THE CCF: CANADA'S POLITICAL CHALLENGE II. LEADERS, TACTICS, PROSPECTS
Chamberlin, William Henry
The CCF: Canada's Political Challenge //. Leaders, Tactics, Prospects By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN THE CCF prides itself on being a party of ideas and on the democratic character of its...
...If the CCF pace proved too fast for the old parties, these could challenge a new election, in which the CCF would welcome the opportunity for a clear-cut debate on the issue of implementing its full program...
...Foreign policy is less in the foreground in Canada than in the United States...
...Leaders, Tactics, Prospects By WILLIAM HENRY CHAMBERLIN THE CCF prides itself on being a party of ideas and on the democratic character of its organization...
...We all want a fundamental reorganization of our economic life, but we propose to get this by legal democratic methods, by presenting our case to the Canadian people and persuading a majority of them to give us a vote of confidence...
...There have been many elections in Canada, as in the United States, in which the principal issue has been a shift of parties or of persons...
...He has the reputation of being one of the most studious and hardworking members of Parliament and his questions keep Ministers on their toes...
...As yet, however, there is no such close tie-up between the party and the trade-unions as one finds in Great Britain...
...its internal affairs Canada is an independent soverign state...
...Like Jolliffe, the Ontario leader of the Party, he was a Rhodes scholar...
...Another, influential figure in the party councils is the national chairman, Frank Scott, a professor of law at McGill University...
...This test will presumably come sooner or later in any event, because, if the CCF Cabinet were permitted to complete its full term of office, it would ask the voters for a new mandate for a further advance at the end of this term...
...The Social Credit Party maintained its position in Alberta...
...but it is not yet clear whether the strongly French nationalist and anti-war •Bloc Populaire, or some other Franch nationalist movement, or the CCF will be the beneficiary of this trend...
...The CCF would wish to abolish this right, because it may be anticipated that conservatives will use this and every other available weapon to delay and oppose measures of drastic socialization...
...The CCF has launched a crusade of first rate importance not only for Canada, but for North America...
...East of Ontario the outlook is not so favorable...
...Canada is not one of the ' "Big Three...
...To quote from the book of Scott and Lewis: "All forms of imperialism, whether within or without the Commonwealth, will be opposed...
...There will be no deals with the old parties that would amount to merger and fusion and an abandonment of the fundamental ideas of the CCF program.' At the same time it is recognized that a Parliamentary policy of mere obstructionism would alienate and disappoint many of the CCF supporters...
...In relation to Canada's population, this would be the equivalent of a party with almost a million members in the United States...
...conservative Canadian newspapers, because he occasionally lets himself go on the subject of smashing sabotage or illegal resistance that can be interpreted by a hostile commentator as protending revolution and dictatorship...
...The CCF Program V The CCF will fight the election on a program of full employment, maximum production, and social security...
...Born in England, Cold-well moved to Canada as a young man, taught school in the Western provinces, and became principal of a school in Regina, in Saskatchewan, before he devoted all his time to political activity...
...However, the moral effect of an anti-imperialist regime at Ottawa might be substantial, especially if the recent conference in London leads to a closer working unity between the British Labor Party and the Labor Parties in Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa together with the CCF...
...It will argue that private enterprise cannot achieve these goals...
...As one of his colleagues said to me: "Harold is no more of a bloodthirsty revolutionist than any of the rest of us...
...The successor to J. S. Woods-worth in the party leadership, the head of the CCF parliamentary group, the most probable Prime Minister if the CCF should ever come into power, is M. J. Coldwell...
...What will be- the tactics of the CCF when they will emerge from the coming election, in all probability, with something in the neighborhood of 80 seats, instead of the eight which they won in 1940 ? I recently discussed this question with a number of CCF spokesmen, including Lewis and Scott, in Canada...
...Harold Winch and Angus Mclnnis are the leading CCFers in the party's Pacific Coast stronghold, British Columbia...
...Coldwell has expressed the belief that racial friction which always becomes pronounced in time of war will disappear in the atmosphere of an expanding economy and a common plan of socialization that will tend to relieve the economic inequality between Canadians of British and French origin...
...His speeches are carefully reasoned arguments, not oratorical fireworks...
...Just as with a United States state election on local issues, a provincial election is not always an accurate gauge of national strength...
...Individual membership is about 75,000 and growing steadily...
...Frank Scott is the author of several books on Canada and has taken part in many Canadian-American and inter-Empire conferences...
...The latter is earnest, cool-headed, logical...
...Even if the party had a free hand, it would proceed gradually with its program and not risk the confusion and dislocation of an overnight transformation before adequate preparations had been made...
...He represents a Saskatchewan rural constituency in Parliament...
...They are trying to win support among the French speaking workers, to appeal to the more radical French Canadians by offering them the prospect of nationalizing the big power interests and other industries and sources of wealth which are owned by British-Canadian and American capital...
