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The Dominion government appointed a Royal Commission in April 1903 to investigate the causes of strikes that began in February between the Canadian Pacific Railway Company and the United Brotherhood of Railway Employees at Vancouver and the Wellington Colliery Company and the Western Federation of Miners at Extension and Cumberland on Vancouver Island. The Boyal Commissioners were instructed to report whether in their opinion these and other American unions should have their activities in Canada curtailed. After a month of hearings the Commissioners reported that the United Brotherhood and the Western Federation were undesirable unions for Canadian workingmen to join. The Commissioners concluded that both unions had conspired to bring about strikes in the Wellington Colliery mines. The Nanaimo Miners' Union, Local 177 of the Western Federation, was accused by the Commissioners of assisting in the conspiracy to tie up the coal mines in the adjacent towns. As the Canadian Pacific Railway Company depended in part on the Wellington mines for steam coal for its trains at Vancouver, it was apparent that the unions concerned tried to break the strike for recognition between the railway company and the union in favour of the union. The Commissioners also reported that these American unions were spreading revolutionary socialism in British Columbia. The main result of this political action, concluded the Commissioners, was to instil in workingmen a belief in the inevitability of class conflict between themselves and their employers. The transportation and mining industries of the province were in danger of having their businesses seriously disrupted if these foreign unions remained in Canada. The Commissioners stated that a few socialists in Vancouver, Nanaimo, Extension and Cumberland were responsible for encouraging these radical unions to organize the workers. The question as to whether the Western Federation actually caused the strikes on the island has never been seriously explored. Historians have been divided on the question and on their assessment of the validity of the Commissioners' Report. The official hearings disclosed that James Dunsmuir, the president and owner of Wellington Collieries, locked out his miners once they had formed unions. The Commissioners argued that the conspiracy plan depended on the predictable reaction of Dunsmuir to the formation of unions in his mines. In the past he had never permitted unions to exist for long in his mines before he dismissed the union leaders. It has never been satisfactorily demonstrated whether the miners joined the Western Federation for reasons of their own and then struck for union recognition or whether they were, as the Commissioners alleged, tricked into the Federation only to find themselves locked out. The Commissioners admitted in the Report that Wellington Collieries and other large employers of labour bore some responsibility for the fact that working men organized unions in order to protect themselves from the arbitrary and unjust treatment they often received from managers and foremen. Although the Commissioners stated that shorter hours and higher wages would make workingmen more content, they did not report that grievances over working conditions and wages were the real reasons why the miners joined the Western Federation. Yet the official hearings of 1903 contained ample evidence that the strikes at Extension and Cumberland occurred for reasons that lay primarily within and not outside the coalfield. The Commissioners misinterpreted the reasons why the miners joined the Western Federation because their attention was directed solely to the issue of the advance of American unions into Canada. An analysis of the official evidence of the Commission reveals that the miners formed unions at Wellington Collieries in 1903 in order to resolve problems that had become traditional sources of dispute on the coalfield. The traditional problems that embittered relations between miners and companies were geological, social and economic in character. The faulted condition of the coal seams made mining both difficult and dangerous. Since 1871 Wellington miners had organized unions to fight for improvements in safety and working conditions underground. However, the increased employment of illiterate and inexperienced Oriental workers increased the dangers of mining to all concerned. Miners demanded the exclusion of Oriental workers from the mines for another important reason than the question of safety. Oriental workers competed for the jobs of mine labourers and were often used in place of white miners during strikes. During strikes in 1877, in 1883 and in 1903 Chinese workers kept the mines running while white miners were locked out. In contrast to the Wellington mines, unions emerged at the Nanaimo mines and working conditions steadily improved after 1883. A miners' union grievance committee was established in the mines by 1883. An eight hour day, oriental exclusion and union recognition were in effect in the Nanaimo mines by 1891. Attempts by union leaders from Nanaimo in the years 1890 to 1901 failed in their purpose of organizing the Dunsmuir mines. When the Nanaimo miners joined the Western Federation of Miners in 1902 in order to improve their weak bargaining power, miners in the adjacent Dunsmuir mines saw their opportunity to join the Federation. With the financial and moral support of a large union behind them the Dunsmuir miners demanded union recognition as the first step in their plan to negotiate improvements in wages and working conditions.

