Direct Democracy in Canada: The History and Future of Referendums by J. Patrick Boyer

Author:J. Patrick Boyer [Boyer, J. Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: National, Campaigns & Elections, Comparative Politics, Political Science, Political Process, American Government
ISBN: 9781459718845
Google: CWGN-RZcqNoC
Goodreads: 17353836
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: 1996-07-25T00:00:00+00:00

Direct Voting for Agricultural Producers

Canadian farmers have been among the strongest advocates of direct democracy. The origins and development of agrarian protest began in the 1870s. Farmers turned to direct political action, notes historian Foster Griezic, “only when it seemed that working through the traditional parties did not allow for sufficient consideration of their problems or a realistic input into the decision-making process.”181

The economic, social, and political injustices suffered by Canada’s farmers between 1870 and 1924 are traced by Louis Aubrey Wood. Wood’s account still remains one of the best studies of the origins and early development of agrarian protest in our country.182

Being practical people who often confronted harsh realities in earning their living, Canadian farmers urged an agenda of both pragmatic and radical economic and political reform. They pushed for “cheaper transportation, improved marketing practices, nationalization of public utilities, increased availability of farm credit, taxation of unimproved land, graduated income taxes, reform of government fiscal policy to lower the cost of the necessities of life, elimination of eastern business-government interdependence, the moral purification of business and government, and the introduction of participatory democracy.”183

Through such farmers’ movements as the Grange, the Patrons of Industry, and the Grain Growers’ Movement – and subsequently through the political movements which agrarian protest spawned, such as the United Farmers, the Progressive Party, Social Credit, and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation – a strong voice expressed support for direct democracy: initiative, recall, referendum, and plebiscite.

The impetus and leadership for organization of farmers radiated from Protestant Anglo-Saxons of southwestern Ontario and shifted to the Prairies in the early decades of this century. The Prairie leaders, many of whom were Ontario-born, provided considerable assistance in organizing the United Farmers of Ontario (who formed a provincial government at Queen’s Park in 1919) and the United Farmers Co-Op.184

Canadian farmers, critical of the practice and operation of governments and legislatures and imbued with a deep faith in democracy, contended that a referendum could give people a greater voice in major political decisions. In the election of a government, they recognized, countless issues are touched on, but the voter has to make a single overall choice between one candidate in particular and a certain platform in general. In a referendum, by contrast, only one issue is at stake, and the voter can express his or her opinion on that one issue alone without being distracted by personalities of candidates or other political questions. This pro-referendum school of thought was reflected in the resolution endorsed by the Saskatchewan Grain Growers’ Association in 1911 that “direct legislation appears to us to be the only way to effect legislation equal to all.”185

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