Orange Order in Canada - The Rest of Canada

The Rest of Canada

The Orange Lodge was a centre for community activity in Newfoundland. For example, in 1903 Sir William Coaker founded the Fisherman's Protective Union (F.P.U.) in an Orange Hall in Herring Neck. Furthermore, during the term of Commission of Government (1934–1949), the Orange Lodge was one of only a handful of "democratic" organizations that existed in the Dominion of Newfoundland. It supported Newfoundland's confederation with Canada in reaction to Catholic bishops' support for self-government.

The Orange Order was also a force in the Maritime Provinces, such that riots surrounding Orange marches occurred in the 1840s (a period of Irish mass immigration) in New Brunswick. Even tiny Woodstock, New Brunswick experienced a riot in 1847 on The Twelfth (July 12, the anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne), near a now vanished Orange Hall at the corner of Victoria and Boyne streets. The height of conflict was a riot in Saint John on July 12, 1849, in which at least 12 people died. The violence subsided as Irish immigration declined.

After 1945, the Canadian Orange Order rapidly declined in membership and political influence. The development of the welfare state made its fraternal society functions less important. A more important cause of the decline was the secularization of Canadian society: with fewer Canadians attending churches of any sort, the old division between Protestant and Catholic seemed less relevant.