In 1898 the Patrons of Industry proudly claimed credit for being "a powerful factor in opening the eyes of the people to the folly of extreme partyism." The Patrons of Industry was a farmer-based political movement in Ontario and the Prairies that elected many MPPs in the 1894 Ontario provincial election and a couple representatives in Manitoba as well.
Its name apparently was chosen because it signified farmers' importance as customers of manufacturers. But general farmers' distrust of the two main parties (and the extreme partyism they engaged in) led some in the PofI group to re-assess the name. It always had been an unusual name, but by the late 1890s sentiment was centring increasingly on the group's stand in favour of "independent" political action. (Moose Jaw Herald, Feb. 4, 1898, p. 5)
This came out in the 1898 convention held in Brandon. J.K. McInnis, a Grand president of the NWT PofI, attended on purpose. At that time, Manitoba had already been made a province but the rest of the Prairies was enclosed in the territory known as the North-West Territories which stretched from the 49th Parallel to the Arctic Islands. McInnis later saying it had been his duty to go there and then bring back news of the proceedings because the "farmers and labourers of the Territories have common cause with their brethren in Manitoba." (McInnis was mayor of Regina starting in 1899.)
McInnis said "... the necessity for united political action on the part of those who put country before party was never more urgent that at present. Popular reforms could not be expected from either party so long as the Government of the day, be it Grit or Tory dominated over Parliament instead of parliament controlling the government and directing its policy. The Patrons had been a powerful factor in opening the eyes of the people to the folly of extreme partyism."
What they called extreme partyism back then is what we call hard-line partisanship today.
Reformers opposed "extreme partyism" back then because it meant unethical fights for power between two umbrella parties crowding the centre, leaving workers and farmers without effective representation.
By the 1890s, Canadian workers and farmers were turning instead to independent politics, launching their own parties to take chances on the very uneven playing field that was First past the post district contests. The Patrons of Industry was the first "third party" to make big inroads into the Conservative-Liberal political log jam. For a short time in the 1890s, there were three major parties in the Ontario legislature, the first such appearance in Canada's history.
But the Patrson soon left the scene. It was later said that the Patrons collapsed in 1899 when its leader stepped down, after he had served as the group's leader since its start in 1891.
A few years later, Rice Sheppard, Edmonton farmer and political activist (and later city councillor) noted the dangers posed by an entrenched leadership of an organization. He was careful when he helped found the Alberta Farmer's Association in 1902 not to take the major leadership role but to ensure as wide participation as possible, to avoid this sort of dependency on one person. He also for many years tried to prevent Henry Wise Wood having perennial leadership of the farmer movement. The UFA was elected government of Alberta in 1921, 1926 and 1930 but only a few years after Wood's belated withdrawal from leadership in 1931, the organization lost all its representation in the Legislature. There were other factors, but Wood's leaving after more than a decade as UFA president contributed to the organization's political demise.
But the Patrons' collapse did not still the cry for social justice, for equity.
Soon after the Patrons vanished from the Ontario Legislature, branches of a "political reform society" popped up from Toronto to Edmonton. This gathered together union-minded city workers, country scribblers and homesteading radicals.
The political reform societies helped spawn the organized farmers movements that eventually lead to farmer governments in Ontario (1919) and Alberta (1921) - the UFA being led by Henry Wise Wood, as mentioned.
Thank you for reading.
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