Manitoba Liberal Party
The Manitoba Liberal Party is a political party in Manitoba, Canada. Its roots can be traced to the late 19th century, following the province's creation in 1870.
History
Origins and early development (to 1883)
Originally, there were no official political parties in Manitoba, although many leading politicians were affiliated with parties that existed at the national level. In Manitoba's first Legislative Assembly, the leader of the opposition was Edward Hay, a Liberal who represented the interests of recent anglophone immigrants from Ontario. Not a party leader as such, he was still a leading voice for the newly transplanted "Ontario Grit" tradition. In 1874, Hay served as Minister of Public Works in the government of Marc-Amable Girard, which included both Conservatives and Liberals.During the 1870s, a Liberal network began to emerge in the city of Winnipeg. One of the key figures in this network was William Luxton, owner of the Manitoba Free Press newspaper and himself a member of the Manitoba legislature on two occasions. Luxton was not initially supportive of Premier Robert A. Davis, but endorsed the Davis ministry after he brought John Norquay into cabinet. Luxton subsequently supported Davis and Norquay against Conservative Orangeman Thomas Scott, a leader of the local opposition.
Although the Davis administration was on favourable terms with federal Liberal Prime Minister Alexander Mackenzie, his successor Norquay was more closely aligned with the federal Conservatives. This was partly a matter of necessity. As a small province, Manitoba needed to be on favourable terms with whatever party was in power at the federal level. As such, when John A. Macdonald's Conservatives were returned to power in 1878, the local balance of power began to shift. Luxton's Liberal network supported Norquay against Scott in 1878 and 1879, but was subsequently marginalized by the Norquay government. In 1882, Norquay forged a new alliance with the province's Conservatives.
Leadership of Thomas Greenway (1883–1904)
In 1882, Thomas Greenway formed a new organization known as the Provincial Rights Party, which called for greater provincial control over resources and the railway.Based in the province's rural areas, this group soon surpassed the Winnipeg Liberals as the dominant opposition to Norquay. After the election of 1883, Greenway united the opposition MLAs into the Manitoba Liberals. For the next 21 years, Greenway's control over the party would be unchallenged.
Following the 1888 general election, Greenway's Liberals took power and formed Manitoba's first declared partisan government. As premier, Greenway ended federal disallowance of Manitoba railway legislation and the Canadian Pacific Railway's monopoly, bringing the Northern Pacific into the province to induce competition in freight rates.
The Greenway government's most notable feat in office was curtailing the rights of Manitoba's French Canadian population. Manitoba had been founded as a bilingual province, but Greenway's government provoked the Manitoba Schools Question, ending the educational rights of Catholics, and making the public school system entirely English and Protestant. English became the province's sole official language.
Greenway was able to win large majorities in 1892 and 1896, based largely on single-issue populism relating to the schools question. After this was resolved in 1897, his government became increasingly directionless.
In 1899, the Liberals were defeated by the Hugh John Macdonald-led Manitoba Conservative Party.
The Liberals were unable to regain their previous support base in the decade that followed. Greenway continued to lead the party through a disastrous 1903 campaign, winning only 9 seats. He resigned in 1904 to run for federal office as MP for Lisgar.
Early 20th century
was chosen parliamentary leader on December 5, 1904, and led the party until a provincial convention was held in late March 1906. That convention acclaimed Edward Brown as the party's new leader. Brown failed to win a seat in the 1907 election, however, and resigned shortly thereafter. Mickle again became the party's legislative leader, and served as leader of the opposition until leaving politics in 1909.Tobias Norris became Liberal leader in 1910. When the Tories under Rodmond Roblin resigned amid scandal in 1915, Norris became the province's premier, and retained the position until 1922. The Norris Liberals introduced temperance laws, suffrage for women, workers compensation, compulsory education, and minimum wage, as well as the establishment of a public-nursing system, rural farm credit, regulation of industrial conditions, and a mother's allowance for widowed dependent mothers.
The Norris administration's relationship with the Liberal Party of Canada under Wilfrid Laurier was often antagonistic. Norris withdrew funding for French-language education in 1916, at a time when the federal Liberals were attempting to regain the support of Quebec nationalists. The Manitoba Liberals also supported Robert Borden's Union government in the election of 1917, and were not reconciled with the "Laurier Liberals" until 1922. Even then, they refused to officially re-align themselves with the federal party.
