Saskatchewan Progress Party

The Saskatchewan Progress Party is a liberal political party in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was founded in 1905 as the Liberal Party of Saskatchewan, and retained that name until members voted to change it in 2023. Until 2009, the party was affiliated with the Liberal Party of Canada.
The Liberals were a dominant force in Saskatchewan politics during the first half of the twentieth century, forming government for all but five years between 1905 and 1944. With the emergence of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation under Tommy Douglas' leadership, the Liberals spent the following two decades in Opposition before forming two more majority governments from 1964 to 1971. However, the party lost influence in the latter stages of the twentieth century. Although it reached Opposition status again in the mid-1990s, even that term was disrupted when much of the caucus abandoned the party to form the new Saskatchewan Party in 1997. The 1999 election marked the last time any Liberals were elected to the Legislature.

History

Early history (1905–1944)

Political dominance (1905–1929)

The Liberal Party dominated Saskatchewan politics from the province's earliest days. Saskatchewan entered Confederation in September 1905 alongside neighbouring Alberta. Both provinces were carved out of the Northwest Territories; territorial premier Frederick Haultain had advocated for the creation of one large western province called Buffalo, but Wilfrid Laurier's federal Liberal government opted to create two provinces instead, wary of the potential strength of a province the size of Buffalo. Haultain responded by seeking the premiership of Saskatchewan under the banner of his Provincial Rights Party, but Saskatchewan voters opted in 1905 for the provincial Liberal Party under the leadership of Walter Scott. This marked the beginning of a long Liberal dynasty in the new Prairie province—the party provided six of the province's first seven premiers.
With the Liberals a strong force at the federal level, Saskatchewan voters appear to have preferred a provincial government that had influence at the national level, and there was crossover with Liberal premiers like Charles Dunning and Jimmy Gardiner moving on to key federal cabinet positions. As a consequence, the provincial Liberals presided over the province at a time of tremendous growth as a rapidly expanding population driven by immigration—the province became the third most populous in the country after Ontario and Quebec—established a large agricultural economy.
One of the keys to Liberal success was their close relationship with immigrant communities and especially with the largest farmers' lobby in the province, the Saskatchewan Grain Growers' Association. While United Farmer governments took power in both Alberta and Manitoba during the 1920s, and while the agrarian Progressive Party performed well in Saskatchewan at the federal level, the direct entry of farmers into provincial politics was fended off for longer in Saskatchewan by Liberal leadership attuned to farmers' organizations. Early Liberal premiers were even known to invite key agrarian organizers to the cabinet table.
The Liberals also stood against a rising tide of nativist sentiment in the province in the 1920s. While the Ku Klux Klan gained a foothold in the province—the organization had 25,000 members in Saskatchewan by 1929—and fomented discriminatory attitudes towards French, Catholic, and Eastern European settlers, Premier Gardiner defended his government's immigration policies and called the Klan both a foreign entity and a tool of the provincial Conservative Party. The Conservatives were reported to have aided Klan organization by supplying it with membership lists, and the party itself developed a nativist platform in the late 1920s, promising to protect British, Anglo-Saxon values. The Liberals were also heavily criticized for years of blatant patronage, which helped to move farmers closer to greater political participation and, more immediately, solidified a strong anti-Liberal bloc in the province. In the 1929 election, although the Liberals managed to win the most seats with 28, they fell short of a majority for the first time. They proved unable to gain the confidence of the Legislature, resulting in a coalition government under Conservative premier James T.M. Anderson—his party won 24 seats, and gained the support of the handful of Progressive and Independent members to form a coalition that they termed the "Co-operative" government.

