Labour at the Lakehead

Download or read book Labour at the Lakehead written by Michel Beaulieu and published by UBC Press. This book was released on 2011-05-07 with total page 318 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the early twentieth century, politicians singled out the Lakehead as a breeding ground for radical labour politics. Michel S. Beaulieu returns northern Ontario to its rightful place as a birthplace of leftism in Canada by exposing the conditions that gave rise to an array of left-wing organizations. Cultural ties among workers helped bring left-wing ideas to Canada, but ethnicity weakened the left as each group developed a distinctive vocabulary of socialism and as Anglo-Celtic workers defended their privileges against Finns, Ukrainians, and Italians. At the Lakehead, ethnic difference often outweighed class solidarity at the cost of a stronger labour movement for Canada.