...It will accept this offer and put into effect some of its milder proposals for social and economic change...
...A birdseye survey of CCF strength throughout Canada, from the Pacific to the Atlantic, would work out as follows: In British Columbia election prospects are favorable ; the CCF may get half the seats in this Pacific Coast province...
...On one point there was complete and uncompromising agreement...
...My own guess, which readers of The Progressive may throw up to me if it proves far wide of the mark, is that CCF strength in the next national Parliament will be somewhere between 70 and 100 seats in a membership of 245...
...Quebec, with its block of 65 seats, is at the moment the great enigma of the coming election...
...But it has been spotty and has varied appreciably as between provinces...
...The CCF drew a complete blank in the provincial election there last August...
...Unions which are affiliated with the CCF reckon 40 or 50,000 members...
...The former was inspirational and emotional in his approach to public affairs...
...Crusade Of Top Importance The CCF does not favor any exclusive preferential arrangement, political or economic, between Canada and Great Britain...
...amusingly enough the remnants of the Liberal and conservative Parties in Alberta threw their support to the Social Creditors, whom they had formerly denounced as the most dangerous wild-eyed radicals, regarding them as a lesser evil, by comparison with the CCF...
...Predominantly English-speaking in membership, the CCF opposes both the extreme French nationalism of some groups in Quebec and the French baiting tendency represented by some of the Ontario Tories...
...Like the British Labor Party, the CCF has two forms of membership, individual participation in a local branch and affiliation through a trade-union...
...Elections are held as political developments may require and not at hard-and-fast intervals, although an election must be held at least once in five years...
...But any election in which the CCF participates, so long as it maintains its present program, will pose very fundamental issues of reorganization of Canadian political, economic, and social life...
...Almost the only remaining link with Great Britain that is of practical importance is the right to take appeals to the Privy Council in London on questions of interpretation of the Canadian Constitution...
...Outside of some mining and industrial constituencies in Nova Scotia the CCF has made little progress in the three Maritime Provinces, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island...
...But, like every large political organization, it has developed a group of leaders, who work as a harmonious team...
...David Lewis, the party secretary, is an East European by origin, but thoroughly Canadian in outlook and psychology...
...Politically the Canadian form of government is more akin to the British than to the American...
...But the more hopeful CCF organizers hojse to do much better in the Federal election, at least in the industrial districts...
...No Deals With Old Parties On the other hand, the CCF swept the neighboring prairie province of Saskatchewan in the provincial election, and will presumably repeat this success in the national polling...
...These provinces have comparatively few seats anyway...
...The Canadian Congress of Labor, which includes unions affiliated with the CIO in the United States, is favorable to the CCF...
...It would like to see Canada enter the Pan-American Union...
...There is a strong swing away from the Liberal Party in Quebec...
...Because there are three fairly strong parties (CCF, Liberals, and Conservatives) and several minor parties and groups it seems unlikely, at present, that any single party will win a clear-cut majority in the election...
...he sometimes says a little more than he means...
...He is the son of Canon Scott, one of the most famous of Canada's frontline chaplains in the First World War...
...This would be a long stride forward from the little group of eight elected in 1940, but would be short of the clear majority which would be necessary before any of the more drastic economic changes in the CCF, program could be enacted...
...As against the sweep in Saskatchewan and the very strong showing in Ontario and British Columbia one must set the failure to oust the Social Credit Party in Alberta and to elect even a single member to the provincial legislatures of Quebec and New Brunswick...
...Canada has no colonies of its own and even if a CCF Cabinet were in power, there is little it could do about British policy in India...
...It is not a one-man show...
...Winch is sometimes good copy for the...
...The CCF is likely to prove fairly strong in Manitoba and may get a third or more of the seats in populous, industrial Ontario...
...But the CCF has a definite program in foreign relations as in domestic affairs...
...In collaboration with Scott he recently published an interesting review of CCF history and program under the title, Make This Your Canada...
...The issue of the voting in Quebec may well determine whether the CCF will be the strongest in the next Canadian Parliament...
...If it comes out of the election as the strongest single party and there is no coalition of Liberals and Conservatives, it will presumably be asked to form a government...
...In the administration of...
...Chamberlin Makes A Guess The CCF growth in popular support, as reflected in provincial elections, has been marked during the last years...
...A keen debater, with absolute faith in the CCF economic program and a well-developed sense of humor, Scott is a thorn in the side of the Montreal old-line conservatives...
...He has been strenuous in asserting that the CCF will never challenge the right of the farmer to own and inherit land...
...Two Forms Of Membership There is a marked temperamental contrast between Wood.sworth and Coldwell...
...His study of the continental socialist movement led him to the conviction that one reason for its shipwreck before the onrush of fascism was the failure of European socialists to take account of the farmer in their political calculations...
...But an audience has a certain effect on Harold...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 46
