The Socialist Labor Party was Canada's first socialist party, formed in 1898 by Canadian supporters of the ideas of American socialist Daniel De Leon and the Socialist Labor Party of America.[2] It became a national party in the 1930s and had its headquarters in Toronto. The party never won any seats. The party ran only a small number of candidates (listed below), all of whom placed last in their respective elections.[3]
The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was founded in 1932 as an agrarian socialist party. Its first platform was the Regina Manifesto, adopted in 1933. The CCF gained popularity among industrial workers throughout the 1930s. In 1944, the Saskatchewan wing of the party formed the first Socialist government in a Canadian province and stayed in power until 1964.
The New Democratic Party (NDP) was founded in 1961, as a merger of the CCF and the interests of the Canadian Labour Congress. At the end of a five-day-long founding convention that established its principles, policies and structures, Tommy Douglas, the long-time CCF Premier of Saskatchewan, was elected its first leader.[6] While the NDP has never won a federal election, its provincial wings have taken power in six out of ten provinces since its inception. In the preamble of its original constitution, the NDP self-described as a socialist party. Since 2013, the party constitution states that "social democracy and democratic socialism are influences on the party".
History
Early 20th century socialism
The Socialist Labor Party was Canada's first socialist party, formed in 1898 by Canadian supporters of the ideas of American socialist Daniel De Leon and the Socialist Labor Party of America.[7] It became a national party in the 1930s and had its headquarters in Toronto. The party never won any seats. The party ran only a small number of candidates (listed below), all of whom placed last in their respective elections.[8]
The Communist Party of Canada was founded in 1920 and is the oldest active socialist party in Canada, and the second-oldest active political party in Canada.
During the Great Depression, the Communist Party of Canada experienced a brief surge in popularity, becoming influential in various labour unions and electing a single Member of Parliament, Fred Rose. The Communist Party of Canada was created in Guelph, Ontario in 1921 by a group of Marxist activists led by William Moriarty. During the early years of their existence, the party's membership faced persecution and arrest for their political activities. In 1935 the Communists gained notoriety by organizing a massive march of unemployed workers known as the On-to-Ottawa Trek and before that organized the young inmates of the relief camps into the Relief Camp Workers' Union to resist the poor conditions of the camps. The On-to-Ottawa Trek never made it to Ottawa; instead, it ended with the Regina Riot of July 1, 1935. The trek and the living conditions in the government's "relief camps" helped to discredit Conservative Prime Minister R. B. Bennett, leading to his defeat at the hands of the Liberals in 1935. After the trek the communists were instrumental in organizing over 1,448 Canadians to fight in the Spanish Civil War
Joined by volunteers of other political stripes, the Canadian contingent known as the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion joined the International Brigades (a coalition of volunteers from many countries) to fight for the elected leftwing government of the Second Spanish Republic against the fascist-supported insurgency of General Francisco Franco. The "Mac-Paps" fought bravely in many battles but were forced to leave Spain in 1938 by Prime Minister Juan Negrín López along with the other foreign volunteers as it became clear that the war was lost. Of the nearly 1,500 Canadians known to have fought in Spain, 721 were verified as having lost their lives. The most famous Canadian to serve in the Mackenzie–Papineau Battalion was Dr. Norman Bethune, a surgeon who would invent the world's first mobile medical unit. Dr. Bethune would later be killed during the Second Sino-Japanese War, while aiding the Chinese Communist Party. Today, he is a national hero in the People's Republic of China and is remembered as being a friend of Chinese leader Mao Zedong.
By the end of World War II, the Communist Party began to lose its momentum. Its only elected federal representative, Fred Rose, was accused of being a Soviet spy. Rose was expelled from parliament, imprisoned for four years, and then followed at every job site by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP). He eventually left for Poland with the intention of returning to clear his name but the government revoked his Canadian citizenship in 1957, preventing his return.
Democratic socialism
By a wide margin, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), a democratic socialist political party from the Prairies with its origins in the Christian left and the social gospel, became the most influential socialist party in Canada. It was formed by the merger of several farmer and labour parties, mostly of western Canada. The CCF gained support among farmers on the Prairies as well as from many labour unions.
Led by Tommy Douglas, the Saskatchewan CCF was elected to power during the 1944 Saskatchewan election. Douglas governed Saskatchewan until 1961. As of 2019, this party is an important force in the politics of the province.
The CCF also has become the official opposition in British Columbia during the election of 1941 and in Ontario during the province's 1943 election. In 1944, it took a quarter of Alberta votes. [11]
At the federal level, opinion polls initially indicated a dramatic surge in support for the CCF prior to the 1945 federal election. This surge in popularity translated into only modest gains for the party. (Under the First-past-the-post voting system, the CCF got about half the seats that it was due proportionally.) But its visibility is widely believed to have inspired Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King to introduce welfare state policies.[weasel words]Gad Horowitz and some other political scientists see the CCF and the early democratic socialist movement as mainly a Christian and European Canadian movement.