The Liberals were swept from power in 1922 by the United Farmers of Manitoba, who were also known as the Progressive Party. Norris continued to lead the party through most of the 1920s, but was replaced by Hugh Robson before the 1927 election. Robson, in turn, resigned on January 3, 1930. He was replaced as parliamentary leader by James Breakey. In 1931, Murdoch Mackay was selected as the party's official leader.
Liberal-Progressive Party: Merger with the Progressives
Pressured by William Lyon Mackenzie King, Mackay brought the Liberals into a coalition with Premier John Bracken's Progressives before the 1932 election. The national Progressive Party had been largely absorbed into the Liberal Party of Canada by this time, and King believed that it was foolish to divide the resources of the parties within Manitoba. He was especially concerned that the Conservatives could recapture the provincial government if the Liberals and Progressives were not united.For the election of 1932, the provincial government referred to itself as "Liberal-Progressive". A small group of Liberals, led by St. Boniface mayor David Campbell, opposed the merger and ran as "Continuing Liberals". They were resoundingly defeated. After the election, the Liberals of Manitoba were absorbed into the Progressive Party. Two non-coalition Liberals were elected in 1936, but they were not intended to represent a rival party.
Despite being dominated by Progressives, the merged party soon became popularly known as the "Liberal Party of Manitoba". The federal Progressive Party had long since disappeared, and the "Progressive" name had little continued meaning in Manitoba politics.
1940s and 1950s
In 1940, Bracken's Liberal-Progressives forged an even broader coalition, bringing the Conservatives, Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, and Social Credit in a "non-partisan" government. This coalition governed the province until 1950, although the CCF left in 1943.The Liberal-Progressive governments were cautious and moderate. Bracken's government undertook few major initiatives, and was unfriendly to labour issues even during its alliance with the CCF. Following World War II, the government of Stuart Garson led a program of rapid rural electrification, but was otherwise as cautious as Bracken's. Garson left provincial politics in 1948 to join the federal Liberal Cabinet of Louis St. Laurent.
The government of Garson's successor, Douglas Lloyd Campbell, was socially conservative and generally opposed to state intervention of any sort. The educational system remained primitive, and no significant steps were taken on language or labour issues. The province did modernize its liquor laws during this period, however. Despite its Liberal-Progressive label, Campbell's government was one of the most right-wing provincial governments in Canada. It had somewhat frosty relations with the federal Liberals in the 1950s despite Garson being an influential cabinet minister.
The Liberal-Progressives lost their majority in the 1958 provincial election by the Progressive Conservatives under Dufferin Roblin. Campbell initially hoped to stay in office with a minority government supported by the CCF, but this was brought to nothing, and the CCF threw its support to a PC minority government. However, the Manitoba PCs were dominated by Red Tories, and Roblin's government was actually well to the left of Campbell's government.
Manitoba Liberal Party: Declining popularity (1960s–1970s)
, a protégé of Campbell, became party leader in 1961. Earlier that year, the party had formally renamed itself as simply the "Manitoba Liberal Party," over only scattered objections from Progressive diehards. Molgat prevented the Liberals from falling to third-party status during the 1960s, but never posed a serious threat to Roblin's government.Robert Bend, a former minister under Campbell, came out of retirement to lead the party in 1969. However, Bend's rural populism did not play well with urban voters. Under his leadership, the party adopted a "cowboy"/"rodeo" theme for the campaign, which made it look and sound dated. The election that followed was an unmitigated disaster; the party dropped to only five seats, the fewest it had ever won. Bend himself was unsuccessful in his bid to succeed Campbell in his own riding. A succession of leaders, including Israel Asper, Charles Huband, and Doug Lauchlan were unable to prevent the party's decline.
Well into the 1970s, the party was considered very right-wing for its time, despite the Liberal label. This was especially true under Asper's leadership; during his tenure as party leader Asper supported laissez-faire economics and an end to the welfare state—putting it to the right of the Tories. The party largely distanced itself from its right-wing past in the mid-1970s. By this time, however, the province was polarized between the Tories and the New Democratic Party of Manitoba, and the Liberals were unable to present themselves as a viable alternative. The party bottomed out in the 1981 election, when it was completely shut out of the legislature for the first time ever.