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Rise Of The Cooperative Commonwealth Federation In Saskatchewan During The 1930s

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The rise of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan during the 1930s and the early 1940s was one of the most significant political shifts in Canadian history. The election in 1944 heralded the defeat of the previously dominant Liberals and made the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation the main political force in Saskatchewan until the end of the twentieth century. However, this rise was not just due to the success of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation's rhetoric; in convincing the population that the Liberals and Progressive-Conservatives were too closely aligned with the current and economic and political systems. The rise was also due to political missteps, on both the part of the Liberals and Progressive-Conservatives, …show more content…

The fact that many of the Saskatchewan farmers, the core of the party’s support base were also either of British descent, or identified as being part of a British Saskatchewan, made it easy for the farmers to identify with a political party modeled on after the British party organization and British socialist and labour ideology as the foundation for the party’s ideology. The farmers were also culturally, for all intense and purposes, British, and recognized, even in the economically prosperous times of the 1920s, that they needed the sort of reform that the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation advocated: “We need… co-operation in each class, leading to complete co-operation between classes… we all [need] to all awake to the need of working together for the good of the whole community.” Not only is this eerily similar to the party’s literature of the 1930s and 1940s, but it also illustrates the class consciousness of the farmers, as well as the urban and rural divide. This was also adopted from British socialist and Labour parties and again found a receptive audience among those, urban and rural, anxious for social and economic

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