Workers and the Economy

Tensions among laborers and farmers had been building in Canada since the nineteenth century. Canadian workers echoed concerns that reached across national boundaries as industrial capitalism became entrenched in the Western world. Factories were typically dangerous and unhealthy places. Employees in the staples industries and manual laborers toiled long hours for low wages without health protections or benefits. Nineteenth-century labor organizations, such as the Knights of Labor, aggressively pursued the ideal of an eight-hour workday, legislation to protect workers health and improve work environments, and the termination of child labor. While the Knights of Labor appealed to semiskilled and unskilled labor, various Trades and Labor Congress unions sought the support of more skilled workers. By the early twentieth century, the Trades and Labor organizations had been coupled with the powerful American Federation of Labor (AFL). Through the 1910s various labor organizations, ranging from the more conservative AFL to the radical unionists of the Industrial Workers of the World, known as the Wobblies, strove to draw workers into their ranks. Thousands of strikes erupted before and during the war, yet the federal and provincial governments were reluctant to pass meaningful legislation to protect the rights of workers. Lauriers government did create the Department of Labour and pass the Industrial Disputes Investigation Act in 1907, yet the statute essentially favored businesses. Various labor struggles cropped up in the postwar era, thereby illustrating the complex labor-capital issues of the era. General inflation, the favored treatment of manufacturers, and rising unemployment led to a rash of strikes. During the most dramatic labor action, the Winnipeg General Strike of 1919, thousands of workers effectively shut down the citys services for weeks. Alarmed citizens, mindful of recent events that had transpired in Russia, incorrectly branded the general strike a pro-Bolshevik uprising. When the federal government intervened and the strike leaders were arrested, a violent confrontation broke out between the Royal

North-West Mounted Police and protesting workers. The strikes collapse effectively undermined the recently formed One Big Union, a socialist-inspired movement of workers. Dramatic clashes, particularly in coal-producing regions such as Nova Scotia, continued in the 1920s, a reminder that deep class divisions existed in Canada. Although their efforts lacked some of the high drama and bloodshed of the labor protests, farmers pursued similar agendas during the postwar era. With the perennial issue of tariffs weighing heavily on their minds and a downturn in the demand for the countrys grain as the war came to an end, Canadian farmers sought relief in the political arena. Farmers parties emerged in Ontario and the prairies. The Progressive party also drew heavy support from farmers for its goal of lowering the tariffs. Sectors of the Canadian economy boomed in the 1920s, assisted directly and indirectly by provincial and federal governments that were eager to facilitate the countrys expansion. Wheat production soared as the decade progressed, but competition with other grainproducing countries intensified as well. The paper and pulp industry, dominated by a few giant corporations, led the word in exports by the late 1920s. Spurred by improved hydroelectric production, Canada developed consumer industries and increased its capabilities to extract mineral resources such as nickel. The automobile industry burgeoned, as did the development of roads and services needed to serve an increasingly mobile society. Large chain stores, such as Eatons, carried the most modern consumer goods, appliances, and fashions. The reliance on the export market to sustain the countrys economy, particularly in the primary sectors of agricultural, mining, and timber products, would deliver a devastating blow to Canada

when the Great Depression hit. But for much of the decade, a robust economy dominated. Indeed, the country crossed an important statistical threshold in the 1920s when its economy became more industrial than agricultural in total output and production.