At the federal level the NDP has held strong influence over various minority governments, in particular a Liberal minority led by Pierre Trudeau from 1972–1974 during the 29th Canadian Parliament. During this period, due to the unpopularity of the first phase of the National Energy Program and the need to maintain confidence of the House of Commons, the Liberal Party acquiesced to an earlier NDP proposal to create a national petroleum company, forming a state-owned oil company, called Petro Canada.[13]
The NDP has also held influence over other Liberal-led minority governments during the Lester B. Pearson government (1963–1968) and the Paul Martin government (2004–2006). Their self-stated goal is to one day form a federal government on their own and introduce social-democratic policies.
In the province of Quebec, the NDP has been considerably less popular, However, in the May 2, 2011 Canadian Federal Election a record number of NDP Members of Parliament were elected, including 59 of the 75 available seats in Quebec. The party was the Official Opposition in the 41st Canadian Parliament. However since then, the NDP has seen its support decline.
For most of the late 20th century, the strongest social-democratic party in Quebec has been the sovereigntistParti Québécois. Like the NDP, the Parti Québécois is generally considered to be "social democratic".[14]
Revolutionary socialism
Many socialists in Canada have attempted to organize outside of the framework of parliamentary politics, to pursue conceptions of socialism that are more radical than the social-democratic politics of either the CCF or the NDP.
The New Democratic Party, (NDP) is a federal political party which officially adheres to social democracy[17][18] while still being one of the most left-wing of Canada's mainstream parties. However, a minority faction are committed to democratic socialism, including, but not restricted to, the radical NDP Socialist Caucus. The policies of various provincial and territorial branches of the NDP have varied in the past from the left-wing to the third way. The party's youth group is known as the New Democratic Youth of Canada. The provincial branches of the NDP are:
Québec Solidaire ("Solidarity Quebec") is Quebec's most popular left-wing party. They claim to be devoted to the causes of democratic socialism, such as environmentalism, feminism, Quebec Sovereignty and alter-globalization. They have gained support amongst left-wing sovereigntist voters who are disillusioned with the Parti Québécois' embrace of neoliberalism.
The Revolutionary Communist Party, the Canadian section of the Trotskyist organization called the International Marxist Tendency (IMT). Previously known as Fightback, the organization has since adopted a new name and manifesto following the IMT's announcement in 2024 that it would relaunch itself as the Revolutionary Communist International. The RCP publishes a newspaper entitled Communist Revolution. They are anti-parliamentary and aim to organize workers and young people towards a revolutionary cause.[20][21]
Socialist Party of Canada was a name used by two political parties. The first existed from 1905 to 1925 and was created by the Socialist Party of British Columbia; it played an important role in the creation of the CCF. The second has existed since 1931 and has been very marginal in terms of support.
Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (1932–1962) – known as the CCF, it was, before the NDP, Canada's most popular left-wing party. The CCF was formed during The Great Depression by members of the House of Commons Ginger Group, the Progressive Party of Canada, the United Farmer parties in Alberta and Ontario, the Canadian and Dominion Labour Parties, and a social advocacy group known as the League for Social Reconstruction. Formed in Calgary in 1932. In 1933, at the party's founding convention in Regina, Saskatchewan, the Regina Manifesto was adopted. This document announced that: "No CCF Government will rest content until it has eradicated capitalism and put into operation the full programme of socialized planning which will lead to the establishment in Canada of the Co-operative Commonwealth." The radical Regina Manifesto was replaced by the more moderate Winnipeg Declaration in 1956. The CCF went on to form one of Canada's most popular and historically significant provincial governments in 1944 in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan under Tommy Douglas. In Ontario the CCF formed the official opposition in 1943 and again in 1948 until losing that position to the Liberals. In British Columbia the CCF also formed the official opposition after 1941. Federally the party never got past third place and in an attempt to broaden their support base the CCF merged with the Canadian Labour Congress to create the NDP.
New Democratic Party of Quebec was the Quebec wing of the NDP. The Quebec NDP failed to win any significant support or win any seats in the Quebec legislature (its parent party, the Quebec CCF won one). After years of infighting in 1989, the party broke off relations with the federal NDP and in 1994 changed its name to the Parti de la Democratie Socialiste (PDS) or "Socialist Democratic Party". The PDS adopted a program calling for Quebec's separation from Canada and had attempted to nominate a former terrorist, Paul Rose (formerly of the FLQ) as a federal candidate. The PDS contested the 1998 Quebec election without any success. In 2002 the PDS joined the Communist Party of Quebec and other far left, sovereigntist parties in an alliance known as the Union des forces progressistes (UFP). In 2006 the UFP became Quebec solidaire.
Revolutionary Communist Party was a communist organization advocating the overthrow of the capitalist system. It was in the organizing stage before its dissolution in 2021. The ideology of the organization, founded in 2000, can be regarded as anti-revisionist in character. They describe their ideology as "Marxism-Leninism-Maoism" which they consider the third phase of Marxism. The group does not take part in electoral politics, instead aiming to educate the working class about the need for a revolution in the style of the Russian and Chinese revolutions. The PRC-RCP was non-collaborationist and opposed all Canadian political parties, including ones calling themselves communist.
^Horowitz, G. (1966). "Conservatism, Liberalism, and Socialism in Canada: An Interpretation". The Canadian Journal of Economics and Political Science. 32 (2): 143–171. doi:10.2307/139794. ISSN0315-4890. JSTOR139794.
^Cronin, Sean (1977). "The Rise and Fall of the Socialist Labor Party of North America". Saothar. 3: 21–33. JSTOR23195205.