“Notes” in “Working People in Alberta”
NOTES
Introduction: Those Who Built Alberta
1 Harry H. Hiller, Second Promised Land: Migration to Alberta and the Transformation of Canadian Society.
2 Doreen Barrie, The Other Alberta: Decoding a Political Enigma.
3 Aritha Van Herk, Mavericks: An Incorrigible History of Alberta.
4 Warren Caragata, Alberta Labour: A Heritage Untold.
1 Millennia of Native Work
1 Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council, with Walter Hildebrandt, Sarah Carter, and Dorothy First Rider, The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7, 85.
2 Harold Cardinal and Walter Hildebrandt, Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan: Our Dream Is That Our Peoples Will One Day Be Clearly Recognized as Nations, 12.
3 Ibid., 14-16.
4 Terence N. D’Altroy, The Incas (People of America).
5 Jack Brink, Imagining Head-Smashed-In: Aboriginal Buffalo Hunting on the Northern Plains, 81.
6 Trevor R. Peck, Light from Ancient Campfires: Archaeological Evidence for Native Lifeways on the Northern Plains, 25.
7 Ibid., 444.
8 Ibid., 191, 431, 445.
9 Ibid., 452.
10 Arthur J. Ray, I Have Lived Here Since the World Began: An Illustrated History of Canada’s Native People, 32-33.
11 Treaty 7 Elders, The True Spirit, 83-104.
12 Kerry Abel, Drum Songs: Glimpses of Dene History, 20-23. On the Dene, see also Keith J. Crowe, A History of the Original Peoples of Northern Canada.
13 David G. Mandelbaum, The Plains Cree: An Ethnographic, Historical and Comparative Study; Jennifer Brown and Robert Brightman, eds., The Orders of the Dreamed.
14 Canada, Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, vol. 1, Looking Forward, Looking Back, 66-72. On the Blackfoot, see also Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council, The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7; Betty Bastien, Blackfoot Ways of Knowing: The World of the Siksikaitsitapi; and Adolf Hungry-Wolf, The Blackfoot Papers.
15 Frances W. Kaye, Goodlands: A Meditation and History on the Great Plains, 26.
16 David Thompson, Explorations in Western America, 1784-1812, 81.
17 Bastien, Blackfoot Ways of Knowing, 24.
18 Indian Brotherhood of the Northwest Territories and Métis Association of the Northwest Territories, “Past and Present Land-Use by Slavey Indians of the Mackenzie District”; Arthur J. Ray and Donald Freeman, Give Us Good Measure: An Economic Analysis of Relations between the Indians and the Hudson’s Bay Company before 1763, 17.
19 Crowe, A History of the Original Peoples, 24.
20 Elder Danny Musqua, quoted in Cardinal and Hildebrandt, Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan, 39.
21 Canada, Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples, 71.
2 The Fur Trade and Early European Settlement
1 “The Royal Charter for Incorporating the Hudson’s Bay Company, A.D. 1670.”
2 Two powerful histories of the conquest of Native territories in the Americas are Ronald Wright, Stolen Continents: Conquest and Resistance in the Americas, and Eduardo Galeano, Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent.
3 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, vol. 1, 227; G.V. Scammell, The World Encompassed: The First European Maritime Empires, c. 8001650, 236-57.
4 Galeano, Open Veins, 32, 41.
5 Scammell, The World Encompassed, 349.
6 Ibid., 350.
7 Olive Patricia Dickason, with David T. McNab, Canada’s First Nations: A History of Founding Peoples from Earliest Times, 90-91; Wright, Stolen Continents, 106-13; Roger L. Nichols, Indians in the United States and Canada: A Comparative History, 39-88.
8 Alfred W. Crosby, Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900-1900.
9 Maureen K. Lux, Medicine That Walks: Disease, Medicine, and Canadian Plains Native People, 1880-1940.
10 Nichols, Indians, 13.
11 Arthur J. Ray and Donald Freeman, Give Us Good Measure: An Economic Analysis of Relations Between the Indians and the Hudson’s Bay Company Before 1763, 162.
12 James P. Ronda, “‘We Are Well as We Are’: An Indian Critique of Seventeenth-Century Christian Missions”; Denys Delâge and Helen Hornbeck Tanner, “The Ojibwa-Jesuit Debate at Walpole Island, 1844.”
13 Arthur J. Ray, Indians in the Fur Trade: Their Role as Trappers, Hunters and Middlemen in the Lands Southwest of Hudson Bay, 1660-1870.
14 Trevor R. Peck, Light from Ancient Campfires: Archaeological Evidence for Native Lifeways on the Northern Plains, 435.
15 Ibid., 433.
16 Betty Bastien, Blackfoot Ways of Knowing: The World of the Siksikaitsitapi, 17.
17 Clifford Wilson, “Anthony Henday,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, vol. 3, 1771-1770, 2000, http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?id_nbr=1400.
18 Lux, Medicine That Walks, 18. In “Constructed and Contested Truths: Aboriginal Suicide, Law, and Colonialism in the Canadian West, 1823-1927.” Lesley Erickson notes that this faith in traditional healing practices persisted in the treaty period that followed the end of the fur trade.
19 Bastien, Blackfoot Ways of Knowing, 18.
20 Arthur J. Ray, I Have Lived Here Since the World Began: An Illustrated History of Canada’s Native People, 168-70.
21 Carolyn Podruchny, Making the Voyageur World: Travelers and Traders in the North American Fur Trade, 26.
22 Ibid., 133, 151-59.
23 On the militancy of the Orkneymen, see Edith Burley, Servants of the Honourable Company: Work, Discipline, and Conflict in the Hudson’s Bay Company, 1770-1879.
24 Carol M. Judd, “Native Labour and Social Stratification in the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Northern Department, 1770-1870,” 307.
25 Ibid., 310.
26 Sylvia Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties: Women in Fur-Trade Society in Western Canada, 1670-1870, 121. Covering similar ground to Van Kirk is Jennifer S.H. Brown, Strangers in Blood: Fur Trade Company Families in Indian Country.
27 Van Kirk, Many Tender Ties, 171-72, 201.
28 Ray, I Have Lived Here, 172.
29 Glyndwr Williams, “Highlights of the First 200 Years of the Hudson’s Bay Company,” 13; Lyle Dick, “The Seven Oaks Incident and the Construction of a Historical Tradition, 1816 to 1970.”
30 Dick, “The Seven Oaks Incident.”
31 W.L. Morton, “Pierre-Guillaume Sayer,” Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online, vol. 7, 1836-1850, http://www.biographi.ca/009004-119.01-e.php?BioId=37771.
32 Frits Pannekoek, A Snug Little Flock: The Social Origins of the Riel Resistance of 1869-70; John Foster, “The Country Born in the Red River Settlement.”
33 Judd, “Native Labour,” 311.
34 The federal government’s acquisition of most of the Hudson’s Bay Company lands and its subsequent approach to these lands are detailed in Kirk N. Lambrecht, The Administration of Dominion Lands, 1870-1930.
35 Vernon Fowke, The National Policy and the Wheat Economy, Part 1; Jeffery Taylor, “Capitalist Development, Forms of Labour, and Class Formation in Prairie Canada,” 169.
36 The estimate of the value of the HBC lands is based on CPR records from 1916. The CPR also received 5 percent of the land of western Canada and reported in 1916 that land sales added to the value of lands yet to be sold totalled $188 million: Robert Chodos, The cpr: A Century of Corporate Welfare, 22.
37 D.N. Sprague, Canada and the Métis, 1869–1885, 67-74.
38 See Bob Beal and Rod Macleod, Prairie Fire: The 1885 Northwest Rebellion.
39 The classic statement of federal aims is John L. Tobias, “Protection, Civilization, Assimilation: An Outline History of Canada’s Indian Policy.”
40 Sheldon Krasowski, “Mediating Treaties: Eyewitness Accounts of Treaties Between the Crown and Indigenous Peoples, 1871-1876.”
41 Ibid., 2.
42 Two books that attempt to retrace the Elders’ perceptions of how Native peoples viewed the treaty process are Treaty 7 Elders and Tribal Council, with Walter Hildebrandt, Sarah Carter, and Dorothy First Rider, The True Spirit and Original Intent of Treaty 7, and Harold Cardinal and Walter Hildebrandt, Treaty Elders of Saskatchewan: Our Dream Is That Our Peoples Will One Day Be Clearly Recognized as Nations.
43 Ray, I Have Lived Here, 215-17; Brian Titley, The Frontier World of Edgar Dewdney, 47; John L. Tobias, “Canada’s Subjugation of the Plains Cree, 1879-1885.”
44 Brian Titley, A Narrow Vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the Administration of Indian Affairs in Canada.
45 Helen Burke, The People and the Poor Law in Nineteenth Century Ireland, 111-16. The similar reluctance of the British to provide relief in India, leading to millions of deaths, is discussed in Ravi Ahaja, “State Formation and ‘Famine Policy’ in Early Colonial South India.”
46 Hugh Shewell, “Enough to Keep Them Alive”: Indian Welfare in Canada, 1873-1965, 70.
47 Sarah Carter, Lost Harvests: Prairie Indian Reserve Farmers and Government Policy, 79-129.
48 Walter Hildebrandt, Views from Fort Battleford: Constructed Visions of an Anglo-Canadian West, 36.
49 Ray, I Have Lived Here, 230-33.
50 Sarah Carter, The Importance of Being Monogamous: Marriage and Nation Building in Western Canada to 1915.
51 J.R. Miller, Shingwauk’s Vision: A History of Native Residential Schools; John Milloy, A National Crime: The Canadian Government and the Residential School System — 1879 to 1986; Sharon Venne, “Understanding Treaty 6, An Indigenous Perspective,” 195.
52 Carter, Lost Harvests.
3 One Step Forward: Alberta Workers, 1885–1914
1 A.A. den Otter, Civilizing the West: The Galts and the Development of Western Canada, 76.
2 Ibid., 99, 105.
3 Edmund W. Bradwin, The Bunkhouse Man: A Study of the Work and Pay in the Camps of Canada, 270.
4 Donald Avery, “Dangerous Foreigners”: European Immigrant Workers and Labour Radicalism in Canada 1896-1932, 27.
5 The Victoria Colonist claimed fifteen hundred deaths, but Chinese merchants in Victoria argued that there had been twenty-two hundred. Andrew Onderdonk, the contractor for the western section of the the CPR, admitted only six hundred.
6 Warren Caragata, Alberta Labour: A Heritage Untold, 6.
7 Bradwin, The Bunkhouse Man.
8 Greg Hall, Harvest Wobblies: The Industrial Workers of the World and Agricultural Laborers in the American West, 1905-1930, 8.
9 Bettina Bradbury, Working Families: Age, Gender and Daily Survival in Industrializing Montreal, 250; Peter Baskerville and Eric W. Sager, Unwilling Idlers: The Urban Unemployed and Their Families in Late Victorian Canada, 112-17; Jane Humphries, “Enclosures, Common Rights, and Women: The Proletarianization of Families in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries.”
10 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 16.
