Many Ontario voters voted for the United Farmers group in the 1919 Ontario election. But the Farmers did not have support of majority of voters nor did it take a majority of seats in the legislature. The UFO's predominance in the chamber did give it the right to form government but it could only remain in power if it had the support of a majority of members in the chamber.
The United Farmers of Ontario formed a coalition government with 11 Labour MLAs and three Independent candidates of varying stripes. The coalition held a slight majority of the seats.
The parties it represented had taken about 34 percent of the vote in the 1919 election. The rest of the votes had been split between the Conservatives, the Liberals and others, many of which were unsuccessful candidates. (Under First Past The Post, any votes cast for unsuccessful candidates are simply disregarded.)
The UFO derived a benefit from winning many rural seats where the number of votes involved were less than in the urban districts. In North Brant the UFO candidate won while receiving only 3600 votes while in Ottawa West the Conservative candidate took 9000 votes to win his seat.
The party approached Ernest Charles Drury, who had not run in the election, to serve as party leader and premier. Drury had not run in the 1919 election and was elected in a by-election held in Halton in 1920. He made it known that the coalition government party should be known by the name "The People's Party." (1920 Parliamentary Guide, p. 316 (https://archive.org/details/canadianparliame1920unse/page/316/mode/2up))
Most of the seats the United Farmers won were taken at the expense of the Conservative party, who had formed the government in the preceding assembly and would again regain power in 1923.
During the election, the UFO had run candidates in rural areas and the Independent Labour Party had run candidates in urban areas so there was no vote splitting between them
The UFO platform called for the abolition of political patronage and for the provision of better educational opportunities in rural areas, cheap electric power, Proportional Representation (which at the time meant STV), Direct Legislation and conservation of forests,. The UFO also favoured Prohibition, already in effect in the province, and budgetary restraint, two platform planks that were at odds with the views of many urban Labour supporters.
What did the UFO_Labour government accomplish?
The power wielded by the UFO-Labour coalition enabled the passage of progressive Labour and farmer legislation. The government created the first Department of Welfare for the province and brought in allowances for widows and children, a minimum wage for women and standardized adoption procedures. The government also expanded Ontario Hydro and promoted rural electrification, created the Province of Ontario Savings Office - a provincially owned bank that lent money to farmers at a lower rate - began the first major reforestation program in North America, and began construction of the modern highway system.
The government was a strict enforcer of the Ontario Temperance Act, enacted in 1916, and Prohibition stayed in force until 1927.
The 1923 election saw the UFO-Labour coalition government defeated by a re-energized Conservative Party. The UFO vote stayed solid as compared to 1919 but the UFO suffered under First Past The Post and took about half the seats it was due.
The power wielded by the UFO-Labour coalition enabled the passage of progressive Labour and farmer legislation. The government created the first Department of Welfare for the province and brought in allowances for widows and children, a minimum wage for women and standardized adoption procedures. The government also expanded Ontario Hydro and promoted rural electrification, created the Province of Ontario Savings Office - a provincially owned bank that lent money to farmers at a lower rate - began the first major reforestation program in North America, and began construction of the modern highway system.(Wiki: United Farmers of Ontario)
The government was a strict enforcer of the [Ontario Temperance Act, enacted in 1916, and Prohibition stayed in force until 1927.
The 1923 election saw the UFO-Labour coalition government defeated by a re-energized Conservative Party. The UFO vote stayed solid as compared to 1919 but the UFO suffered under [[First past the post]] and took about half the seats it was due.
PR
In the waning days of the UFO-Labour government, the government attempted to reform the province's electoral system (to introduce proportional representation) but the effort failed, in part due to Conservative opposition. The UFO suffered under the First past the post electoral system used in the 1923 election, taking just about half the seats they were due proportionally. (Blais, To Keep or to Change First Past The Post, p. 113)
Edmonton Bulletin reported in April just two months before the expected upcoming general election, that the government was putting forward legislation to establish re-distribution, proportional representation and STV. The Conservative leader expressed the thought that fair and equitable treatment could not be given these topics in the little time remaining before the election. (Edmonton Bulletin, April 13, 1923)
A week later the Conservative engaged in filibustering in opposition to redistribution. One MPP spoke for three hours reading quotes from British sources in opposition to proportional representation. It was reported that some member of the government were not in favour of the electoral reforms being considered. (Edmonton Bulletin, April 18, 1923)
Two days later Premier Drury admitted defeat. He withdrew the proposed re-distribution/PR bill, blaming the Conservative opposition. He said the issue would people would deliver their verdict on the case in the upcoming election. Mention of the voters deciding the issue was applauded in all sections of the chamber.
The Liberal leader dis-associated his party from the Conservative obstructionism, and said his party was ready to co-operate on the reform bill.
The Premier defended his government's attempt to effect reform in that direction, saying "PR is in the platforms of three of the parties in the Legislature and 15 percent of its members were elected with it in their platforms.That means that we should at least make a trial of it. The Legislature itself has passed the principle of proportional representation. Under the circumstances no government would be doing its duty if it failed to bring it in as part of redistribution."
