Reform Movement in Western Canada
Wooed by the lure of land, the prospect of opportunity and by respite from encroaching urbanization and industrialization, scores of settlers moved into Western Canada. From the initial Western frontiers in Manitoba to the eventual farthest reaches of the nation in British Columbia, the Western worldview and lifestyle can be distinguished from those of Eastern Canada in general terms. More liberal in many senses of the word, Western Canada developed into a bastion of radical thought, inspired in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century by Marxism, populism, and the British labor movement. However, a current of conservative social doctrine became concurrent with ideological liberalism in the West. Women like Nellie McClung typified what would become emblematic of the Reform Movement: a concern with morals, family values, traditional religious structures, and temperance. Moreover, Westerners became more noticeably class conscious than their Eastern counterparts because the West was settled and developed mainly by agrarians and miners. The labor movement took root especially fast in mining communities, whereas Progressive Party politics found fertile ground in the agricultural communities that flourished in Manitoba. While the
Socialist third parties readily formed strongholds in the West: including the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party. A "definitely and unmistakable Marxian" undercurrent engendered class consciousness in mining communities.4 Because class polarization between miners and mine owners was more visible in mining communities than in farming communities, Marxism did not become a prevailing philosophy of the farmers. Nevertheless, the farmers shared with the miners a mistrust of corporate interests and corporate protectionism in federal politics and demanded reform. Both the miners and the farmers suffered from what they perceived to be a resource-based economy in the West: capital flowed mainly out but not in and new entrepreneurial activity was slow to develop in the West compared to the East. However, the West was unlike the East in several key ways, one of which was geography. The prairies enabled a flourishing agricultural belt; land in Alberta and British Columbia was ripe for prospecting. Seemingly endless expanses of untouched land and untapped natural resources lured scores of settlers who sought respite from urban life or adventurous entrepreneurial independence. Christianity also helped to ferment many Western reform movements by adding a spiritual and ideological glue holding otherwise disparate ideas together. Another key feature of the Western Reform movement, in addition to economics and religion, was a desire for structural political change. Especially the agrarian idealists believed that the electoral process resulted in the political alienation of the West. Western citizens hoped for more local and provincial autonomy in addition to more recognition from Ottawa. Furthermore, the United Farmers of Alberta and other agrarian reform groups favored direct elections, and general themes of syndicalism and socialism pervaded the Reform movement's radical political agenda. Feminists like Nellie McClung also motivated structural reform by introducing to the ballot box the other half of the population. Women's suffrage would become a symbol for the reform movement not just because of gender equality but also because of the ties between the suffrage movement and the temperance movement. Such a sense of moral superiority was not limited to members of utopian communities in Western Canada. Rather, many more mainstream members of society cultivated a sense of moral hygiene, based mainly on Protestant Christian ideology. The religious-based utopian communities occasionally preached austerity and abstinence, while the Christian temperance movement transformed moral righteousness into a political lobby. The essence of both the temperance movement and the utopian agrarian community was in fact, reform. Both sought to reform existing social structures and institutions and to define life in Western Canada. The reform movement had split personalities. On the one hand, Westerners understood the benefits of big business and did not oppose capitalism per se. On the other hand, many Westerners used socialism and Marxism as a political foundation. Independence, individualism, and self-governance coexisted in the reform movement with demands for recognition from Ottawa, collectivism, and interdependence. Freedom of religious expression and lifestyle was tempered with restrictions on alcohol and a suppression of alternatives to the Protestant model. Liberal, even radical, democracy coexisted with moral conservativism. Reform was idealistic and sometimes naive, and yet the demand for change resulted in seemingly impossible victories, including women's suffrage. Western Canada, although peopled eventually with a substantial number of non-Protestant immigrants, retained a distinctively Protestant character. New waves of immigrants poured into Western Canada toward the end of the nineteenth and early twentieth century changed demographics more than they changed the impetus for reform. In fact, immigration and its concurrent pr
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Approximate Word count = 3933
Approximate Pages = 16 (250 words per page double spaced)
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