11 Charles Allen Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country: The Alberta Coal Miners, 1905-1945,” 24-25, 63.
12 Ibid., 25-26, 34, 35.
13 On the general climate of employer-labour relations, see the account of the Homestead strike of 1892 in David Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor: The Workplace, the State, and American Labor Activism, 1865-1925.
14 Ibid., 121.
15 Ibid., 123.
16 Ibid., 276.
17 Ibid., 278.
18 Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country,” 202.
19 Ibid., 203.
20 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 19.
21 Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country,” 203.
22 Ibid., 204-5.
23 Ibid., 207-8.
24 William M. Baker, “The Miners and the Mounties: The Royal North West Mounted Police and the 1906 Lethbridge Strike.”
25 Ibid., 75.
26 Den Otter, Civilizing the West, 290.
27 Ibid., 296.
28 Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country,” 212-13.
29 Den Otter, Civilizing the West, 297.
30 Ibid., 217.
31 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 21. The major work on Mackenzie King’s philosophy regarding labour relations is Paul Craven, An Impartial Umpire: Industrial Relations and the Canadian State, 1900-1921.
32 Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country,” 218.
33 Ibid., 220.
34 Ibid., 237-42.
35 Ibid., 245-52.
36 Allen Seager, “Socialists and Workers: Western Canadian Coal Miners, 1900-21.”
37 Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country,” 232.
38 Ibid., 255-56. Electoral cooperation between organized labour and local Liberal parties was not uncommon in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. It involved a Liberal constituency association agreeing to nominate a candidate supported financially by trade unions as the local Liberal candidate. Such candidates were generally known as Liberal-Labour, or even “Lib-Labs.”
39 Ibid., 61.
40 Den Otter, Civilizing the West, 180, 273-74.
41 Census of Canada, 1911, vol. 1, Areas and Population by Provinces Districts and Subdistricts, Table 2.
42 Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country,” 98-99.
43 Ibid., 103.
44 Excerpt from M.B. Venini-Bryne, The Buffalo and the Cross, cited in ibid., 104.
45 Karen Buckley, Danger, Death and Disaster in the Crowsnest Pass Mines, 1902-1928, 9.
46 Calculations based on data from the Census of Canada, 1911.
47 Den Otter, Civilizing the West.
48 For non-wage survival tactics, see Bettina Bradbury, “Pigs, Cows and Boarders: Non-Wage Forms of Survival Among Montreal Families, 1861-91”; Baskerville and Sager, Unwilling Idlers, chap. 6, 112-28; for specific accounts of livestock raising and children’s and women’s contributions, see Krystyna Lukasiewicz, “Polish Community in the Crowsnest Pass,” 1-10; the critical value of women’s and children’s work for family survival is detailed in Humphries, “Enclosures, Common Rights and Women,” 17-42.
49 David Jay Bercuson, “Labour Radicalism and the Western Industrial Frontier: 1897-1919,” 169.
50 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 32; Buckley, Danger, Death and Disaster, 1-7.
51 David Bright, The Limits of Labour: Class Formation and the Labour Movement in Calgary, 1883-1929, 18-21.
52 R.C. Macleod, The North-West Mounted Police and Law Enforcement, 1873-1905, 157.
53 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 9.
54 Seager, “A Proletariat in Wild Rose Country,” 202; and Bright, Limits of Labour, 78.
55 Census of Canada, 1911; Census of Canada, 1901, vol. 3, Manufactures; and Census of Population and Agriculture of the Northwest Provinces: Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, 1906.
56 Bright, Limits of Labour, 79-83; and Caragata, Alberta Labour, 43-51, 21-28.
57 Bright, Limits of Labour, 41-46.
58 Montgomery, The Fall of the House of Labor, 214-23.
59 James R. Conley, “Frontier Labourers, Crafts in Crisis and the Western Labour Revolt: The Case of Vancouver, 1900-1919,” 15, 16, 34-37.
60 Robert H. Babcock, Gompers in Canada: A Study in American Continentalism Before the First World War, 76-77.
61 A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899-1919, 44-48; Caragata, Alberta Labour, 13, 14.
62 Bright, Limits of Labour, 84-87; Caragata, Alberta Labour, 23-25.
63 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 43-46.
64 Michael J. Piva, The Condition of the Working Class in Toronto, 1900-1921, 56-58.
65 Bright, Limits of Labour, 33-35.
66 Calculations based on data from the Census of Canada, 1911, vols. 1 and 6.
67 Bettina Bradbury, “Gender at Work at Home: Family Decisions, the Labour Market, and Girls’ Contributions to the Family Economy,” 179.
68 John Bullen, “Hidden Workers: Child Labour and the Family Economy in Late Nineteenth-Century Urban Ontario.”
69 Bright, Limits of Labour, 35-36.
70 Alvin Finkel, “The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party in Alberta, 1917-42,” especially 64-65.
71 R.T. Naylor, “The Canadian State, the Accumulation of Capital, and the Great War,” 61-64.
72 David Schultze, “The Industrial Workers of the World and the Unemployed in Edmonton and Calgary in the Depression of 1913-1915.”
73 Donald Avery, Reluctant Host: Canada’s Response to Immigrant Workers, 1896-1994, 21; Cecilia Danysk, Hired Hands: Labour and the Development of Prairie Agriculture, 1880-1930, 17.
74 Avery, Reluctant Host, 25, 26.
75 Danysk, Hired Hands, 58, 59.
76 Ibid., 46-62.
77 Ibid., 85-88.
78 Ibid., 67-70.
79 Ibid., 115-18, 145-48.
80 John Herd Thompson, “Bringing in the Sheaves: The Harvest Excursionists, 1890-1929.”
81 Ibid., 470, 471.
82 Ibid., 480, 481.
83 Ibid., 478, 479.
84 Ibid., 471, 482.
85 Ibid., 486; Danysk, Hired Hands, 126-30.
86 Danysk, Hired Hands, 116.
4 War, Repression, and Depression, 1914–39
1 Peter Campbell, “Understanding the Dictatorship of the Proletariat: The Canadian Left and the Moment of Socialist Possibility in 1919,” 62.
2 H.A. Logan, “Rise and Decline of the One Big Union in Canada,” 249.
3 David Bright, The Limits of Labour: Class Formation and the Labour Movement in Calgary, 1883-1929, 109.
4 Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies: A History, 329.
5 Edmonton Morning Bulletin, 6 August 1914.
6 Calgary Daily Herald, 12 August 1914.
7 Calgary Daily Herald, 13 August 1914.
8 David Bright, The Limits of Labour, 110.
9 David Bright, “‘We Are All Kin’: Reconsidering Labour and Class in Calgary, 1919,” 70.
10 A. Ross McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries: The Western Canadian Radical Movement, 1899-1919, 118-36.
11 Tim Cook, At the Sharp End: Canadians Fighting the Great War, 1914-1916, 28-29; Desmond Morton, When Your Number’s Up: The Canadian Soldier in the First World War, 9; and Ronald Haycock, Sam Hughes: The Public Career of a Controversial Canadian, 1885-1916, 202. Haycock claims that 70 percent of the first sixty thousand enlistments were British-born.
12 Howard Palmer and Tamara Palmer, Alberta: A New History, 169.
13 Edmonton Bulletin, 6 August 1914.
14 Frances Swyripa, “The Ukrainian Image: Loyal Citizen or Disloyal Alien,” 58.
15 Ibid., 59.
16 Gregory S. Kealey, “State Repression of Labour and the Left in Canada, 1914-1920: The Impact of the First World War,” 291; Morton, When Your Number’s Up, 9.
17 Bright, The Limits of Labour, 99-100; R.T. Naylor, “The Canadian State, the Accumulation of Capital, and the Great War,” 27.
18 Quoted in David Schulze, “The Industrial Workers of the World and the Unemployed in Edmonton and Calgary in the Depression of 1913-1915,” 52.
19 John C. Weaver, “Edmonton’s Perilous Course, 1904-1929,” 31.
20 Schulze, “The Industrial Workers of the World,” 54-55.
21 Bright, “‘We Are All Kin,’” 68.
22 Lethbridge Daily Herald, 19 February 1917.
23 McCormack, Reformers, Rebels, and Revolutionaries, 121.
24 Lethbridge Daily Herald, 19 February 1917.
25 Red Deer News, 20 August 1915.
26 Crag and Canyon, August 1916.
27 Canada, Census and Statistics Office, Canada Year Book, 1922-23, 279. Figures do not include board.
28 Calgary Daily Herald, 14 August 1916.
29 Canada Year Book, 1922-23, 416.
30 Paul Michael Boothe and Heather Edwards, eds., Eric J. Hanson’s Financial History of Alberta, 1905-1950, 63.
31 Canada Year Book, 1922-23, 752-53.
32 Calgary Daily Herald, 10 November 1916.
33 Calgary Daily Herald, 13 November 1916.
34 Calgary Daily Herald, 27 November 1916.
35 Allen Seager and David Roth, “British Columbia and the Mining West: A Ghost of a Chance,” 246, and Judy Fudge and Eric Tucker, Labour Before the Law: The Regulation of Workers’ Collective Action in Canada, 1900-1948, 93.
36 Canada Year Book, 1916-17, 493.
37 Friesen, The Canadian Prairies, 296-98.
38 See the table “Industrial Disputes by Province, 1901 to June 30, 1919,” in Royal Commission on Industrial Relations, National Industrial Conference of Dominion and Provincial Governments with Representative Employers and Labour Men, on the Subjects of Industrial Relations and Labour Laws, and for the Consideration of Labour Features of the Treaty of Peace, Ottawa, September 15-20, 1919 (Ottawa: King’s Printer, 1919), xxx.
39 Haycock, Sam Hughes, 225-57.
40 Anthony Mardiros, The Life of a Prairie Radical: William Irvine, 46.
41 Fudge and Tucker, Labour Before the Law, 92.
42 Bill Waiser, Park Prisoners: The Untold History of Western Canada’s National Parks, 1915-1946, 5-6.
43 Edmonton Morning Bulletin, 16 February 1916.
44 Waiser, Park Prisoners, 6.
45 Krystyna Lukasiewicz, “Polish Community in the Crowsnest Pass.”
46 Udo Sautter, “The Origins of the Employment Service of Canada, 1900-1920,” 106.
47 David Bright, “‘We Are All Kin,’” 74.
48 Canada, Royal Commission on Industrial Relations, Official Report of Proceedings, xlii.
49 Warren Caragata, Alberta Labour: A Heritage Untold, 82-83.
50 Ibid., 83.
51 Edmonton Morning Bulletin, 6 May 1919.
52 Canada, Royal Commission on Industrial Relations, Official Report of Proceedings, 4, Appendix.
53 Calgary Daily Herald, 14 March 1919.
54 Though mostly unsympathetic to his subjects, David J. Bercuson has provided the major book-length history of the OBU to date in Fools and Wise Men: The Rise and Fall of the One Big Union. A recent assessment of the OBU in the context of radical debates of the period more generally is Ian McKay, Reasoning Otherwise: Leftists and the People’s Enlightenment in Canada, 1880-1920.
