Western Protest
Formerly part of the North-West Territories (which
was demarcated from the rest of Canada in 1875),
the two Prairie provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan
attained provincehood
in 1905, but did not obtain control of their own
natural resources
until 1930.
Yet even before entering the Dominion of Canada,
the West had an entrenched antipathy to eastern
Canada, which it did not believe protected or
promoted the interests of westerners. By the First
World War, western Canadians were generally suspicious
of the federal government, which seemed more concerned
with pandering to the interests of the more heavily-populated
"Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto triangle" than
other parts of the country. When Prime Minister
Robert Borden granted a military
exemption to western farmers in 1917, and
then reneged on his promise several weeks later,
the already-established pattern of Western protest
was reinforced.
Matters worsened with the economic depression
following the First World War, which created working-class
discontent and made the West ripe for confrontation.
This occurred in the famous 1919 Winnipeg
General Strike, which greatly alarmed Winnipeg's
city elites
yet rallied thousands of political and labour
activists, many of whom faced arrest and imprisonment
for their display of labour
solidarity. This included Methodist minister
J.S. Woodsworth,
who was charged with seditious
libel and was incarcerated briefly. This unparalleled
withdrawal of labour in a major Western city showed
that all was not right on the Prairies.
The confrontation in Winnipeg, however, was only
one manifestation of western grievances. During
and following the First World War, western social
reformers clamoured for prohibition
and women's suffrage, which they considered
to be part of a broader battle for order and equality
in the Canadian Confederation. Meanwhile, political
activists, weary of the dominance of old-line
parties which did not acknowledge the contributions
of the West to the Canadian economy or polity,
looked to third-party protest movements to exert
influence. This they found in the unorthodox National
Progressive Party, which succeeded in winning
enough seats to form the official opposition in
the 1921 federal election.
By the 1920s, the West had an established regional
identity that would manifest itself in future
political and social protest movements with a
distinctive western flair. In the years to come,
the rest of Canada would have no choice but to
sit up and take notice.
Further
Readings
See also
Laurier
and the Prairie West
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