A comparison of prairie political developments in Saskatchewan and Alberta

A comparison of prairie political developments in Saskatchewan and Alberta DAVID E. SMITH Canadian political movements, other than the Liberal or Progressive Conservative parties, have been a source of obvious interest to social scientists for some years. Indeed, they have occasioned considerably greater examination than have the two major parties from which they are supposed to deviate. Progressives, United Farmers of Alberta and Ontario, Social Crediters and CCF'ers have all been subjected to the analytical eye of the political scientist, historian and sociologist. The result has been the accumulation of information , in unusually large quantities for Canadian political research, which has added to our knowledge of political movements, particularly in the West. Yet with rare exceptions the studies undertaken have been of single movements in individual provinces; comparative studies scarcely exist. This is surprising when one considers that most of these movements have flourished at one time or another in two neighbouring and remarkably similar provinces, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and that the evolution of these movements has been remarkably different. At midcentury the former province was ruled by North America's first, and to date only, socialist government and the latter was presided over by the continent's first Social Credit administration. It is the purpose of this paper to discuss the rise of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation in Saskatchewan and Social Credit in Alberta and, in particular, to analyze the contribution of the Canadian federal system to this development . Federalism is not necessary for the emergence of new parties nor is a federal structure any guarantee that third parties, once they appear, will be successful in their search for legislative majorities. Yet Canadian federalism seems to have favoured the development of successful third parties. It is intriguing to explain ]ournal of Canadian Studies why this should have happened in Canada, but it is even more intriguing to explain why the development was different in these two prairie provinces. Federal government has been described as a compromise between two conflicting desires held by its participants: "the desire to be under a single independent government" and "[the] desire at the same time to retain or to establish independent regional governments."1 Whether or not one accepts Wheare's legalistic definition as opposed to more recent sociological explanations , the indisputable contribution of federalism is to extend the range of potential political activity .2 It introduces an additional dimension to the political system by providing two levels of government instead of one and by establishing between these two levels a series of countervailing pressures. The conflict between centralizing and decentralizing forces is resolved, to a large extent, through the operation of the party system . Nowhere in Canada has this been more true than on the prairies. Federalism would seem, therefore, to allow at least two explanations for the contrasting political development of Saskatchewan and Alberta. On the one hand it may be asserted that the federal system permitted, by its recognition of local institutions, the internal social and economic diversities of the provinces to reveal themselves in political diversities. This explanation is suspect however, for it ignores the provinces' common political heritage of non-partisanism before 1905 and continuing similarities of geography , history and economic development afterwards . On the other hand it may be argued that the federal system demanded, for the sake of unity, the introduction of national partisan politics , that is Liberal and Conservative politics, into the new provinces, thereby repudiating the territorial tradition of non-partisanism. This explanation , while paradoxical, more adequately suggests why the two provinces have developed such different political patterns, since it takes into account the influence of partisan politics. Throughout Canada the conflict inherent in federal government has been mediated to a con17 siderable degree by the pervasiveness of national parties at both levels of government. This was true initially in the two prairie provinces, where the immediate result of their introduction was a closer relationship between the Liberals and Conservatives at Ottawa and their counterparts at Regina and Edmonton. The harmony of this relationship depended, however, on an identity, or at least a compatibility, of interest which was gradually attenuated as new pressures developed over the decade and a half following autonomy. In...