55 Logan, “Rise and Decline of the One Big Union in Canada,” 252.
56 Copies of all issues of the Alberta Labour News can be found in the Alfred Farmilo Papers at the Provincial Archives of Alberta.
57 Tom Mitchell and James Naylor, “The Prairies: In the Eye of the Storm,” 178.
58 The events of the Winnipeg General Strike are traced in David Jay Bercuson, Confrontation at Winnipeg: Labour, Industrial Relations, and the General Strike; J.M. Bumsted, The Winnipeg General Strike of 1919: An Illustrated Guide; and Mitchell and Naylor, “The Prairies,” 176-84.
59 Palmer and Palmer, Alberta, 203.
60 The end of the Winnipeg Strike and the strike’s aftermath are explored in Reinhold Kramer and Tom Mitchell, When the State Trembled: How A.J. Andrews and the Citizens’ Committee Broke the Winnipeg General Strike.
61 Mitchell and Naylor, “The Prairies,” 199.
62 Ibid.
63 Alvin Finkel, “The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party in Alberta, 1917-1942.”
64 Edmonton Morning Bulletin, 23 May 1919.
65 Canada Year Book, 1922-23, 280.
66 Ibid., 435.
67 Canada, Department of Labour, Labour Gazette, January 1933, 69-73.
68 See Edmonton Journal, 20 July 1921. See also Canada, Department of Labour, “Action Towards the Alleviation of the Unemployment Situation,” Labour Gazette, August 1921, 996-98.
69 C.T. Hall, Redcliff’s Fifty Golden Years: The Early History of Redcliff, 32.
70 Allan Chambers, Spirit of the Crowsnest: The Story of Unions in the Coal Towns of the Crowsnest Pass.
71 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 89-93.
72 Carl F. Betke, “The United Farmers of Alberta, 1921-1935,” 14-31.
73 Finkel, “The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party in Alberta, 1917-1942,” 66.
74 Ibid., 72.
75 Ibid., 73.
76 Ibid., 75.
77 Palmer and Palmer, Alberta, 226.
78 Finkel, “The Rise and Fall of the Labour Party in Alberta, 1917-1942,” 78.
79 Ibid.
80 Ibid., 82-83.
81 Bill Waiser, All Hell Can’t Stop Us: The On-to-Ottawa Trek and Regina Riot, 9-40; Alvin Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 14-18.
82 Waiser, All Hell Can’t Stop Us, 171-212, 261-75.
83 See David Bright, “The State, the Unemployed, and the Communist Party in Calgary, 1930-5.”
84 See, for example, Eric Strikwerda, “The City and the Depression on the Canadian Prairies: Edmonton, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, 1929-1939,” PhD dissertation, York University, 2000, 156-57. For additional discussion, see Strikwerda, The Wages of Relief: The City and the Depression on the Canadian Prairies, 1929-1939. Edmonton: AU Press, 2012 forthcoming.
85 Farmers across the Canadian prairies faced trouble from numerous quarters. Environmental disasters aside, many farmers had overextended themselves through the latter part of the 1920s, both in terms of buying more acreage as well as obtaining credit for agricultural products and new technologies. Added to this were the Wheat Pools’ overly ambitious expectations of export market needs, which caused them to boldly hold prairie cereal grains off the world market, anticipating that so doing would raise the world wheat price and benefit prairie farmers. See Friesen, The Canadian Prairies, 384-85; Palmer and Palmer, Alberta, 252-54, and Bill Waiser, Saskatchewan: A New History, 292-302, 312-13.
86 Edmonton Bulletin, 19 December 1932.
87 City of Edmonton Archives, RC 11, Class 149, File 17, 6 December 1932, Shute to Knott. The RCMP had only recently taken over provincial policing in Alberta, though it might be noted that most members of the force were drawn from the ranks of the disbanded Alberta Provincial Police.
88 Edmonton Bulletin, 21 December 1932.
89 Ibid.
90 On the history of the Progressive Party, see W.L. Morton, The Progressive Party in Canada, and Robert A. Wardhaugh, Mackenzie King and the Prairie West. On the UFA, see Bradford James Rennie, The United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberta, 1909-1921.
91 “The Regina Manifesto, Adopted at First National Convention Held at Regina, Saskatchwean, July, 1933,” http://economics.uwaterloo.ca/needhdata/Regina_Manifesto.html. On the early history of the CCF, see William Brennan, ed., Building the Cooperative Commonwealth: Essays on the Democratic Socialist Tradition in Canada, and Walter Stewart, The Life and Political Times of Tommy Douglas.
92 Alvin Finkel, “Obscure Origins: The Confused Early History of the CCF.”
93 Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 14-40.
94 Ibid., 38, 68-69.
95 Ibid., 41-72.
96 Ibid., 43-44.
97 Ibid., 51-58.
98 Ibid., 58; Alvin Finkel, “The Cold War, Alberta Labour, and the Social Credit Regime.”
99 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 112.
100 Ibid., 110-19.
101 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 128-32.
5 Alberta Labour and Working-Class Life, 1940–59
1 C.P. Stacey, Arms, Men and Governments: The War Policies of Canada, 1939-1945, 66. Library and Archives Canada’s official numbers suggest that 4 percent of all who served were killed: “Second World War Service Files: Canadian Armed Forces War Dead,” Library and Archives Canada, http://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/databases/war-dead/index-e.html. On psychological injury, see Terry Copp and Bill McAndrew, Battle Exhaustion: Soldiers and Psychiatrists in the Canadian Army, 1939-1945.
2 Donald E. Graves, South Albertans: A Canadian Regiment at War, 33-34.
3 Farley Mowat, And No Birds Sang, 218-19.
4 Graves, South Albertans, 130-31.
5 Stacey, Arms, Men and Governments, 589. Nationally, 89 percent of requests for postponement were granted.
6 Interview with Norah Hook by Catherine Cole, Edmonton, 12 May 2004, GWG Project. Interview with Assunta Dotto by Catherine Cole and Joan Schiebelbein, Edmonton, 20 April 2004, GWG Project.
7 Interview with Tets Kitaguchi, Hinton, 28 October 2005, Alberta Labour History Institute (hereafter ALHI).
8 Ron Laliberte and Vic Satzewich, “Native Migrant Labour in the Southern Alberta Sugar-Beet Industry: Coercion and Paternalism in the Recruitment of Labour,” 73.
9 Patrick Lenihan, Patrick Lenihan: From Irish Rebel to Founder of Canadian Public Sector Unionism, 138-47.
10 Ibid., 150-51.
11 Interview with Nelly Engley, Edmonton, 21 April 2004, GWG Project; interview with Anne Ozipko, Edmonton, 4 April 2003, ALHI.
12 See Stuart Marshall Jamieson, Times of Trouble: Labour Unrest and Industrial Conflict in Canada, 1900-66, 288-91. The national dimensions of the strike wave are discussed in Gregory S. Kealey and Douglas Cruikshank, “Strikes in Canada, 1891-1950,” 376-78, and in tables 11.10 and 11.11 (362-63).
13 Aaron McCrorie, “PC 1003: Labour, Capital, and the State.”
14 Elaine Geddes, “Alberta Labour Legislation under the Social Credit Government: 1935-1947,” 69-70.
15 Ibid., 83-86.
16 Bryan Palmer, Working-Class Experience: Rethinking the History of Canadian Labour, 1800-1991, 285-86.
17 Howard Palmer and Tamara Jeppson Palmer, Alberta: A New History, 298-99; Gerald Friesen, The Canadian Prairies: A History, 429-33.
18 David Monod, “The End of Agrarianism: The Fight for Farm Parity in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 1935-48.”
19 Interview with Walter Makowecki, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI.
20 Monod, “The End of Agrarianism,” 133-41.
21 Laliberte and Satzewich, “Native Migrant Labour,” 74-76, 80.
22 Alvin Finkel, “The Cold War, Alberta Labour, and the Social Credit Regime,” 137-38.
23 Tom Langford and Chris Frazer, “The Cold War and Working-Class Politics in the Coal Mining Communities of the Crowsnest Pass, 1945-1958,” 54.
24 Comment from Bill Skura, in interview with Al Fontana, Emma Fontana, Veronica Fontana, Pauline Grigel, John Kinnear, Clara Marconi, Albin Panek, Glen Poulton (Blondie), Emily Root, Ray Root, Bill Skura, Gary Taje, and John Yeliga, Coleman, Alberta, 10 November 2005, ALHI (hereafter “group interview”).
25 Comment from Clara Marconi, in group interview.
26 Interview with Joyce Avramenko, Edson, Alberta, August 2003, ALHI.
27 Comment from Bill Skura, in group interview.
28 Avramenko interview.
29 Comment from Pauline Grigel, in group interview.
30 Comment from Bill Skura, in group interview.
31 Ibid.
32 Tom Langford, “An Alternate Vision of Community: Crowsnest Miners and their Local Unions during the 1940s and 1950s,” 149.
33 Bruce Ramsey, The Noble Cause: The Story of the United Mine Workers of America in Western Canada, 184.
34 Langford, “An Alternate Vision of Community,” 150.
35 Ramsey, The Noble Cause, 184-85.
36 Langford, “An Alternate Vision of Commuity,” 150, 152-56.
37 Interview with Canmore nurses, n.d., ALHI.
38 David Finch and Gordon Jaremko, Fields of Fire: An Illustrated History of Canadian Petroleum, 47-49.
39 Peter McKenzie-Brown, Gordon Jaremko, and David Finch, The Great Oil Age: The Petroleum Industry in Canada, 45.
40 Warren Caragata, Alberta Labour: A Heritage Untold, 133-34.
41 “An Alberta Schoolboy’s History of Oil,” in The Roughneck, November 1947. Reprinted in Alister Thomas, ed., The Super Roughneck: 50 Years of Canadian Oilpatch History as Reported in The Roughneck, 14.
42 Interview with Neil Reimer, Edmonton, December 2004, ALHI.
43 Interview with Neil Reimer for Celanese Project, Edmonton, November 2007, ALHI; Wayne Roberts, Cracking the Canadian Formula: The Making of the Energy and Chemical Workers Union, 36.
44 David Breen, “1947: The Making of Modern Alberta,” 241-42.
45 Alvin Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 111.
46 Ian Maclachlan, Kill and Chill: Restructuring Canada’s Beef Commodity Chain, 228-31.
47 Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 109-10.
48 Maclachlan, Kill and Chill, 231-32.
49 Interview with Elizabeth Kosma, Edmonton, 12 May 2004, GWG Project.
50 Interview with Mary Romanuk, Edmonton, 2 April 2004, GWG Project.
51 Romanuk interview.
52 Ozipko interview.
53 Doug Owram, “1951: Oil’s Magic Wand,” 575.
54 Owram, “1951,” 576-77.
55 Interview with Lorne and Agnes Wiley, Medicine Hat, n.d., ALHI.
56 Alvin Finkel, Social Policy and Practice in Canada: A History, 104-6, 153-56; and Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 122.
57 Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 123.
58 Finkel, Social Policy and Practice in Canada, 115-17.
59 Ibid., 131-33.
60 Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 123.
