William Irvine (Canadian politician)
William Irvine (April 19, 1885 – October 26, 1962) was a
Early life
Irvine was born at
Irvine was a follower of the
In addition to his work as a Unitarian minister, Irvine became politically active after moving to Alberta. He helped establish an Alberta branch of the radical agrarian Non-Partisan League (NPL) in December 1916, and was an NPL representative at the creation of the Alberta Labor Representation League (LRL) in April 1917. Irvine himself stood as an LRL candidate in the 1917 provincial election, but was defeated in Calgary.[4] He also founded the Nutcracker newspaper in 1916, and oversaw its later transformations to the Alberta Non-Partisan and the Western Independent.[5]
Political career
First campaigns
He campaigned for the
Still supported by his local congregation, he set up his own "People's Church" in Calgary in 1919 as part of the Labour church movement.[7]
In the same year, he helped establish the Alberta wing of the Dominion Labor Party.[8]
Irvine lived briefly in
Irvine's first book, Farmers in Politics (1920), endorsed the UFA policies of economic co-operation and group government.[10]
Member of Parliament, 1920s
Irvine was first elected to the House of Commons in the 1921 federal election as a Dominion Labour Party candidate in Calgary East. Two other Labour MPs were elected in Canada that year - Joseph Shaw (Calgary) and J. S. Woodsworth (Winnipeg North Centre). Irvine became close political and personal friends with Woodsworth.
Irvine and Woodsworth launched an investigation into
Irvine was defeated in 1925 when he ran for re-election.
He was next elected in 1926, when he ran for the UFA in the rural Alberta riding of Wetaskiwin. Despite the change in his party affiliation, he remained a leading ally of Woodsworth and of farmer-labour co-operation. He, Woodsworth and many Farmer and Labour MPs formed the "Ginger Group", which pushed and prodded the House of Commons to pass pro-labour and pro-farmer legislation. His book Co-operative Government was published in 1929.
In the late 1920s, Irvine introduced a bill to abolish capital punishment.[13]
He was re-elected in 1930 to the Wetaskiwin seat, receiving 4800 votes, 40 percent of votes cast in the district.
Irvine, Woodsworth and several other farmer and labour MPs met and decided to found a national labour-farmer political party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation party. That meeting was held in Irvine's parliamentary office in 1932.[14]
Irvine was active in the founding of the CCF in Calgary in 1932 and helped bring the UFA into the CCF in early 1933 and the parliamentary UFA caucus into the CCF for the 1935 election.
Irvine became the first president of the Alberta CCF.
He and all the other UFA MPs were defeated in the 1935 election, succumbing to Social Credit candidates.
Irvine wrote many books on the CCF's policies and plans. This included Let us reason together: An appeal to Social Crediters and C.C.F.'ers (1936); The Forces of Reconstruction. A Review of World-Conditions under Capitalism, and the forces working towards the Co-operative Commonwealth (1934); Co-operation or Catastrophe. An Interpretation of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation and its Policy (1934); and Is socialism the answer?: The intelligent man's guide to basic democracy (1945). He also wrote two plays on political and economic reform You Can't Do that and In Brains We Trust.
He attempted to re-enter parliament in 1936 through a
He returned to parliament in the 1945 election for the British Columbia riding of Cariboo.[15] He served in the House of Commons for four years. He was defeated in 1949 when the opposition united behind Liberal candidate George Matheson Murray.
Irvine made three more attempts to return to parliament, in the 1950s, but was unsuccessful each time.
Notes
References
Footnotes
- ^ Mardiros (1979), p. 6.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), pp. 9–11.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), pp. 19–21, 26–27.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), pp. 56–60.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), pp. 41, 62, 76.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), pp. 45–47, 64.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), p. 67.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), p. 78.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), p. 81.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), pp. 87–90, 102.
- ^ The U.F.A., April 16, 1923, p. 12
- ^ a b Mardiros (1979), p. 144.
- ^ Mardiros (1979), p. 130.
- ^ McNaught (2001), pp. 259–260.
- ^ "William (Bill) Irvine and The Social Gospel: Advocate of the Synergies of Socialism and the Social Gospel of Jesus". Saskatoon: Unitarian Congregation of Saskatchewan. 2012. Archived from the original on 2012-06-23. Retrieved 2012-05-27.
Bibliography
- Mardiros, Anthony (1979). The Life of a Prairie Radical. Toronto: J. Lorimer. ISBN 978-0888622372.
- ISBN 0-8020-3555-8.
Further reading
- Carman, Francis A. (1923). "The Labour Party in Parliament". Dalhousie Review. 2 (4): 444–456. ISSN 0011-5827.
- Finkel, Alvin (1985). "The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party in Alberta, 1917-42". Labour / Le Travail. 16: 61–96. JSTOR 25142509.
External links
- William (Bill) Irvine and The Social Gospel
- William Irvine – Parliament of Canada biography
- Irvine fonds at Glenbow, Calgary [1]