Opposition and return to power (1929–1944)

Anderson's government took power at the outset of the Great Depression, which proved to be especially severe for the Prairie provinces and which provided the Liberals with ample opportunity to criticize the government's inability to contend with the crisis. In 1932, Anderson even invited Gardiner's Liberals into his coalition, but Gardiner refused. At the same time, a new political party was gaining momentum in the province. In 1932, farmers with United Farmers of Canada voted to formally enter politics, and after a merger with the Independent Labour Party did so under the banner of Farmer-Labour; the new party became a founding member of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation that same year. The party was explicitly socialist, rapidly changing the dynamics of provincial politics.
Gardiner and the Liberals were able to return to power in 1934; the Conservatives failed to return a single member, and Farmer-Labour became the Official Opposition with five members to the Liberals' fifty. After the election, Farmer-Labour officially adopted the CCF party name. Almost immediately, Gardiner had to contend with the passage through Saskatchewan of the On-to-Ottawa Trek, a 1935 convoy meant to take the concerns of unemployed workers directly to the federal government. Prime Minister R.B. Bennett declared that the trekkers would not proceed past Regina, which acted as the headquarters to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Gardiner protested, predicting a riot. He was proven correct on July 1 1935, when the Regina Riot led to two deaths and hundreds of injuries.
The Liberals held on to their majority in the 1938 election, but they lost twelve seats as the Depression continued and the CCF gained further momentum. Although the Second World War began to relieve Depression conditions, by 1944 the CCF, under new leader Tommy Douglas, appeared poised to take power.

Varying fortunes (1944–1978)

Opposition to the CCF (1944–1964)

In the 1944 election, Saskatchewan elected the first democratic socialist government in North America under Douglas' CCF. The Liberals were soundly beaten, dropping to only five seats. CCF organizing had effectively captured the Liberals' traditional base, with farmers and immigrant settlers largely moving to the new party. The CCF's 1944 win marked the beginning of twenty years in government over five successive majorities. In Opposition, the Liberals became a vehemently anti-socialist party, persistently railing against the CCF government's interventions in the economy and presenting themselves as a free-market alternative. The Liberals staked the 1948 election on the slogan "Tucker or tyranny", referencing leader Walter Tucker. The CCF was re-elected to a reduced majority. In 1957, future party leader Ross Thatcher famously held a televised debate against Douglas in Mossbank on the topic of the province's crown corporations. Accounts tended to label the debate a draw, which was considered an achievement against the formidable Douglas. All the while, the CCF focused intently on building a modern welfare state.
The biggest battle between the two parties occurred over the introduction of universal health care in the early 1960s. The CCF effectively pitched the 1960 election as a referendum on the issue, and were re-elected to their fifth majority. However, the Liberals under Thatcher came firmly to the support of the province's organized medical profession, which was adamantly opposed to the scheme. Douglas resigned his post in the middle of this battle in 1961 to take on the leadership of the federal New Democratic Party, and a 1962 doctors' strike threatened to put an end to the plan. However, the strike was resolved and medicare was introduced in 1962, soon to be expanded nationwide.

Thatcher government (1964–1971)

With the province divided over the bitter medicare debate, Thatcher was able to lead the Liberals back to a majority government in the 1964 election, although the popular vote was a virtual tie. Thatcher—who had begun his own career as a member of the CCF—promised to open Saskatchewan for business and to dramatically scale back the government's involvement in the economy. His biggest success came in the potash sector; while the industry got off the ground under the CCF, it expanded rapidly in the latter half of the 1960s, so much so that Thatcher ultimately negotiated a minimum price and production cap with American producers. Although Thatcher had opposed the implementation of medicare, his government proved unable to reverse it with the program being rolled out across the country; Thatcher's government did, however, controversially introduce limited user fees for medical services.
Thatcher focused on downsizing the civil service, which was greatly expanded by the CCF. During the Thatcher years, many veteran Saskatchewan civil servants found themselves migrating to other provinces or to Lester Pearson's federal government—which focused largely on expanding the federal welfare state—and these migrants became known in government circles as the "Saskatchewan Mafia".
Thatcher called an early election in 1967 and won another majority. However, after the election Thatcher embraced a program of austerity, reducing spending and introducing medicare fees, which became derided as "deterrence fees". A downturn in the provincial economy further eroded the government's popularity. In a 1971 election that the Liberals framed as a choice between capitalism and socialism, the Liberals were soundly beaten by a resurgent CCF—now called the NDP—under the leadership of Allan Blakeney, who promised a return to the CCF approach of economic planning. Thatcher died suddenly just three weeks after the election, leaving the Opposition leaderless for most of the rest of the year. In 1975, the Liberals were able to hold on to their fifteen seats and remain the Opposition, but for the first time in more than forty years, the Conservatives—now the Progressive Conservatives —won multiple seats.