61 Ibid., 144, 149-50.
62 Geddes, “Alberta Labour Legislation,” 96-97.
63 Statutes of Alberta, 1947, chap. 8 (certification at s. 59); Geddes, “Alberta Labour Legislation,” 98-101.
64 Statutes of Alberta, 1948, chap. 76.
65 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 140-41; The Back Row: Labour’s Cold War in Alberta, at 15:40.
66 Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 112.
67 Interview with Norman Bezanson, Edmonton, May 2001, ALHI.
68 Kitaguchi interview.
69 Interviews with Neil Reimer, Edmonton, December 2004 and 25 October 2002, ALHI.
70 Interview with Neil Reimer for the Celanese Project, Edmonton, November 2007, and ALHI interview, 25 October 2002.
71 Interview with Doug and Eva Tomlinson, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI; Caragata, Alberta Labour, 141.
72 Tomlinsons interview.
73 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 139-40.
74 Reimer, Celanese Project interview.
75 Reimer, Celanese Project interview.
76 Neil Reimer, in The Back Row, at 22:36.
77 Ibid., 140; Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 112-13.
78 Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 108-9.
79 Ernest C. Manning, in The Back Row at 11:54.
80 On anti-communism in Canada in general, see Reg Whitaker and Gary Marcuse, Cold War Canada: The Making of a National Insecurity State, 1945 to 1957. On the specific implications of the anti-communist campaign for gays and lesbians, see Gary Kinsman and Patrizia Gentile, The Canadian War on Queers, especially 53-114.
81 Interview with Ben Swankey, Burnaby, BC, July 2003, ALHI.
82 Ibid.
83 Lenihan, Patrick Lenihan, 153-54.
84 Makowecki interview.
85 Ibid.
86 Swankey interview.
87 Interview with Jack Phillips, Vancouver, 2003, ALHI.
88 Tomlinsons interview.
89 Reimer interview, Edmonton, 7 November 2002.
90 Reimer interview, Edmonton, 25 October 2002. Reimer brought in several OWIU members from CIL to create the impression for Celanese workers, who were working in a plant too large for everyone to know everyone else, that the owiu-supporting contingent was large.
91 Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 113.
92 Interview (no. 3) with Dave Werlin, n.p., n.d., ALHI.
6 The Boomers Become the Workers: Alberta, 1960–80
1 Interview with Jack Hubler, Edmonton, n.d., Alberta Labour History Institute (hereafter ALHI).
2 “Calgary and Southern Alberta — Women,” University of Calgary Applied History, 1997, http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied_history/tutor/calgary/FRAMEwomen.html.
3 Interview with Susan Keeley, Calgary, 11 September 2007, ALHI.
4 Alberta, Municipal Affairs, “Alberta’s Official Population from 1960 to 2002,” http://www.assembly.ab.ca/lao/library/egovdocs/alma/2002/136927.pdf.
5 Alberta Chambers of Commerce and Certified General Accountants Association of Alberta, Vision 2020: Phase 1 Report: Demographic Impacts on Alberta’s Provincial Budget — Fiscal Projections Through 2020.
6 Statistics Canada, “Ethnic Diversity and Immigration.”
7 R. Ogmundson and M. Doyle, “The Rise and Decline of Canadian Labour, 1960 to 2000: Elites, Power, Ethnicity and Gender,” 417.
8 Ernest B. Akyeampong, “The Union Movement in Transition.”
9 Gil Levine, “The Waffle and the Labour Movement.”
10 John Richards and Larry Pratt, Prairie Capitalism: Power and Influence in the New West, chap. 7.
11 Alvin Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 131.
12 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Alberta Federation of Labour fonds (hereafter AFL fonds), 77.54, item 455, “Press Release,” 9 October 1968.
13 Statutes of the Province of Alberta, 1968, chap. 298, s. 26-43.
14 Interview with Bill Broad, AUPE NEWS, 3 October 2006.
15 Jeffery Taylor, “Compulsory Arbitration and the Right to Strike: The Experience of Alberta’s University Faculty.”
16 Interview with Walter Watt, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI.
17 Interview with David William Potter, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI.
18 On the changing position of nurses in Canada in the postwar period and the roles that nurses played in achieving changes, see Kathryn McPherson, Bedside Matters: The Transformation of Canadian Nursing 1900-1990.
19 Interview with Barb Charles, Medicine Hat, 31 November 2008, ALHI.
20 The number of nurses on strike is reported in Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, “Orders Suspending the Right to Strike or to Lock Out.”
21 Rebecca Priegert Coulter, “Alberta Nurses and the ‘Illegal Strike of 1988,’” 408-10.
22 Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, “Orders Suspending the Right to Strike or to Lock Out.”
23 Interview with Marg Ethier, Edmonton, September 2003, ALHI.
24 The number of teachers on strike when back-to-work orders were issued is reported in Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, “Orders Suspending the Right to Strike or to Lock Out.” On the patterns of teachers’ strikes in Alberta more generally, see Alberta Teachers’ Association, Local 10, “Strikes by Alberta Teachers Since 1942,” http://local10.teachers.ab.ca/SiteCollectionDocuments/Local10.teachers.ab.ca/PDF%20 files/STRIKES.pdf.
25 Interview with Bernie Keeler, Edmonton, 6 May 2005, ALHI.
26 Interview with Gil Levine, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI; Patrick Lenihan, Patrick Lenihan: From Irish Rebel to Founder of Canadian Public Sector Unionism.
27 “Important Dates in CUPE’s History,” CUPE, 6 May 2003, http://cupe.ca/history/timelines.
28 Interview with Fred Pyke, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI.
29 Interview with “L.D.,” n.d., ALHI.
30 “About CSU 52,” Civic Service Union 52, http://www.csu52.org/about.htm.
31 “About Us,” Non-Academic Staff Association, University of Alberta, 2004, http://www.nasa.ualberta.ca/aboutus.cfm.
32 Bryan D. Palmer, Working-Class Experience: Rethinking the History of Canadian Labour, 1800-1991, 321-22.
33 Interview with Andre Van Schaik, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI.
34 Richards and Pratt, Prairie Capitalism, 236, 242.
35 Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 114-15; Statutes of the Province of Alberta, 1960, chap. 54.
36 The definition favoured by the AFL was “an International, National, or Provincial organization of employees, or a local branch chartered by and in good standing with such an organization.” AFL fonds, 77.54, item 3, Alberta Federation of Labour, CLC, Fifth Convention, Report of Proceedings, Calgary, Alberta, 26-29 October, 1960.
37 AFL fonds, 77.54, item 3, “Memorandum from Alberta Federation of Labour,” to Premier Manning and cabinet members, 25 January 1960.
38 Ibid.
39 AFL fonds, 77.54, item 455, “Press Release,” 9 October 1968.
40 AFL fonds, 77.54, box 3, D. CCL 4 — Departments — (i) Political Education, “Report of Canadian Congress of Labour Legislative Conference,” Saskatchewan Hotel, Regina, 5 August 1963.
41 Interview with Reg Basken, Edmonton, September 2003, ALHI.
42 Warren Caragata, Alberta Labour: A Heritage Untold, 144-45.
43 Interview with Doug and Eva Tomlinson, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI.
44 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 146.
45 Ibid.
46 AFL fonds, 77.54, item 13, Alberta Federation of Labour, “Report of Proceedings, 6th Convention,” 18-20 October 1961.
47 AFL fonds, 77.54, item 15, Alberta Federation of Labour, “A Brief Regarding Board of Industrial Relations Garment Industry Order No. 17 (1962),” 14 January 1963.
48 AFL fonds, 77.54, item 455, “AFL Convention Resolutions 1968,” Lethbridge.
49 AFL fonds, 83.29/314, Labour Gazette, June 1973.
50 AFL fonds, 83.29/314, “Alberta Federation of Labour Convention Proceedings, 1973.”
51 John Maynard Keynes proposed that governments abandon notions of pro-cyclical spending, that is, expanding money supply and government programs during good times in the private sector and contracting them in bad times. Instead, he argued that by increasing spending and the money supply in times of recession, governments could limit their impact. They could then balance their books by spending prudently once the economy revived.
52 Richards and Pratt, Prairie Capitalism, 236.
53 Jack F. Masson and Peter Blaikie, “Labour Politics in Alberta,” 282.
54 Allan Chambers, On the Line: The Struggles of Alberta’s Packing Plant Workers.
55 Interview with Betty Franklin, Hinton, 23 April 2005, ALHI.
56 Interview with Gerald Franklin, Hinton, 23 April 2005, ALHI.
57 Interview with Bill Flookes, Calgary, 2005, ALHI.
58 Interview with Anne Ozipko, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI.
59 Interview with Wally Shaw, Edmonton, August 2003, ALHI.
60 Bob Barnetson, The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada, 38.
61 Ibid., 44.
62 Ibid., 61.
63 Ibid., 62.
64 Interview with Willa Gorman, Edmonton, October 2007, ALHI.
65 Interview with Noel Lapierre, Hinton, 2005, ALHI. Translated from the French by Alvin Finkel.
66 Interview with Wally Land, Hinton, 2005, ALHI.
67 The CLC convention in 1958 passed a resolution supporting the creation of a new political party, which it described as a “broadly based people’s political movement which embraces the CCF, the labor movement, farm organizations, professional people and other liberally-minded persons interested in basic social reform and reconstruction through our parliamentary system of government” (quoted in The Western Socialist 28, no. 223 [1961]:12).
68 Robin Hunter, “Social Democracy in Alberta: From the CCF to the NDP,” 74-75.
69 AFL fonds, 77.54, item 3, Alberta Federation of Labour, “Report of Proceedings, 5th Convention,” 26-29 October 1960.
70 Olenka Melnyk, “Dreaming a New Jerusalem in the Land of Social Credit: The Struggles of the CCF in Alberta,” 53-55.
71 AFL fonds, 77.54, item 14, Alberta Federation of Labour, “Report of Proceedings, 7th Convention,” 31 October-2 November 1962.
72 Hunter, “Social Democracy,” 81-82.
73 Tom Langford, “‘So Dauntless in War’: The Impact of Garth Turcott on Political Change in Alberta, 1966-71.”
74 Masson and Blaikie, “Labour Politics,” 278, 282 (quotation is from 282).
75 Larry Pratt, “Grant Notley: Politics as a Calling,” 35.
76 For example, when the AFL sponsored a demonstration at the legislature in 1970 to protest the government’s inaction on unemployment, the leadership were disappointed both by the lack of participation by locals and by the unemployed themselves. AFL fonds, 83.29/62, “Executive Board Report to the Fifteenth Convention, the Alberta Federation of Labour.”
77 Alvin Finkel, “Trade Unions and the Welfare State in Canada, 1945-1990,” 59-77.
78 AFL fonds, 77.54, item 3, “Memorandum from Alberta Federation of Labour,” to Premier Manning and cabinet members, 25 January 1960.
