Liberal-Labour (Canada) - Ontario Legislature

Ontario Legislature

In the 1945 Ontario provincial election, the Communist Party of Canada (running as the Labour-Progressive Party) decided to run several candidates jointly with the Liberal Party of Ontario under Mitchell Hepburn. This was an attempt to marginalise the Ontario Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in elections to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.

The United Auto Workers participated in the effort and ran three Liberal-Labour candidates against CCF incumbents in Windsor including George Burt, Canadian director of the UAW, Alexander A. Parent, a Communist and president of UAW Local 195 and Arthur Reaume mayor of Winsor and formerly a Conservative who broke with his party to support UAW workers at Ford in their fight for the Rand Formula. Parent was elected in Essex North but Burt and Reaume were both defeated though vote-splitting also resulted in the defeat of two CCF incumbents.

The other two Liberal-Labour MPPs elected were James Newman of Rainy River and Joseph Meinzinger of Waterloo North, defeating CCF incumbents George Lockhart and John Henry Cook, respectively. Of the three, only Newman would be re-elected in the 1948 provincial election.

The decision by the Liberals, UAW members and Communists to collaborate was ironic given Hepburn's vociferous opposition to both Communism and the Congress of Industrial Organizations during his term as Premier of Ontario. Two pro-labour MPPs, David Croll and Arthur Roebuck, had resigned from Hepburn's cabinet in 1937 to protect to his anti-labour actions during a UAW strike in Oshawa, Ontario. (George Burt was Treasurer of the UAW's Oshawa local at the time of the strike.)

Another unsuccessful "Liberal-Labour" candidate was Arthur Reaume, mayor of Windsor, who had been a long time Tory and had run for George Drew's Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario in 1943 provincial election. Reaume ran again as "Liberal-Labour" in the 1948 provincial election, without success, and was finally elected in the 1951 provincial election as a "Liberal"

The ridings of Kenora and Rainy River (separate ridings provincially, a single riding federally) continued to nominate "Liberal-Labour" candidates to both the Ontario legislature and the Canadian House of Commons for decades.

Kenora had previously elected Peter Heenan as a Labour representative in the 1919 election. Heenan remained one of only four Labour MLAs (as MPPs were still known) re-elected in the 1923 election and was defeated in the 1926 election. He then entered federal politics becoming a federal Liberal and joining William Lyon Mackenzie King's Cabinet as Minister of Labour. In 1929 Earl Hutchinson recaptured Kenora as a Labour MLA. He was re-elected in 1934 but was persuaded to resign a few weeks later in order to allow Heenan ran in the subsequent by-election, this time as a Liberal. Heenan was elected and joined Mitchell Hepburn's Cabinet serving as Minister of Mines and Forests (1934-1941) and Minister of Labour (1941-1943) while Hutchinson was appointed vice-chairman of the Workmen's Compensation Board weeks after his resignation. Heenan was later defeated by William Docker of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in the 1943 provincial election in which the Liberals were reduced them to third party status. Subsequently, the Liberals ran Albert Wren as a "Liberal-Labour" candidate unsuccessfully in the 1948 election before his victory in the 1951 election.

• Albert Wren of Kenora was the longest serving "Liberal-Labour" MPP, sitting in the Ontario legislature from 1951 until his death in 1961. He ran for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party in 1954, coming in second, and again in 1958, coming in last. Robert Gibson succeeded Wren as the "Liberal-Labour" MPP for Kenora and served until just prior to the 1967 provincial election.

• Lloyd Harrison Price was elected as a "Liberal-Labour" MPP for Hastings East in a 1958 by-election but lost his seat the following year in the general election.

• T. Patrick Reid was elected "Liberal-Labour" MPP for the neighbouring riding of Rainy River in the 1967 provincial election He ran as a "Liberal" in the 1971 provincial election, and 1975 provincial election. He reverted to the "Liberal-Labour" label for the 1977 provincial election, and returned to being a "Liberal" MPP in 1981 provincial election, and left politics in 1984.

More recently, Liberals in Kenora such as former Member of Parliament Bob Nault have occasionally used the "Liberal-Labour" tag on some of their campaign literature (such as that handed out at plant gates) though they are listed as straight Liberals on the ballot.