the 1951 provincial campaign, the Ontario Federation of Labour
Ontario Federation of Labour
The Ontario Federation of Labour is a prominent federation of labour unions in the Canadian province of Ontario. The original OFL was established by the Canadian Congress of Labour in 1944...
(OFL) played an increased role in the Ontario CCF by lending it organizational, personnel and material support. The increasing role of the trade union leadership in the party was unpopular with some activists like MPP Bill Temple. The "Ginger Group" led by Temple, True Davidson
True Davidson
Jean Gertrude Davidson, CM , the first mayor of the Borough of East York, Ontario, was one of Toronto’s most colourful politicians in a career spanning nearly 25 years...
and others was formed in the wake of the disastrous 1951 electoral result which they blamed on the "bureaucratization" of the party and its movement away from socialist principles and particularly socialist education, developments for which they held what they saw as the conservative, anti-democratic and bureaucratic influence of the OFL as responsible. At the party's 1952 convention, Temple temporarily ran for party leader but withdrew at the last movement, allowing Jolliffe to be acclaimed leader. Temple did not stop from making trouble for the establishment, when he ran for party president, and almost won. He and Davidson were both elected to the party executive as vice-presidents and the Ginger Group elected a number of its followers to the provincial council. They were ultimately unsuccessful in achieving their goals, however. The increasing role of the OFL in the Ontario CCF proved to be a precursor to the eventual fusion of the national CCF and the trade union movement with the creation of the New Democratic Party of Canada at both the federal and provincial levels in 1961.
End of the CCF/New Party and revival
Donald C. MacDonald
Donald Cameron MacDonald, CM, O.Ont was a long time Canadian politician and political party leader and had been referred to as the "Best premier Ontario never had." He represented the provincial riding of York South in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1955 to 1982...
became leader in 1953, and spent the next years rebuilding the party, from two seats when he took over the party's helm, to three in his first election and then five in 1959. Delegates from the Ontario CCF, delegates from affiliated union locals, and delegates from New Party Clubs took part in the founding convention of the New Democratic Party of Ontario held in Niagara Falls at the Sheraton Brock hotel from 7–9 October 1961 and elected MacDonald as their leader. The Ontario CCF Council ceased to exist formally on Sunday, 8 October 1961, when the newly elected NDP executive officially took over. The rebuilding process continued under Macdonald who led a 20 person caucus by the time he stepped down in 1970, ten times what it was when he took office in 1953.
Election results
| Year of election | Candidates elected | # of seats available | # of votes | % of popular vote |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1934 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 .... |
1 | 90 | n.a. | 7.0% |
| 1937 Ontario general election, 1937 The Ontario general election, 1937 was held on October 6, 1937, to elect the 90 Members of the 20th Legislative Assembly of Ontario . It was the 20th general election held in the Province of Ontario, Canada.... |
0 | 90 | n.a. | 5.6% |
| 1943 Ontario general election, 1943 The Ontario general election of 1943 was held on August 4, 1943, to elect the 90 Members of the 21st Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada.... |
34 | 90 | n.a. | 31.7% |
| 1945 Ontario general election, 1945 The Ontario general election of 1945 was held on June 4, 1945, to elect the 90 members of the 22nd Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada.... |
8 | 90 | n.a. | 22.4% |
| 1948 Ontario general election, 1948 The Ontario general election of 1948 was held on June 7, 1948, to elect the 90 members of the 23rd Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada.... |
21 | 90 | n.a. | 27.0% |
| 1951 Ontario general election, 1951 The Ontario general election of 1951 was held on November 22, 1951, to elect the 90 members of the 24th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada.... |
2 | 90 | n.a. | 19.1% |
| 1955 Ontario general election, 1955 The Ontario general election of 1955 was held on June 9, 1955, to elect the 98 members of the 25th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada.... |
3 | 98 | n.a. | 16.5% |
| 1959 Ontario general election, 1959 The Ontario general election of 1959 was held on June 11, 1959, to elect the 98 members of the 26th Legislative Assembly of Ontario of the Province of Ontario, Canada.... |
5 | 98 | n.a. | 16.7% |
See also
- List of articles about Ontario CCF/NDP members
- Ontario CCF/NDP leadership elections
- List of Ontario political parties