79 AFL fonds, 77.54, item 461, “Alberta Federation of Labour Twelfth Convention,” 1967.
80 Caragata, Alberta Labour, 145.
7 Alberta Labour in the 1980s
1 Alberta Federation of Labour (1983), President’s Report to the 27th Annual Convention.
2 Interview with Lorraine Stallknecht, Fort McMurray, 20 October 2005, Alberta Labour History Institute (hereafter ALHI).
3 Alberta, White Paper: Proposals for an Industrial and Science Strategy for Albertans, 1985 to 1990, 30.
4 Ed Shaffer, “Oil, Class and Development in Alberta,” 120.
5 Larry Pratt, “Energy: The Roots of National Policy.”
6 Larry Pratt and Garth Stevenson, Western Separatism: The Myths, Realities and Dangers, 10.
7 Paul Stanway, “When Alberta Got Too Rich, Ottawa Unleashed the NEP,” 228.
8 Pratt, “Energy,” 26.
9 Calgary Herald, 19 November 1980.
10 Calgary Herald, 20 November 1980.
11 Kenneth Cox, “The Bust,” 35-44.
12 G. Brent Gawne, Labour History Day Address, Alberta Labour History Institute, 2 August 2004.
13 Shaffer, “Oil, Class and Development,” 121.
14 Edmonton Sun, 29 April 1982. Shell Canada President Bill Daniel set a 30 April deadline for federal participation in the project.
15 Edmonton Journal, 1 May 1982.
16 Frances W. Kaye, Goodlands: A Meditation and History on the Great Plains, 286.
17 David Cooper and Dean Neu, “The Politics of Debt and Deficit in Alberta,” 165.
18 Melville L. McMillan and Allan A. Warrack, “One Track (Thinking) Toward Deficit Reduction,” 136-37.
19 Sten Drugge, “The Alberta Tax Advantage: Myth and Reality,” 183. See also Larry Pratt, “Energy, Regionalism and Canadian Nationalism, 1982-86,” 188.
20 Auditor General of Alberta, Report of the Auditor General for the Year Ended March 31 1983, 74.
21 David Langille, “The Business Council on National Issues and the Canadian State.”
22 See Alvin Finkel, Our Lives: Canada After 1945-134.
23 See the Fraser Institute website at http://www.fraserinstitute.org. See also Cliff Stainsby and John Malcolmson, “The Fraser Institute and the Government: Corporate Free Lunch.”
24 Nick Fillmore, “The Right Stuff: Inside the National Citizens’ Coalition,” This Magazine, June/July 1986, 4-11.
25 Interview with Jane Sustrik, Edmonton, 19 April 2007, ALHI. The SNAA merged with the UNA in 1985.
26 Interview with Marg Ethier, Edmonton, September 2003, ALHI.
27 UFCW, Collective Bargaining in Canada: A Human Right or Canadian Illusion, 2.
28 David Flower, “Public Education as the Trojan Horse: The Alberta Case.”
29 Bryan Palmer, Working-Class Experience: Rethinking the History of Canadian Labour, 1800-1991, 321.
30 Government of Alberta, Bill C-124, “Public Sector Compensation Restraint Act,” 4 August 1982.
31 Alberta Federation of Labour, Resolutions, 26th Annual Convention, 1982, Resolution 57.
32 Government of Alberta, Health Care Continuation Act, a temporary emergency Act, S.A. 1982, c. 21.
33 Government of Alberta, Bill 44, Labour Statutes Amendment Act, 30 November 1983.
34 G. Brent Gawne, Labour History Day address, Alberta Labour History Institute, August 2004.
35 Interview with Bill Flookes, Calgary, 2005, ALHI.
36 Interview with Glen Taylor, Hinton, 2 May 2003, ALHI.
37 Interview with Peter Holbein, Edmonton, 11 November 1996, ALHI.
38 Interview with Mike Tamton, Calgary, 16 October 2007, ALHI.
39 Interview with Bill McGillivray, Medicine Hat, 3 June 2005, ALHI.
40 Interview with Sam Lee, Edmonton, 5 June 2004, ALHI.
41 Bulloch interview.
42 “Association History,” Merit Contractors Association, http://www.meritalberta.com/dnm/About/History.aspx.
43 Interview with John Ventura, Edmonton, 20 November 1998, ALHI.
44 Flookes interview.
45 Alberta Federation of Labour, “President’s Report to the 28th Annual Convention,” 1984.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Interview with Ken Mackenzie, 16 October 2010, ALHI. See also Winston Gereluk, “Hostile Terrain: Organizing the Energy Industry Has Been a Battle from the Beginning,” 22 April 2011, Alberta Federation of Labour, http://www.afl.org/index.php/May-2011/hostile-terrain-organizing-the-energy-industry-has-been-a-battle-from-the-beginning.html.
49 Alberta Federation of Labour, “For Jobs and Recovery: Reduced Work Time — No Loss in Pay,” position paper for the 29th Annual Convention, 1985.
50 Interview with Mike Wilgus, Edmonton, 16 November 2005, ALHI.
51 Edmonton Social Planning Council, Annual Report, 1982.
52 Retrieved 10 April 2010 from http://www.afbna.ca/, but the information no longer appears on the page.
53 Alberta Federation of Labour, 27th Annual Convention, 1983, Resolution no. 5.
54 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report to the 28th Annual Convention, 1984.
55 Interview with Tamara Kozlowska, Edmonton, 13 July 2010, ALHI.
56 Ibid.
57 Ibid.
58 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report, 26th Annual Convention, 1982.
59 Palmer, Working-Class Experience, 400.
60 Wayne Roberts, Cracking The Canadian Formula: The Making of the Energy and Chemical Workers Union, 143.
61 Ibid., 201.
62 Ibid., 163.
63 Paul Bunner, “Crash, Layoff, Exodus, Repeat: Welcome to the Lost Decade,” 6.
64 Andrew Nikiforuk, “The New Quarterback,” 114-27.
65 Sheila Pratt, “The Grip Slips,” 102-13.
66 Nikiforuk, “The New Quarterback,” 120.
67 Edmonton Social Planning Council, Annual Report, 1985.
68 Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Report of President, Sixth Annual Convention, 1981.
69 Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Report of President, Tenth Annual Convention, 1985.
70 Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Report of President, Eleventh Annual Convention, 1987.
71 Harry Dembicki, Unemployment — Reaping the Costs.
72 Reported in Marsha Mildon, A Wealth of Voices: A History of the Edmonton Social Planning Council, 1940-90, 184.
73 Winston Gereluk, We Are the Friends of Medicare.
74 Interview with Karen Olson, Edmonton, 22 March 2010, ALHI.
75 Canada Health Act (1984), c. 6, s. 1.
76 Interview with Dr. Richard Plain, Edmonton, 27 March 2010, ALHI.
77 Alberta Teachers’ Association (ATA), Teaching in Alberta: History of Public Education, “The Controversial Eighties,” 2010, http://www.teachers.ab.ca.
78 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report, 30th Annual Convention, 1986.
79 Alberta Union of Provincial Employees, Report to the AUPE Provincial Executive Meeting, 8 February 1986.
80 UNA, The First Twenty-five Years, 11-12.
81 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report, 30th Annual Convention, 1986.
82 Ibid.
83 B. Johnstone, “Interview: Alberta Labour at the Crossroads,” Athabasca University Magazine Special Labour Supplement 10, no. 5 (May 1987): 19-20.
84 Terry McConnell and J’lyn Nye with Peter Pocklington, I’d Trade Him Again: On Gretzky, Politics and the Pursuit of the Perfect Ideal, 101-15.
85 Interview with John Ewasiw and Mary Ewasiw, Edmonton, 20 September 1998, ALHI.
86 Ventura interview.
87 Ibid.
88 David May, The Battle of 66 Street: Pocklington vs. ufcw Local 280P, 71-72.
89 Interview with Kip Connelly, Edmonton, 14 July 1999, ALHI.
90 May, The Battle of 66 Street, 73-83.
91 Allan Chambers, On the Line: The Struggles of Alberta’s Packing Plant Workers; interview with Albert Johnson, Red Deer, 24 October 2010, ALHI.
92 Interview with Gord Christie, Calgary, 21 May 2008, ALHI.
93 Roberts, Cracking the Canadian Formula, 142.
94 Ibid., 143-44.
95 Ibid., 144.
96 Interview with Reg Basken, Edmonton, 20 May 2005, ALHI.
97 Alberta Labour Relations Code (hereafter ALRC), R.S.A. 2000, c. L-1. s. 90.
98 Interview with Lucien Royer, 1 August 2009, ALHI.
99 ALRC, s. 148(2)
100 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report to the 33th Annual Convention, 1989.
101 Alberta Federation of Labour, Report of the Occupational Health and Safety Committee to the 33rd Annual Convention, 1989.
102 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report to the 31st Annual Convention, 1987.
103 WHMIS was implemented through coordinated federal, provincial, and territorial legislation, led by changes in 1986 to the federal Hazardous Products Act and the related Controlled Products Regulations.
104 Roberts, Cracking the Canadian Formula, 219.
105 Comment recorded at meeting in Hinton, Alberta, organized by the Alberta Labour History Institute, 27 October 2005.
106 Constitution Act, 1982, enacted as Schedule B to the Canada Act, 1982 (UK) 1982, c. 11, which came into force on 17 April 1982.
107 Hunter v. Southam Inc [1984] 2 SCR 145. Reconfirmed in Delisle v. Canada (Deputy Attorney General) [1999] 2 S.C.R. 989.
108 Canada, Special Joint Committee of the Senate and the House of Commons on the Constitution of Canada, No. 33 (9 January 1981), 69.
109 [1987] 1 S.C.R. 313 [Alberta Reference]. The other two cases were Public Service Alliance of Canada v. Canada [1987] 1 S.C.R. 424 [PSAC], and Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union v. Saskatchewan [1987] 1 S.C.R. 460 [Saskatchewan Dairy Workers].
110 [1987] 1 S.C.R. 313 [Alberta Reference].
111 Ibid.
112 Ibid.
113 This jurisprudence would be radically reversed in 2007 in Health Services and Support, Facilities Subsector Bargaining Assn. v. British Columbia, 2007 SCC 27, [2007] 2 S.C.R. 391.
114 Dickason v. University of Alberta [1992] 2 S.C.R. 1103.
115 People’s Food Commission, The Land of Milk and Money: The National Report of the People’s Food Commission. See http://foodsecurecanada.org/sites/foodsecurecanada.org/files/The%20Land%20of%20Milk%20and%20Money.pdf.
116 Royer interview.
117 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report to the 29th Annual Convention, 1985.
118 Royer interview.
119 Alberta Federation of Labour, President’s Report, 28th Annual Convention, 1984.
120 Interview with Clarence Lacombe, Red Deer, 2 May 2003, ALHI.
121 Royer interview.
122 United Nations World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future.
123 Laurie Adkin, “Ecology and Labour: Towards a New Socialist Paradigm,” 214.
124 Brian Brennan, Boondoggles, Bonanzas, and Other Alberta Stories, 170-78.
125 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report, 33rd Annual Convention, 1989.
