Origins The CCF aimed to alleviate the suffering that workers and farmers, the ill and the old endured under capitalism, seen most starkly during the
Great Depression, through the creation of a Co-operative Commonwealth, which would entail economic co-operation, public ownership of the economy, and political reform. The object of the political party as reported at its founding meeting in Calgary in 1932 was "the federation [joining together] of organizations whose purpose is the establishment in Canada of a co-operative commonwealth, in which the basic principle of regulating production, distribution and exchange will be the supplying of human needs instead of the making of profit." Many of the party's first
Members of Parliament (MPs) were members of the
Ginger Group, composed of United Farmers of Alberta, left-wing
Progressive, and
Labour MPs. These MPs included
United Farmers of Alberta MPs
William Irvine and
Ted Garland,
Agnes Macphail (
United Farmers of Ontario),
Humphrey Mitchell,
Abraham Albert Heaps,
Angus MacInnis, and Labour Party MP
J. S. Woodsworth. Founding groups included the Independent Labour Party (of Manitoba), the Canadian Labour Party (mostly in Edmonton), the Dominion Labour Party of southern Alberta, the UFA, and the United Farmers of Ontario (which withdrew from the CCF in 1934). Also involved in founding the new party were members of the
League for Social Reconstruction (LSR), such as
F. R. Scott and
Frank Underhill. It can be said that the CCF was founded on May 26, 1932, when the Ginger Group MPs and LSR members met in William Irvine's office, the unofficial caucus meeting room for the Ginger Group, and went about forming the basis of the new party. J. S. Woodsworth was unanimously appointed the temporary leader until they could hold a founding convention. The temporary name for the new party was the Commonwealth Party. At its founding convention in 1932 in Calgary, the party settled on the name "Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Farmer-Labour-Socialist)" and selected J. S. Woodsworth as party leader. Woodsworth had been an
Independent Labour Party MP since 1921 and a member of the Ginger Group of MPs. The party's 1933 convention, held in
Regina, Saskatchewan, adopted the
Regina Manifesto as the party's program. The manifesto outlined a number of goals, including
public ownership of key industries, universal public
pensions,
universal health care, children's allowances,
unemployment insurance, and
workers' compensation.
Electoral performance . Left to right,
Tommy Douglas,
George Hugh Castleden,
Angus MacInnis,
Coldwell,
Clarie Gillis,
Joseph W. Noseworthy, Sandy Nicholoson, and
Percy Wright. In line with Alberta's important role in founding the CCF, it is said that the first CCF candidate elected was
Chester Ronning in the Alberta provincial constituency of Camrose, in October 1932. The UFA, under whose banner he contested the election, formalized its already-strong connection to the CCF in its next provincial convention, in January 1933.
Federally In its first federal election, seven CCF MPs were elected to the
House of Commons in
1935. Eight were elected in the following election in
1940, including their first member east of Manitoba,
Clarence Gillis, in Cape Breton, a coal-mining area of Nova Scotia (specifically the federal riding of
Cape Breton South). The party was divided with the outbreak of
World War II: Woodsworth was a
pacifist, while many party members supported the Canadian war effort. Woodsworth had a physically debilitating stroke in May 1940 and could no longer perform his duties as leader. In October, Woodsworth wrote a letter to the 1940 CCF convention, in essence asking to retire from the leadership. Instead, the delegates created the new position of Honorary President, abolished the President's position and re-elected
M. J. Coldwell as the National Chairman. Coldwell was then appointed acting House Leader on 6 November. Woodsworth died on 21 March 1942, and Coldwell officially became the new leader at the July convention in Toronto and threw the party behind the war effort. As a memorial to Woodsworth, Coldwell suggested that the CCF create a research foundation, and Woodsworth House was established in Toronto for that purpose. The party won a critical
York South by-election on 8 February 1942, and in the process prevented the
Conservative leader, former
Prime Minister Arthur Meighen, from entering the House of Commons. In the
1945 election, 28 CCF MPs were elected, and the party won 15.6% of the vote. In the
1949 election, 13 CCF candidates were elected. This was followed by 23 elected in the
1953 election and a disappointing eight elected in the
1958 election. (In that election, the party took almost ten per cent of the vote so was due about 26 MPs proportionally.)
Provincially The CCF party had its greatest success in provincial politics. In 1943, the
Ontario CCF became the official opposition in that province. In
1944, the Alberta CCF took almost a quarter of all votes cast but due to lack of PR other than in the cities, won just two seats. In 1944, the
Saskatchewan CCF formed the first democratic socialist government in
North America, with
Tommy Douglas as
premier. Douglas introduced universal
Medicare to
Saskatchewan, a policy that was soon adopted by other provinces and implemented nationally by the
Liberal Party of Canada during the administration of Prime Minister
Lester B. Pearson. Tommy Douglas's CCF governed Saskatchewan from 1944 to 1961. In
1945, BC CCF won 38 percent of the vote and ten seats.
New Party Federally, during the
Cold War, the CCF was accused of having
Communist leanings. The party moved to address these accusations in 1956 by replacing the Regina Manifesto with a more moderate document, the
Winnipeg Declaration. Nevertheless, the party did poorly in the
1958 federal election, winning only eight seats. After much discussion, the CCF and the
Canadian Labour Congress decided to join forces to create a new political party that could make
social democracy more popular with Canadian voters. This party, initially known as the
New Party, became the
New Democratic Party (NDP) in 1961. ==Electoral performance==