The Independent Labour Party, with 11 MPPs, was the third party that supported PR, as Drury mentioned.
The Liberal Party put adoption of PR in its election platform as the election loomed closer.
In April 26 , the Liberal party said it would run candidates in every district, instead of leaving way open for easy re-election of UFO members.
And it presented its own proposals for electoral reform
- the use of Alternative Voting in every district where more than two candidates are nominated. (Alternative Voting is better known under the name Instant-runoff Voting.)
- the representation by population should be observed with due regard for country boundaries
- redistribution should not be introduced in the last years of a government but should be discussed in the first session following a census
- that proportional representation should be the method of election and brought in by grouping certain districts. Proportional representation at that time meant Single Transferable Voting in multi-member districts.
He said he expected the Liberal party to take 50 seats in the upcoming election and if not hold power, to at least be of considerable influence in the Legislature. He said Ontario ought to have had redistribution, blaming the UFO government for not moving earlier on that issue. (Edmonton Bulletin, April 26, 1923)
What did the UFO accomplish while in power?
The power wielded by the UFO-Labour coalition enabled the passage of progressive Labour and farmer legislation. The government created the first Department of Welfare for the province and brought in allowances for widows and children, a minimum wage for women and standardized adoption procedures. The government also expanded Ontario Hydro and promoted rural electrification, began the first major reforestation program in North America, and began construction of the modern highway system.(source: Wiki: United Farmers of Ontario)
It also engaged in monetary reform, along the lines of "social credit". It created the Province of Ontario Savings Office - a provincially-owned bank that lent money to farmers at a lower rate. The bank also offered higher interest rates to those with deposited savings while also providing money to the government at lower than the usual big-bank's interest rate too. (This public bank proved ot be profitable and would be closed up in early 2000s by the Conservative party just due to ideological principles.)
The government was a strict enforcer of the Ontario Temperance Act enacted in 1916, and Prohibition stayed in force until 1927.
The 1923 election
The Ontario Conservative Party, led by George Howard Ferguson, was elected to power with a majority in the Legislature (although taking less than half the votes cast). This election ended the rule of Drury's UFO-Labour coalition government.
It is wrong though to say that votes turned against the UFO -- the UFO actually took a larger proportion of the vote than it had in 1919. But due to the First Past The Post system in place, it took just a fraction of the seats it had taken in 1919. This was due to much of the anti-UFO vote concentrating behind Conservative Party candidates.
In 1919, the UFO had benefited from the kind of lucky breaks that are produced by FPTP but in 1923 it had no such luck. In 1919 the UFO had been the most popular party and had taken more seats than any other party. But in 1923 the Conservative Party and Liberal Party took more votes than the UFO, with the Conservatives taking a great majority of the seats in the legislature. Even with PR, the UFO would have retained its government position. But with PR, it would have taken 22 seats instead of the eight seats it took under FPTP.
Under PR, the Conservatives would likely not have won a majority of seats in the legislature. But under FPTP the Conservative party took 20 more seats than its due - these were seats not won by Independents - they won none; the Liberals won 7 seats fewer than its due, and the UFO took 5 seats fewer than its due.
If the UFO had succeeded in changing to PR, it likely would have taken its due share of seats, and the appearance of a Conservative avalanche wold have been avoided. The "avalanche" was just an artificial creation of FPTP - the Conservatives actually proportionally did not deserve more than half the seat in the legislature. And under no true PR system should they have taken very much more than half the seats.
Ontario never did thereafter part with the FPTP system, and the leading party in every election each time took more seats than it was due with the other parties receiving fewer seats than their due.
Suffering the artificially-created near-wipeout that it did in 1923, the UFO never again took many votes and even fewer seats.
It hung on though and rolled itself into the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Farmer-Labour-Socialist) party, becoming an important part of that party.
The Ontario CCF did well in the 1943 provincial election, winning 34 seats and forming the official opposition. Two-years later, the CCF took one-third fewer votes and lost three-quarters of its seats. In the 1948 election, the Ontario CCF elected 21 MPPs and again formed the official opposition. The Progressive Conservative Party won another majority government, this time with just 42 percent of the vote.
The unfair representation created by the FPTP system that the UFO did not end continued into the 1950s. In 1951 the CCF took just two seats although receiving 19 percent of the votes, which should have given it 17 seats.
Suffering such suppression of its representation, the CCF (and the NDP after 1961) never did again advance to government until 1990. That year the strange fates dictated by FPTP finally benefited the NDP. It took majority government with just 38 percent of the vote. It was not to last long in power - its votes dropped to 20 percent in the next election, in 1995, and a different party (the Conservatives) came into power (majority government) with just 45 percent of the votes.
And Ontario's FPTP has kept producing false majorities and dis-proportionalities ever since - all due to the UFO not making needed reforms back in the 1919-1923 period.
(info. from Wikipedia: 15th Parliament in Ontario)
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