126 United Nurses of Alberta, The First Twenty-five Years, 14-15.
127 Alberta Federation of Labour, “Report of the Alberta Workers’ Rights Action Committee,” 34th Annual Convention.
128 Interview with Guy Smith, Edmonton, 4 March 2009, ALHI. Guy Smith was elected president of AUPE later in 2009.
129 Lacombe interview.
130 Alberta Federation of Labour, Report of the Committee on Political Education, 27th Annual Convention, 1983.
131 George Melnyk, Beyond Alienation: Political Essays on the West, 54-57.
132 Alberta Labour History Institute community meeting, Medicine Hat, 20 January 2005.
133 Brennan, Boondoggles, 41-43.
134 Interview with Ted Grimm, Medicine Hat, 8 November 2005, ALHI.
135 McConnell, I’d Trade Him Again, 241-57.
136 See the official website of the Trilateral Commission at http://www.trilateral.org/.
137 Will Ferguson, Why I Hate Canadians, 112-13.
138 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report, 30th Annual Convention, 1986.
139 Royer interview.
140 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report, 30th Annual Convention, 1986.
141 Alberta Federation of Labour, Executive Council Report, 33rd Annual Convention, 1989.
8 Revolution, Retrenchment, and the New Normal: The 1990s and Beyond
1 Interview with Bill Climie, Edmonton, 4 September 2007, Alberta Labour History Institute (hereafter ALHI).
2 Interview with Ashley Grandy, Brooks, 1 November 2005, ALHI.
3 Dave Gower, “A Note on Canadian Unemployment Since 1921.”
4 Patricia Evans, “Eroding Canadian Social Welfare: The Mulroney Legacy, 1984-1993.”
5 The original term for bituminous oil production in northern Alberta was tar sands. In the 1990s, the energy industry, trying to polish its image, switched to the term oil sands.
6 Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, 1990 and 2010.
7 Statistics Canada, “Unionization,” Perspectives on Labour and Income 18, no. 3 (Autumn 2006): 18-42.
8 Don Martin, King Ralph: The Political Life and Success of Ralph Klein.
9 Mark Lisac, The Klein Revolution.
10 Trevor Harrison, “The Reform-Ation of Alberta Politics.”
11 Interview with Gord Christie, Calgary, 21 May 2008, ALHI.
12 Edmonton Journal, 19 May 1993.
13 Christie interview.
14 Calgary Herald, 14 June 1997.
15 Fred Engelmann, “Seniors: The End of a Dream.”
16 Jonathan Murphy, “Workfare Will Make You Free: Ideology and Social Policy in Klein’s Alberta.”
17 For elimination of core government jobs, see Yonaton Reshef and Sandra Rastin, Unions in the Time of Revolution: Government Restructuring in Alberta and Ontario, 21. For nursing job cuts, see UNA, United Nurses of Alberta: Twenty-Five Years of History, http://www.una.ab.ca/about/historypages/UNA%20History%20-%201994.
18 Edmonton Journal, 25 November 1993.
19 Edmonton Journal, 25 February 1994.
20 Edmonton Journal, 17 November 1993.
21 Raymond Gariépy, “Journey Through a Turbulent Time,” ATA NEWS, 17 August 1999.
22 Reshef and Rastin, Unions in the Time of Revolution, 21, 69.
23 Alberta Hansard, 15 March 1994.
24 Greg Flanagan, Sobering Result: The Alberta Liquor Retailing Industry Ten Years After Privatization.
25 Edmonton Journal, 13 September 1993.
26 The case for privatization of these services is now seen as dubious. In 2009, Alberta had the highest alcohol prices in the country, and selection in most stores was reduced compared to the pre-privatization era. Government promises for greater convenience never materialized. This is evidence that once privatization occurs, it becomes almost impossible to reverse.
27 For example, see the Parkland Institute’s studies on highway maintenance (Lisa Prescott, Un-accountable: The Case of Highway Maintenance Privatization in Alberta) and liquor retail (Flanagan, Sobering Result).
28 For example, the costs of building and operating hospitals via P3s versus building them as public works was demonstrated in Allyson M. Pollock, Jean Shaoul, and Neil Vickers, “Private Finance and ‘Value for Money’ in NHS Hospitals: a Policy in Search of a Rationale?”
29 Shannon Sampert, “King Ralph, the Ministry of Truth, and the Media in Alberta,” 43. See also Simon Kiss, “Selling Government: The Evolution of Government Public Relations in Alberta.”
30 Kevin Taft, in Shredding the Public Interest: Ralph Klein and Twenty-Five Years of One-Party Government, demolishes the arguments that the Klein government used to make the province appear to have no alternative but to make massive cuts in services in order to deal with its deficits and debts.
31 See Reshef and Rastin, Unions in the Time of Revolution. A similar thesis is presented by Jeff Taylor in “Labour in the Klein Revolution.”
32 Edmonton Journal, 28 April 1994.
33 Edmonton Journal, 9 November 1994.
34 Natasha Mekhail, “Free Radicals: Edmontonians Who’ve Mobilized, Motivated and Raised A Little Hell,” See Magazine, Edmonton, 1 May 2003; Rich Vivone, Ralph Could Have Been a Superstar: Tales of the Klein Era, 110-11.
35 Karen Hughes, Graham Lowe, and Allison McKinnon, “Public Attitudes Toward Budget Cuts in Alberta: Biting the Bullet or Feeling the Pain?”
36 Edmonton Journal, 30 April 1994.
37 Reshef and Rastin, Unions in the Time of Revolution, 73.
38 Interview with Jimmy Arthurs, Calgary, 30 April 2009, ALHI.
39 Edmonton Journal, 13 April 1994.
40 Interview with Cathy Jones, Canmore, 18 November 2005, ALHI.
41 Interview with Elisabeth Ballermann, Edmonton, 23 March 2010, ALHI.
42 Ibid.
43 Alberta Hansard, 7 March 1995.
44 See William Moore, “The Determinants and Effects of Right-to-Work Laws: A Review of Recent Literature.” The Rand formula, developed by Supreme Court Justice Ivan Rand in a 1946 dispute between Ford Motor Company of Canada and the United Auto Workers, ordered an automatic check-off of union dues by employers in unionized workplaces. Rand argued that since all of the workers would benefit from the union’s successes in achieving better wages and working conditions, none of them should be allowed to treat the union as a “free good.” They all had to pay dues. While this was a benefit to unions, Rand also ruled that unions had to enforce collective agreements and prevent wildcat strikes, as well as pay steep fines when they failed to do so.
45 Edmonton Journal, 1 December 1995.
46 Alberta Hansard, 3 May 1995.
47 Interview with Doug O’Halloran, Calgary, November 2005, ALHI.
48 The government experimented with a new, collaborative consultation model that theoretically gave more influence to labour but in practice entrenched standard power imbalances. See Jason Foster, “Talking Ourselves to Death.”
49 Alberta Federation of Labour, “Double the Workplace Deaths, Half the Government Funding,” press release, 26 April 2000, http://www.afl.org/index.php/Press-Release/doubletheworkplacedeathsh.html.
50 Eric Tucker, “Diverging Trends in Worker Health and Safety Protection and Participation in Canada, 1985-2000.”
51 AFL, Running to Stand Still.
52 AFL, The Horizon Project: Showdown over Labour Rights.
53 See Judy Fudge, “Labour Is Not a Commodity: The Supreme Court of Canada and the Freedom of Association,” and Eric Tucker, “The Constitutional Right to Bargain Collectively: The Ironies of Labour History in the Supreme Court of Canada.”
54 Jason Foster, “State of the Unions: Trends in Unionization in Alberta.”
55 The materials in this section are based on the author’s observations as a participant and observer.
56 Statistics Canada, Perspectives on Labour and Income, various issues.
57 Interview with Myrna Wright, Pincher Creek, 4 March 2009, ALHI.
58 Edmonton Journal, 22 April 2002.
59 Reshef and Rastin, Unions in the Time of Revolution.
60 Interview with Doug O’Halloran, 13 March 2007, ALHI.
61 Ibid.
62 Interview with Andy Marshall, Cochrane, 18 November 2005, ALHI.
63 Ibid.
64 O’Halloran interview.
65 The 1997 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Vancouver offered an initial glimpse into the movement amassing in resistance to globalization. However, the scale and global media coverage of Seattle marked it as a key turning point.
66 Interview with Cindy McCallum Miller, Edmonton, 11 November 2008, ALHI.
67 See Dunmore v. Ontario (Attorney General), 2001 S.C.C. 94, (2001).
68 Alberta, Economic Development, Alberta Wage and Salary Survey, 2003.
69 Bob Barnetson, “The Regulatory Exclusion of Agricultural Workers in Alberta.”
70 Alberta Federation of Labour, Labour Economic Monitor, Summer 2006.
71 Canada, Citizenship and Immigration Canada, “Facts and Figures 2009 — Immigration overview: Permanent and Temporary Residents.”
72 Eric Reitsma, Alberta Director of Enforcement, speech to 7th Annual Alberta Health and Safety Conference, 21 October 2008.
73 See Jason Foster, “Making Temporary Permanent: The Silent Transformation of the Temporary Foreign Worker Program” (available from the author).
74 Edmonton Journal, 24 June 2005.
75 Bob Barnetson, “Regulation of Child and Adolescent Employment in Alberta.”
76 Interview with Peter Jany by author, Brooks, 30 November 2005.
77 Interview with Archie Duckworth, Brooks, 10 October 2007, ALHI.
78 Jason Foster, “Conflict and Solidarity: How the Lakeside Workers Won Their Union.”
79 Grandy interview.
80 O’Halloran interview.
81 Duckworth interview.
82 Joe Pok, “Oil Sands Development in Alberta and the Implications on Sulphur Supply,” presentation to 2002 International Fertilizer Industry Association Annual Conference, Quebec City, 16 October 2002.
83 Andrew Nikiforuk, Tar Sands: Dirty Oil and the Future of a Continent.
84 Calgary’s Molson plant was closed in 1994. By 2010, only one major brewery, the Edmonton Labatt plant, was operating in the province.
85 Catherine C. Cole, “The Levi’s Era.”
86 Ibid.
87 Climie interview.
88 Interview with Sam Cholak and Tom Enright, Edmonton, 24 November 2007, ALHI.
89 Edmonton Journal, 23 April 2008.
90 Statistics Canada, Labour Force Survey, 4 September 2009 and 5 December 2008.
91 The Alberta Alliance had, surprisingly, won a seat in the 2004 election and captured 8.7 percent of the vote, but had stalled, prompting the merger on the eve of the provincial election in 2008.
92 Anthony M. Sayers and David K. Stewart, “Is This the End of the Tory Dynasty? The Wildrose Alliance in Alberta Politics.”
