Times of Transformation positions the watershed 1921 federal election
in the context of activist efforts and the revolutionary mood in the
years following the Great War. New Liberal leader William Lyon
Mackenzie King, who went on to become Canada’s longest-serving prime
minister, came to power, with his party capturing every Quebec seat.
The 1921 election brought many Canadian firsts: the first
post-Confederation minority government, the first time women were
eligible to vote on terms equal to men, and the first effective
fracturing of the two-party system, with the establishment of a
federal Labour party and the dramatic rise of the Progressives. In her
engaging, in-depth account, Barbara Messamore shows how these changes
had been brewing at the activist level even before the end of the war.
The Progressive party owed its success to the increasing
politicization of farmers and the importance of tariff policy, freight
rates, and grain prices to the western voting base. Suffrage came
after a decades-long battle for political rights for women. Labour
strikes swept the nation in the post–Great War era, and a new
national Labour party gained Commons representation. The 1921 election
in Canada was a manifestation of long-building forces for change that
embodied the global zeitgeist of postwar disillusionment and hope.
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The 1921 Canadian General Election
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9780774870603
Publisert
2025
Utgiver
University of British Columbia Press
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter