Date Published:
March 2005

L’Encyclopédie de l’histoire du Québec / The Quebec History Encyclopedia

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

(CCF)

[This article was published in 1948; it is evident that it had not been revised since the first edition of 1935 of the Encyclopedia of Canada. For the full citation, see the end of the text.]

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, a new political organization in Canada, popularly known as the "C.C.F." It was brought into existence at Calgary, Alberta, on August 1, 1932, when representatives of farm and labour organizations in the four western provinces and Ontario met to discuss plans for the formation of a Dominion-wide Socialist party. A platform was adopted which included the following planks: (1) the establishment of a planned system of social economy for the production, distribution, and exchange of all goods and services; (2) socialization of the banking, credit, and financial system of the country, together with the social ownership, development, operation, and control of utilities and natural resources; (3) security of tenure for the worker and the farmer in his home; (4) retention and extension of all existing social legislation   and facilities, with adequate provision for insurance against crop failure, illness, accident, old age, and unemployment; (5) equal economic and social opportunity without regard to sex, nationality, or religion; (6) encouragement of all co-operative enterprises aiming at the achievement of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation; (7) socialization of health services; and (8) acceptance by the Dominion government of responsibility for the unemployed through the supply of suitable work or adequate maintenance. J. S. Woodsworth, Labour member of parliament for Winnipeg North Centre, was elected president of the Federation; and he immediately proceeded with the organization of the new party. The United Farmers of Ontario were persuaded to affiliate themselves with the Federation, and C.C.F. clubs were formed throughout Ontario for the enrolment of the "vast unattached body of Canadians" not connected with labour or farmer groups; and an attempt was made to organize the new party in the Maritime provinces. In 1934 the United Farmers of Ontario withdrew from the Federation; but in the provincial elections in British Columbia, in 1933, the C.C.F. candidates polled a considerable vote.

[Consult the article entitled The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) and the New Democratic Party (NDP): their Failure in Quebec, 1932-1997 in the Readings section of the site.]

Election results 1935-1958

* Not including Agnes Macphail who was a CCF member elected as a United Farmers of Ontario-Labour MP.

Source  : W. Stewart WALLACE, ed., The Encyclopedia of Canada, Vol. II, Toronto, University Associates of Canada, 1948, 411p., pp. 125-126. Election results from Wikipedia Encyclopedia, reproduced by Permission.