9 Women, Labour, and the Labour Movement
1 Linda Goyette and Carolina Jakeway Roemmich, Edmonton: In Our Own Words, 81.
2 Saskatchewan Union of Nurses and United Nurses of Alberta, 100 Years of Nursing on the Prairies.
3 Brian Gale, “Challenging Times for Early Hospital Staff.”
4 Sharon Richardson, “Frontier Health Care: Alberta’s District and Municipal Nursing Services, 1919 to 1976,” 2.
5 Ibid., 7.
6 Michael Palamarek, A History of Women and Politics in Alberta, 1900-1988: A Report for Senator Martha P. Bielish, 10.
7 Goyette and Roemmich, Edmonton, 187.
8 Interview with Emma Gilbertson, Edmonton, 22 June 2004, Alberta Labour History Institute (hereafter ALHI).
9 Goyette and Roemmich, Edmonton, 179. For a history of GWG, see Royal Alberta Museum, “Piece by Piece: The GWG Story.”
10 Interview with Assunta Dotto, Edmonton, 20 April 2004, GWG Project interviews.
11 Interview with Helen Allen, Edmonton, 25 May 2004, ALHI.
12 Linda Kealey, Enlisting Women for the Cause: Women, Labour and the Left in Canada, 1890-1920, 63.
13 Hugh A. Dempsey, “Confessions of a Calgary Stenographer,” 2.
14 Ruth A. Frager and Carmela Patrias, Discounted Labour: Women Workers in Canada, 1870-1939, 66.
15 Paul Phillips and Erin Phillips, Women and Work: Inequality in the Canadian Labour Market, 25.
16 Julie White, Sisters and Solidarity: Women and Unions in Canada, 18.
17 James H. Gray, Red Lights on the Prairies, x.
18 Judy Bedford, “Prostitution in Calgary, 1905-1914,” 1.
19 Ibid., 2.
20 Ibid., 8.
21 Belinda Crowson, “Ethnic Diversity in Lethbridge’s Red Light District, 1880s to 1944,” 6.
22 Rebecca Coulter, “The Working Youth of Edmonton, 1921-1931,” 143.
23 Elise Schneider, “Addressing the Issues: Two Women’s Groups in Edmonton,” 16.
24 White, Sisters and Solidarity, 34.
25 Phillips and Phillips, Women and Work, 28.
26 Ibid., 34.
27 Frager and Patrias, Discounted Labour, 24.
28 Paul Stanway, The Albertans: From Settlement To Super Province, 1905-2005, 66.
29 Frager and Patrias, Discounted Labour, 84.
30 Interview with Clare Botsford, Edmonton, 1 August 2001, ALHI.
31 Goyette and Roemmich, Edmonton, 250.
32 Ruth Pierson, “Women’s Emancipation and the Recruitment of Women into the Canadian Labour Force in World War II,” 150.
33 Linda Goyette and Carolina Jakeway Roemmich, Edmonton: In Our Own Words, 34.
34 Goyette and Roemmich, Edmonton, 250.
35 Alberta Teachers’ Association, Teaching in Alberta: History of Public Education, “World War II,” 2010, http://www.teachers.ab.ca.
36 Phillips and Phillips, Women and Work, 36.
37 Palamarek, A History of Women, 10, 87.
38 Ibid., 87; Vincent Ferrao, “Paid Work,” 6.
39 Ferrao, “Paid Work,” 6.
40 Interview with Anne Ozipko, Edmonton, 4 April 2003, ALHI.
41 Ferrao, “Paid Work,” 9.
42 Andrew Jackson, “Gender Inequality and Precarious Work: Exploring the Impact of Unions Through the Gender and Work Database.”
43 Ferrao, “Paid Work,” 23.
44 Veronica Strong-Boag, “The Girl of the New Day: Canadian Working Women in the 1920s,” Labour/Le Travailleur 4 (1979): 147; Parkland Institute, “Alberta’s Wage Gap Highest in Canada,” press release, 8 March 2010, http://parklandinstitute.ca/media/comments/albertas_wage_gap_highest_in_canada.
45 Parkland Institute, “Alberta’s Wage Gap Highest in Canada.”
46 Catherine C. Cole, “Union Activities at GWG.”
47 Margaret Hobbs and Joan Sangster, eds., The Woman Worker, 1926-1929, 36.
48 Margaret E. McCallum, “Keeping Women in Their Place: The Minimum Wage in Canada, 1910-25,” 31.
49 Kealey, Enlisting Women, 162.
50 Coulter, “The Working Youth,” 89-90, outlines the Hudson’s Bay Company’s attempt to avoid paying the minimum wage by claiming that women workers required a three-year apprenticeship period.
51 Jim Selby, “Women Win ‘Illegal’ Restaurant Strike in Edmonton in 1935.”
52 Kealey, Enlisting Women, 87.
53 Ibid., 80.
54 Ann Ball, “Organizing Working Women: The Women’s Labor Leagues,” 20.
55 Hobbs and Sangster, The Woman Worker, 72.
56 Patricia Roome, “Amelia Turner and Calgary Labour Women, 1919-1935,” 432.
57 Ibid., 435.
58 Excerpt from testimony at the Mathers Commission meeting in Calgary, May 1919, quoted in Warren Caragata, Alberta Labour: A Heritage Untold, 84.
59 Roome, “Amelia Turner,” 433.
60 Hobbs and Sangster, The Woman Worker, 39.
61 Jackson, “Gender Inequality,” 15.
62 Perspectives on Labour and Income, July 2009, http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/75-001-x/topics-sujets/unionization-syndicalisation/unionization-syndicalisation-2009-eng.htm.
63 Jackson, “Gender Inequality,” 13. The union wage premium is the union wage minus the non-union wage as a percentage of non-union wage.
64 Equal Pay Coalition, “Pay Equity and Unions.”
65 McCallum Miller interview.
66 Julie Cool, Wage Gap Between Women and Men, Parliamentary Information and Research Service, Library of Parliament, 29 July 2010, http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/LOP/ResearchPublications/2010-30-e.htm.
67 AFL Women’s Committee, Claiming Our Past... Shaping Our Future: A Collection of Essays in Celebration of the Alberta Federation of Labour’s 75th Anniversary, 54.
68 Interview with Susan Keeley, Calgary, 11 September 2007, ALHI.
69 White, Sisters and Solidarity, 66.
70 Equal Pay Coalition, “Other Provinces.”
71 Jackson, “Gender Inequality,” 6.
72 Edmonton Social Planning Council, Maternity Leave in Alberta, 1.
73 Alberta Hansard, 3 December 1973, 1359.
74 “Alberta Changes Parental Leave Rules,” CBC News, 7 February 2001, http://www.cbc.ca/news/story/2001/02/07/clint070201.html.
75 Julie White, Mail and Female: Women and the Canadian Union of Postal Workers, 150-51.
76 Ibid., 152.
77 Ibid., 162.
78 Interview with Susan Parcels, Edmonton, n.d., ALHI.
79 Ibid.
80 Jackson, “Gender Inequality,” 9.
81 AFL Women’s Committee, Claiming Our Past, 13.
82 White, Sisters and Solidarity, 93.
83 Tom Langford, Alberta’s Day Care Controversy From 1908 to 2009 — and Beyond, 314.
84 Interview with Clancy Teslenko, Calgary, 16 November 2005, ALHI.
85 White, Sisters and Solidarity, 122. Also see Debbie Field, “The Dilemma Facing Women’s Committees,” 293.
86 “AFL Women’s Committee,” Alberta Federation of Labour, 6 November 2009, http://www.afl.org/index.php/About-AFL/afl-womens-committee.html.
87 Adriane Paavo, “Union Workload: A Barrier to Women Surviving Labour-Movement Leadership.”
88 AFL Women’s Committee, Claiming Our Past, 122.
10 Racialization and Work
1 Immigration Branch Records, “Immigration to Western Canada,” PR1977.0054/12, AFL files; NAC 7346, W.V. Bennett, Agent at Omaha, Nebraska to W.D. Scott, Superintendent of Immigration, Ottawa, 17 January 1910, Library and Archives Canada.
2 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 1 May 1947, 2646.
3 Immigration interviews are from Immigration Branch Records, PR1977.0054/12; NAC 7346.
4 Harley Dickinson and Terry Wotherspoon, “From Assimilation to Self-government: Towards a Political Economy of Canada’s Aboriginal Policies,” 411.
5 Brian Titley, “Red Deer Indian Industrial School: A Case Study in the History of Native Education,” 57.
6 Dickinson and Wotherspoon, “From Assimilation to Self-government,” 413.
7 Joan Sangster, Transforming Labour: Women and Work in Postwar Canada, 207.
8 The African-Canadian immigrants who came during the early twentieth century (1908-12) formed predominantly black communities such as Amber Valley, Junkins (Wildwood), and Keystone (Breton). Several family and community memoirs have been written about this period. Examples include Velma Carter and Wanda Leffler Akili, The Windows of Our Memories, 2 vols., and Gwen Hooks, The Keystone Legacy: Reflections of a Black Pioneer.
9 Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 22 March and 3 April 1911.
10 J. Brian Dawson, Moon Cakes in Gold Mountain: From China to the Canadian Plains, 44. Chinese workers came to British Columbia following the end of the Gold Rush in California. From British Columbia, many made their way to Alberta looking for employment during the building of the railroad.
11 Peter S. Li, “Chinese: Arrival and Settlement,” The Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples, http://www.multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/c10/3.
12 Lisa M. Jakobowski, Immigration and the Legalization of Racism, 16.
13 Ibid.
14 Library and Archives Canada, Cabinet Documents, 1911 Order-in-Council, 12 August 1911, paper C-117932.
15 Charles Irby Collection, Charles Irby interviews, interview with Willie Toles, Amber Valley, 1970, University of California, Santa Barbara Archives.
16 Excerpt from J. Brian Dawson and Nicholas Ting, The Chinese Experience in Canada: Life Stories from the Late 1800s to Today, http://www.abheritage.ca/pasttopresent/en/settlement/chinese_laundry_worker.html. See also John Jung, Chinese Laundries: Tickets to Survival on Gold Mountain.
17 “Dan Mah’s Odyssey,” Edmonton Journal, 12 March 1989.
18 For more on early African-Canadian communities in the Edmonton area, see Dan Cui and Jennifer R. Kelly, “‘Our Negro Citizens’: An Example of Everyday Citizenship Practices.”
19 “Unable to gain the respect of their white co-workers, they [the Winnipeg railway porters] formed a union of their own in 1917, the Order of Sleeping Car Porters — the first black railway union in North America.” Thus, ironically, western Canada, rather than the United States, was the site of the first North American segregated union. Sarah-Jane Mathieu, “North of the Colour Line: Sleeping Car Porters and the Battle Against Jim Crow on Canadian Rails, 1880-1920,” 5. Also of interest is Agnes Calliste’s “Sleeping Car Porters: An Ethnically Submerged Split Labour Market.”
20 Interview with Daniel Lafierre conducted by Leander Lane, 2009 Racialization, Immigration, Citizenship (henceforth RIC). RIC is a SSHRC-funded research project to develop an understanding of the formation of African-Canadian communities in Alberta from 1900 to the 1960s. Leander Lane is a descendant of the early black settlers in Alberta and Saskatchewan.
21 Jaswinder Gudwara, Splintered Dreams: Sikhs in Southern Alberta. After World War I, a small number of Sikhs began to farm in southern Alberta (near Lethbridge) and to begin to create a viable community that would include the few students who attended the University of Alberta. These South Asians remained few in number throughout the 1920s, when the only legal new arrivals were the wives and children of those already here.
