Liberal-Labour (Canada)
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The Liberal-Labour banner has also been used several times by candidates in Canadian elections:
Malcolm Lang, who was elected as a Labour Party of Canada Member of Parliament in the 1926 federal election, was re-elected as "Liberal-Labour" in the north-eastern Ontario riding of Timiskaming South in the 1930 federal election.
From 1949 to 1965, William Moore Benidickson represented the north-western Ontario riding of Kenora-Rainy River as a Liberal-Labour Member of Parliament. Benidickson was elected as a Liberal MP in the 1945 federal election, but ran subsequently as "Liberal-Labour" as the result of an informal electoral pact between the Labour Progressive Party of Canada (i.e., the Communist Party of Canada) and the Liberal Party of Canada (see also Ontario legislature, below.)
Benidickson was succeeded in that riding by John Mercer Reid, who was elected as a "Liberal" in 1966 but then sat as a "Liberal-Labour" MP from the 1968 federal election until the 1972 federal election, when he changed his desigation back to "Liberal".
In the 1935 federal election, three candidates ran in Quebec ridings, placing last in each case, and drawing no more than 1.5% of the vote in each case. In all three ridings, at least one other candidate ran as a "Liberal".
In the 1945 federal election, one candidate ran as a "Liberal Labour" candidate in the Quebec riding of Mercier, placing last in a field of seven, with 345 votes, 1.0% of the total.
In the 1949 federal election, one candidate ran as a "Liberal Labour" candidate in the Quebec riding of Stanstead, placing last in a field of four, with 433 votes, 2.6% of the total.
Liberal Labour Party
The Liberal Labour Party name was used twice in Canadian elections, although it is not known if it was an organized political party, or just a convenient label for these two candidates.
In the 1926 federal election, Alexander Jarvis McComber, a barrister, placed second in a field of three candidates in the north-western Ontario riding of Port Arthur – Thunder Bay, winning 2,990 votes, 26% of the total. No candidate ran as a "Liberal", but the third place candidate ran as a "Labour" candidate.
In a 22 March 1954 by-election in Verdun, Quebec, Hervé Ferland, an advertising agent, placed fifth in a field of seven candidates, which included one "Liberal" and two "Independent Liberals". He won 2,180 votes, 8.7% of the total.
Liberal Labour Progressive
In the 1926 federal election, the only opponent of the victorious Conservative candidate in the Algoma West riding in northern Ontario ran as a Liberal Labour Progressive candidate. Albert Ernest Whytall won 4,187 votes, or 37% of the total.
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 Ontario legislature.
One of the three "Liberal-Labour" Members of Provincial Parliament (MPPs) elected, Alexander A. Parent in the Windsor, Ontario area riding of Essex North, was a member of the Communist Party. One of the unsuccessful "Liberal-Labour" candidates, George Burt, was Canadian director of the Congress of Industrial Organizations-affilated United Auto Workers from 1939 to 1968.
The decision by the Liberals, CIO 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 Ontario Progressive Conservative Party in 1943 provincial election. Reaume ran again as "Liberal-Labour" in the 1948 provincial election, without success, and was finally elected in the 1951 povincial election as a "Liberal"
Parent and the two other "Liberal-Labour" MPPs elected in 1945 were defeated in the subsequent 1948 provincial election, which, however, returned one new "Liberal-Labour" MPP from Kenora, Ontario.
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.
Arthur Wren of Kenora was the longest serving "Liberal-Labour" MPP, sitting in the Ontario legislature from 1948 until 1963. 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 the 1967 provincial election.
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 1985.
See also: