Radical politics came to Newfoundland as it did to the rest of Canada in the mid-20th Century. The actions of organized labour, political radicals and racial minorities had never prompted Newfoundland's political leadership to employ the type of repression that emerged on the mainland in the 1930s/40s. The government introduced emergency powers and conscription during the two world wars, but with the exception of a police raid on the offices of the weekly newspaper ‘Plaindealer’ on 27 April 1918 to confiscate an anti-conscription issue, there is no evidence of widespread censorship or detentions during either conflict. A Commission of Government took control of the colony in 1934 in the wake of massive post-war debts, and this reversion from a democratic system of government likely contributed to the lack of radical political dissent in Newfoundland. And the leaders of two of the most influential social movements of this period, the Fisherman’s Protective Union and the Newfoundland Federation of Labour (NFL), did not organize opposition to the war or conscription. [William Gillespie argues that the NFL reacted patriotically to WWI and labour issues were secondary to the war effort. Although the government used its emergency powers to impose industrial peace and restrict striking, the NFL was small, voluntary, and had limited resources. Coaker publicly supported the war and conscription, although not all of his members, particularly northern fisherman, shared the sentiment.]

There were no rights associations in Newfoundland before 1968, and the most active social movement was organized labour. Founded in 1908 by William Coaker, the Fisherman’s Protective Union was an early example of radical social movement activism in Newfoundland. The FPU mobilized over 20 000 members and managed to elected 13 people to the House of Assembly, in a rare instance of grass-roots mobilization that challenged the economic elite on Water street and the political elite of the House of Assembly. The most extreme form of labour radicalism in Newfoundland emerged in 1959 with a bitter strike led by the International Woodworkers of America (IWA).

Richard Gwynn characterized the strike as the “most bitter labour dispute in Newfoundland’s history.” Joey Smallwood, who had been active in the labour movement and helped introduced Newfoundland’s first labour legislation as Premier, found himself confronted with a radical movement employing more confrontational tactics than the ‘Gomperism’ of the NFL. Fearing that the strike would shut down the province’s largest employer, and facing public as well as clerical opposition to the strike, Smallwood introduced emergency labour laws in 1959. The laws immediately decertified the IWA, empowered the cabinet to dissolve trade unions, prohibited secondary picketing, and made unions liable for illegal acts committed on their behalf. The International Labour Organization, Canadian Labour Congress (CLC) and NFL quickly condemned the legislation, and Prime Minister John Diefenbaker refused to provide the province with additional police to implement Smallwood’s plan. Even Lester B. Pearson, leader of the national Liberal party and Smallwood ally, publicly expressed concerns about the excessive measures. Running out of food and money, loggers eventually abandoned the strike and joined Smallwood’s newly created Newfoundland Brotherhood of Wood Workers and negotiated a settlement with the logging companies, ending the strike and effectively undermining the IWA.

Further Reading

• Dominique Clément, “Searching for Rights in the Age of Activism: The Newfoundland-Labrador Human Rights Association, 1968-1982," Newfoundland Studies (Vol.19, No.2, Spring 2003): 347-372.
• William Gillespie, “A History of the Newfoundland Federation of Labour, 1936-1963," (MA, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1980).
• Richard Gwynn, Smallwood: The Unlikely Revolutionary (Toronto: McClelland and Stewart, 1999).