"How
God's Angry Man Became the Conscience of Canada"
by
George Siamandas
James
Shaver
Woodsworth was elected to Parliament on Dec 6, 1921. He was a reform
minded clergyman who helped initiate the social democratic movement in
Canada. James Shaver Woodsworth was born in Etobicoke Ontario in July
29, 1874. He arrived in Brandon in 1885 with his family. Like his
father he became a Methodist minister and was ordained in 1896. The
family were United Empire Loyalists.
Woodsworth
grew
increasingly unhappy with his church. Woodsworth's education at Oxford
and travels in England where he saw the incredible levels of poverty
made him question the church's focus on spiritual issues. He saw the
church as being used by the powerful and the rich for their own aims.
He also saw the church behaving more and more as institution with
institutional aims and ambitions. This was not the place from which to
urge radical reform.
Woodsworth
grew
to hate capitalism and all its "brutal struggles and needless
suffering." He had become an exponent of the Social Gospel and was more
concerned with the real lives of people over that of their souls. He
sought to establish a kingdom of god in the here and now. Woodsworth
then became head of the All People's Mission in 1907. In Canada at the
outbreak of WW1 he did not like the use of the pulpit to recruit men
for war. By 1917 he had left the church and when he lost his job for a
social research organization he went to the West Coast to work as a
longshoreman.
TRADE
UNION ADVOCATE
Woodsworth
who
now lived in BC was asked to come to Winnipeg to speak during the 1919
strike. In Winnipeg he became a strong supporter of unions and took
over the publication of the Western Labour News when the original
editors were imprisoned. In turn Woodsworth was arrested for preaching
sedition when all he was doing is quoting from Isaiah. With the support
of labour Woodsworth was elected to Parliament in 1921 for Winnipeg
North centre. His slogan was "human needs before property rights."
Woodsworth was very popular winning every election till his death in
1942. In 1933 he helped give birth the Co-operative Commonwealth
Federation and served as its first leader.
He
chose to
stand alone for principle. In 1939 for example, he was the only MP to
vote against Canada's entry in WW2. But effective spokesmanship in
Parliament was not enough to get things done. Woodsworth the
pragmatist, cut a deal to support Mackenzie's shaky federal government
of the day, and was rewarded with the introduction of old age pensions
in 1927. Woodsworth became an expert on Parliamentary procedures and
helped bring forward much other social legislation such collective
bargaining, unemployment insurance and civil liberties, all initiated
by his speeches in the House of Commons.
WOODSWORTH'S
DARK SIDE
With
the massive
immigration of the 1910s Winnipeggers were concerned with the impact
that all these immigrants would have. Woodsworth wrote a book on this
very topical issue called "Strangers within our Gates." A strong
believer in assimilation he thought that the new European immigrants
were having a very hard time fitting in.
He
felt some
were better immigrants than others. For him the best were the British,
Germans, Scandinavians and Americans. The absence of democratic
traditions in eastern and southern European made these immigrants less
suitable he thought. And according to Woodsworth, the Orientals and
blacks were even less desirable. In 1909 he argued that Blacks should
not be allowed into Canada. The irony is that he cared for all of them
equally in his work. Woodsworth died in Vancouver on March 21 1942, age
68 and still a member of Parliament. His daughter Grace McInnes, is one
of 6 children.