22 Proceeding of the Ninth Annual Convention of District 18, United Mineworkers of Alberta, February 1912. “Conventions, 1910-73,” M-2239-151, Glenbow Archives.
23 Lily Cho, Eating Chinese: Culture on the Menu in Small Town Canada.
24 Emily Murphy, The Black Candle.
25 Edmonton Bulletin, 12 July 1924.
26 Dawson and Ting, Chinese Experience.
27 See “Calgary’s Chinese Community,” a website developed by the Applied History Research Group at the University of Calgary, at http://www.ucalgary.ca/applied _history/tutor/calgary/chinese.html. Comments taken from Brian Dawson and Nicholas Ting’s research.
28 Interview with Tets Kitaguchi, Alberta Labour History Institute (hereafter ALHI) “Road Show,” 2005, 4.
29 Joan Sangster, Transforming Labour, 213.
30 Ross Lambertson, “‘The Dresden Story’: Racism, Human Rights, and the Jewish Labour Committee of Canada,” 8. On labour’s attitudes to immigration before World War II, see David Goutor, Guarding the Gates: The Canadian Labour Movement and Immigration, 1872-1934, and David Goutor, “‘Standing by Our Principles’: The Trades and Labor Congress of Canada and Immigration, 1933-1939.”
31 Provincial Archives of Alberta, Alberta Federation of Labour fonds (hereafter AFL fonds), 77.54, item 3, AFL, CLC, Fifth Convention, Report of Proceedings, Calgary, Alberta, 26-29 October 1960.
32 Sangster, Transforming Labour, 58.
33 Notes from a speech given by Dick Bellamy to the Unitarian Fellowship in the 1950s, R12294-0-2-E, Library and Archives Canada.
34 James S. Walker, “African Canadians: Economic Life,” Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples, http://multiculturalcanada.ca/Encyclopedia/A-Z/a16/4.
35 Interview with Hazel Proctor, Calgary 2001, ALHI.
36 Notes from a speech given by Dick Bellamy.
37 Ross Lambertson, “The Dresden Story.”
38 AFL fonds, 77.54, AFL, CLC, Fifth Convention, Report of Proceedings, Calgary, Alberta, 26-29 October, 1960: “Resolutions to Be Presented to the Convention of the AFL, Calgary, October 26, 1960.”
39 On Manning, see Alvin Finkel, The Social Credit Phenomenon in Alberta, 106, 136-38.
40 Province of Alberta, Human Rights Act, 1966, Part 1, Code of Conduct, Discrimination and Prohibition, 214.
41 PA A, AFL fonds, 77.54, 12/380, Department of Labour, Human Rights Branch, Human Concern 1, no. 1 (1969): 3.
42 “Minister’s Message,” in Human Concern 1, no. 1 (1969), published by the Human Rights Branch, Department of Labour, 1.
43 PAA, AFL fonds, 77.54/10/307, E.A Mitchell, Assistant Executive Secretary, AFL, to Dr. Seth Fisher, president, AHRA, 28 October 1968. The association had a membership base that included academics, trade unionists, and other concerned citizens. For more information on the origins of the organization, see “Canada’s Human Rights History — Alberta,” http://www.historyofrights.com/ngo/alberta.html.
44 PAA, AFL fonds, 77.54, 10/307, Donald MacDonald, secretary-treasurer, CLC, to all Canadian Labour Congress Chartered and Affiliated Unions, Labour Councils, and Federations, 28 July 1967.
45 Interview with female participant, Edmonton, 2009, RIC.
46 See Dan Cui and Jennifer Kelly, “A Historical Exploration of Internationally Educated Teachers: Jamaica Teachers in 1960s Alberta.”
47 Interview with oil worker from Trinidad, Edmonton, 2007, RIC.
48 Interview with female participant, Edmonton, 2008, RIC.
49 Ethnic Survey, interview with Norma Ellis, RCT B75-32, Glenbow Archives.
50 Ironically, those who entered Alberta during its boom period and found work were also those most likely to overlook language and vocational training. They were affected most harshly by the recession in the 1980s.
51 A.H. Richmond, Comparative Studies in the Economic Adaptation of Immigrants in Canada.
52 According to the Statistics Canada website: “Counts of the visible minority population in Canada were first produced using 1981 Census data. Data on the visible minority population in 1981, 1986, and 1991 were derived primarily from responses to the ethnic origin question, in conjunction with responses from the place of birth and mother tongue questions.” Statistics Canada, “Visible Minority Population and Population Group Reference Guide — Historical Comparability,” last modified 5 April 2011, http://www12.statcan.ca/census-recensement/2006/ref/rp-guides/visible_minority-minorities_visibles-eng.cfm.
53 The Employment Equity Act (S.C. 1995 c. 44) defines visible minorities as “persons, other than Aboriginal peoples, who are non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour.” Categories in the visible minority population variable include Chinese, South Asian, Black, Filipino, Latin American, Southeast Asian, Arab, West Asian, Korean, and Japanese.
54 As part of its Project 2012 joint research project with the AFL, the Alberta Labour History Institute has produced an excellent booklet, Fighting Back: The 1995 Calgary Laundry Workers Strike, by Allan Chambers.
55 Various interviews with Lakeside Packers workers, Brooks, ALHI.
56 Interview with Peter Jany, ALHI “Road Show,” 2005.
57 Interviews with Lakeside Packers workers.
58 Ibid.
59 Edmonton Journal, 21 July 2010. See also “Natives Bore Brunt of Job Losses,” Aspect: Bc’s Community-Based Trainers, 14 May 2010, http://www.aspect.bc.ca/resources/natives-bore-brunt-job-losses-canada-stat scan-study-shows.
60 Report of the AFL Workers of Colour and Aboriginal Workers Committee, AFL Convention, 2009.
61 Interviews with members of Workers of Colour and Aboriginal Workers Committee, Edmonton, 2010, RIC.
62 Ibid.
63 G.S. Basran and L. Zong, “Devaluation of Foreign Credentials as Perceived by Visible Minority Professional Immigrants.”
64 Shibao Guo and Per Andersson, Non/Recognition of Foreign Credentials for Immigrant Professionals in Canada and Sweden: A Comparative Analysis.
65 Christopher Worswick, “C.D. Howe Insitute Backgrounder No. 81: Immigrants’ Declining Earnings: Reasons and Remedies,” 5.
66 Paula Simons, “Harper’s Head Tax Apology Rights Canada’s Racist Past,” Edmonton Journal, 24 June 2006.
67 Trish Audette, “Foreign Worker Program Reassessed,” Edmonton Journal, 21 July 2010.
68 Edmonton Journal, 18 July 2011.
69 Citizenship and Immigration Canada, “Facts and Figures 2009 — Immigration Overview: Permanent and Temporary Residents,” http://www.cic.gc.ca/english/resources/statistics/facts2009/temporary/03.asp.
70 Ibid.
71 Sarah Carter, “Britishness, ‘Foreignness,’ Women and Land in Western Canada, 1890s-1920s,” 43.
Conclusion: A History to Build Upon
1 Bob Barnetson, The Political Economy of Workplace Injury in Canada, 11.
2 Alberta Employment and Immigration, “Occupational Fatalities and Fatality Rates, Alberta 1999 to 2008,” http://employment.alberta.ca/documents/WHS/WHS-Pub memorandum WHS analysis 2008 statistics.
3 Information from Alberta Federation of Labour, 23 July 2010, posted on Injured Workers All Across Canada, in response to “WCB Provides Generous Bonuses to Its Employees by Reducing Benefits to Injured Workers,” 21 July 2010, http://iwocac.ning.com/group/albertaabusedinjuredworkers/forum/topics/wcb-provides-generous-bonuses?xg_source=activity.
4 Andrew Sharpe and Jill Hardt, “Five Deaths a Day: Workplace Fatalities in Canada, 1993-2005” (Ottawa: Centre for the Study of Living Standards, 2006), http://www.csls.ca/reports/csls2006-04.pdf.
5 Alberta Federation of Labour, AFL in the News, “Alberta Vows to End Abuse of WCB Rebates: Lukaszuk Sets Out New Guidelines,” 3 June 2011, http://www.afl.org/index.php/AFL-in-the-News/alberta-vows-to-end-abuse-of-wcb-rebates-lukaszuk-sets-out-new-guidelines.html.
6 Information from Alberta Federation of Labour, 23 July 2010, posted on Injured Workers All Across Canada, in response to “WCB Provides Generous Bonuses to Its Employees by Reducing Benefits to Injured Workers,” 21 July 2010. Material on the carnage against workers in Alberta has also been compiled by Mike Hruska of Edmonton for the Alberta Democratic Renewal Project. This material, which draws on government reports, ILO documents, and newspaper reports, is unpublished but is available from the Democratic Renewal Project, http://drproject.ca/contact.php. For a national perspective, see Bob Barnetson, The Political Economy of Workplace Injury.
7 Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, calculations based on Statistics Canada, Labour Force Historical Review 2009 (Table 078), Ottawa: Statistics Canada, 2010 (Cat. No. 71F0004XVB).
8 These are the figures claimed by these organizations on their websites rather than independently verified figures.
9 Greg Flanagan, “Not Just About Money: Provincial Budgets and Political Ideology,” 122.
10 The effects of the cutbacks on the poor are demonstrated in the essays in Gordon Laxer and Trevor Harrison, ed., The Trojan Horse: Alberta and the Future of Canada, and in Trevor Harrison, ed., The Return of the Trojan Horse: Alberta and the New World (Dis)Order
11 Kevin Taft, presentation to Join Together Alberta gathering, Edmonton, 23 June 2011. Figures available at “Public Spending Stayed Flat as Economy Grew,” on Taft’s MLA website, 12 July 2011, http://www.edmontonriverview.com/er/.
12 Alberta, Financial Investment and Planning Advisory Commission, Report and Recommendations (2008), 22.
13 Brendan Ross, “Norway’s $525 Billion Sovereign Wealth Fund Essentially an Index Fund,” Seeking Alpha, 26 May 2011, http://seeking alpha.com/article/271957-norway-s-525-billion-sovereign-wealth-fund-essentially-an-index-fund.
14 G.L. Clark and A.H.B. Monk, “The Legitimacy and Governance of Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund: The Ethics of Global Investments.”
15 Asbjørn Wahl, “Building Progressive Alliances.”
16 Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
17 A. Lee, “Best Places to Live in the World — 2010,” ZoomHealth, 4 November 2010, http://www.zoomhealth.net/BestPlacestoLiveIntheWorld-2010.html.
18 The Alberta Federation of Labour’s most recent commentary on its political objectives and the strategy that it hopes to follow to pursue them is found in Alberta Federation of Labour, 2011 Convention, Political Action Paper, 1 May 2011.
19 Interview with Enoch Williams conducted by David Millar, 1969. MG 31, vol. 2, file: Enoch Williams, Library and Archives Canada, pp. 10-11, as reproduced on the website of sociology professor Tom Langford, University of Calgary, http://people.ucalgary. ca/~langford/.
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