| Description | The United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) were the Ontario section of the nation-wide United Farmers movement that arose in Canada in the early part of the 20th century. The UFO was founded in 1914 by the merger of various farmers' organizations that had arisen in the previous fifteen years. James J. Morrison was the leading figure in the UFO and served as its general secretary as well as secretary of the United Farmers Co-operative Company Ltd., the purchasing co-operative the UFO operated on behalf of its members.
The UFO entered politics by contesting a by-election in Manitoulin riding in 1918 in which Beniah Bowman was elected as the UFO's first Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA). In the 1919 provincial election, the UFO shocked everyone, including itself, by becoming the largest party in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, with 45 seats, despite the fact that the party had no leader. Morrison had hoped that the UFO would hold the balance of power and thus be able to introduce legislation friendly to farmers but he believed that the UFO should be strictly concerned with agricultural issues and opposed it forming a government as it would have to represent a broader population. He also opposed a coalition with the labour movement believing it was inimicable to farmers' interests. Morrison was offered the position of UFO caucus leader and Premier of Ontario following the election but declined. Instead, the position went the Ernest C. Drury.
Over Morrison's objections, the UFO joined with one Independent and eleven Independent Labour Party MLAs to form a coalition government from 1919-1923 with Drury as Premier. Morrision remained UFO general secretary and he and Drury were at odds for the next four years with Morrison opposing a number of the government's initiatives and turning a large number of farmers against Drury who was attempting to lead a broad-based "Progressive" government rather than a "class-based" farmers' administration.
The Drury government lost the election of 1923, which returned 17 UFO members to the legislature, and four Labour, compared to 75 Conservatives. Drury lost his own seat.
The UFO remained the second largest party in the legislature, however, they were denied Official Opposition status by the new premier Conservative Howard Ferguson who announced that the Liberals under W.E.N. Sinclair were the new opposition with Sinclair as the new Leader of the Opposition despite leading a caucus having three fewer seats than the UFO. Ferguson used, as justification, Morrison's announcement that the UFO was withdrawing from party politics. (source:Oliver, Peter G. Howard Ferguson: Ontario Tory, Toronto and Buffalo: University of Toronto Press, 1977, p. 158)
Manning Doherty, the interim leader of the UFO caucus, was outraged by this but was unable to do more than win a ruling from the Speaker that the UFO leader was entitled to an extra salary as leader of a caucus of more than 15 MLAs. (ibid.)
Eighteen months following the general election, William Raney became leader of what was now referred to as the Progressive bloc of MLAs.
The 1926 election was a further setback for the group: only 13 Progressive MLAs were re-elected, along with three UFO MLAs and a sole Labour member. In December 1926, the UFO convention voted to formally cease running its own candidates (making official Morrison's earlier statement), although some local UFO clubs continued to do nominate candidates for some years. However, the UFO considered the Progressives as their party and, for all intents and purposes, the UFO and the Progessive Party were the same organization in Ontario.
Raney resigned from the legislature the next year and former UFO cabinet minister Harry Nixon emerged as Raney's successor. In the 1929 election, only five Progressives, one Labour and one UFO MLA won re-election. In the early 1930s, Nixon and the Progressives agreed to an alliance with former UFO activist Mitchell Hepburn who, in 1930, became leader of the Liberals. A group of four Liberal-Progressive MLAs was elected in the 1934 election. They joined Hepburn to form a government.
In 1940, Farquhar Oliver, the last remaining UFO member of the legislature and a supporter of the Hepburn government since 1934, joined the Hepburn cabinet and formally became a Liberal.
Leading UFO member Agnes Macphail, (a Member of Parliament in the Canadian House of Commons originally elected with the Progressive Party), encouraged the United Farmers of Ontario to affiliate with Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) when it was formed in 1932. It did so, but the UFO disaffiliated from the CCF in 1934, and, like United Farmers groups in the provinces of western Canada, decided to withdraw entirely from electoral politics to become a lobby group though sitting UFO politicians such as Agnes Macphail and Farquhar Oliver were allowed to continue to run for office under the UFO banner, which they did until 1940.
In 1942, the UFO joined with other farm groups to form the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.
Many United Farmers, however, joined the CCF as individuals, including MacPhail who became the first President of the Ontario CCF in 1932. She won election to the Ontario legislature as a CCF Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) in the 1943 election. [Link] |
