By the end of the First World War, Canadian workers were fed up with wartime profiteering, rising inflation without a comparable increase in wages, and the federal government's outlawing of strikes and lockouts in 1918. Indeed, Canadian labour had a long list of grievances about wages and working conditions in Canada's war industries. Fair wage clauses had not been part of the war contracts and thus, the wages of war workers had not been protected. While wages did rise, inflation almost doubled between 1915 and 1919, the cost of living shot up over 50 percent, and the cost of food alone rose nearly 75 percent. Many workers called for reform while other labour radicals called for a general strike and even revolution.

By 1917-1918, rising union membership and increased labour discontent set the stage for a series of national strikes. Some 50,000 shopcraft workers on the major railways, who repaired and maintained the trains, went on strike in 1918, as did 5,000 West Coast shipyard workers, along with national letter carriers. Strikes spread across Canadian cities, including Winnipeg, where the civic workers' strike spread to near general-strike proportions. In the end, Winnipeg's city workers won most of their demands, including recognition of the right of most civic workers to strike. Most of the strikes were caused by workers wanting union recognition and increased wages to keep up with the cost of living in the post-First World War period.