The depression of the 1930's confronted Canadians with shrinking markets, falling prices, a drought-stricken Prairie region and mass unemployment. Consequently there was an enormous burden of relief and welfare. Financial support from the Dominion was needed in all areas, but since not all areas were affected equally some required more assistance than others. The federal government gave grants and loans to the provinces to assist "('with relief costs and Ln some cases increased provincial subsidies. To alleviate distress the Dominion also carried on a public works program and established relief camps for single men. Not everyone viewed the depression in the same way. In 1930 the Workers' Unity League was established to organize labour into "revolutionary unions" for the struggle against capitalism. The League worked under the assumption that a time of crisis was favorable both in terms of the expansion of the League and the onslaught on the existing system. At the midpoint of the 1930's several hundred men on the initiative of a union established in the relief camps by the Workers' Unity League left these camps in British Columbia. After months in Vancouver they started on a trek to Ottawa to present six demands to the government. They were stopped in Regina. On July 1, 1935 a riot, which has been termed the Regina Riot, broke out in the city. Although some writers have referred briefly to this event a detailed study has not been made. The writer hopes to make a small contribution to the examination of the events of the 1930's by examining the Regina Riot. The main purpose of this study is to trace the events which culminated in a serious riot. The examination is primarily concerned with a study of the events in an attempt to explain why there was a Regina Riot. Although the riot was related to the broader problems of the depression and government policies in coping with the depression, these aspects are touched upon only to the extent that they related specifically to the events surrounding the riot. Relief camps are discussed, but it is outside the scope of this study to make a detailed evaluation of this or any other type of relief measure. Although the leader of the trek was an avowed Communist and the organization in the camps had been established by a Communist organization, the question of Communism in the 1930ls is not examined except where it applies specifically to the events of this study. The movement of the men out of the camps to Vancouver and their stay in Vancouver involved to a greater or lesser degree the striking relief camp men, the municipal, provincial and federal governments, as did the trek eastward. The decisions and actions of each are examined. The trek was stopped in Regina by the federal government. that very important decision resulted in a confrontation of the strikers and the federal government and also involved in the dispute the provincial government. The events of this period are examined, along with the incidents that touched off the actual riot. Finally the inquiry into the riot and the eventual disposition of the relief camps are discussed.

The choice of the years 1905 to 1919 as the formative years of the trade union movement in Saskatchewan was by no means arbitrary. The years 1905 marked the formation of the first permanent, non-railway local union. The intervening years until 1919 were years of further formation and consolidation, of recognition and entrenchment, of expansion and demise, of hope and of failure. The fifteen years in question were the heyday of the craft unions, and more specifically of the building trades which expanded to meet the demands of a new and rapidly developing province. Like the people of the province, generally these unions expressed great optimism for the future. At times their expansion showed a distinct lack of rhyme or reason, but then no one was overly concerned with caution. Besides, there was no reason to be cautious when crops were good and there was an ever-increasing number of acres from which these crops could be gleaned. Only with the war was this optimistic speculation checked; only then did organized labour realize that security was an obscure quantity, quick to disappear, and that the position of the workingman had to be bolstered by means which were at variance with the established order. The upheaval of 1919 which resulted produced a Thermidorean reaction, the legacy of which had its effects throughout the 1920's and even into the 1930's.

This study sees the 1900 strike on the Fraser River as providing the setting in which trade unions began in the fisheries of British Columbia, and analyzes both the strike itself and its background from that point of view. In the two decades to 1890, the Fraser River salmon canning industry grew relatively slowly, limited by the problems of developing techniques for processing, finding labor for packing, and accumulating capital from profits. In the 10 years to 1900, these difficulties had been mostly overcome, and fresh capital, attracted by sizeable profits, nearly tripled the number of canneries. This boom ended in a crisis of over-expansion, marked by strikes and company mergers. One unforeseen effect of license limitation in the seasons I889-I89I was a change from paying fishermen a daily wage to paying them at so much per fish, and consequently the start of a series of disputes between canners and fishermen over fish prices. Though in general prices rose throughout the 1890*s, the individual fishermen failed to benefit, partly because of price cuts and limits on deliveries during periods of a heavy supply of fish, and partly because of the increasing number of fishermen licensed in each succeeding year. In an attempt to increase their bargaining strength, white resident fishermen campaigned for changes in federal fishery regulations to restrict competition from Japanese and American fishermen, and to reduce the number of cannery licenses. The first fishermen's organization, formed in 1893 to further this end, did not survive its unrelated involvement in a strike that year against price cuts. The amendments to the fishery regulations in 1894 and, to an even greater degree, in 1898 reflected the success of this group in gaining their ends by political means. To try to redress the balance, the canners created in 1898 their own closely-knit organization, the British Columbia Salmon Packers’ Association. The difficulties of the seasons of 1898 and 1899, basically caused by over-expansion, led the canners to tighten their organization further by creating in January, 1900, the Fraser River Canners’ Association, a cannery combine with power to set maximum fish prices and production quotas for each cannery, and to levy fines on violators of its decisions. About the same time, and partly in reaction to the canners' move, separate unions of fishermen were organized, first at New Westminster, then at Vancouver. The Vancouver union tried and failed to enroll Japanese fishermen who formed in June, 1900, the Japanese Fishermen's Benevolent Society. The Canners’ Association refused to negotiate prices with fishermen's union representatives or to set a minimum price for sockeye. When the sockeye season opened July 1 the fishermen struck, demanding 25 cents a fish through the season. By July 10, the strike included all fishermen on the river—white, Japanese and Indian. After another week, the Canners' Association felt forced to negotiate and in a series of meetings the two sides came close to settlement. At this point, however, the canners broke off negotiations and made a separate agreement with the Japanese for 20 cents for the first 600 fish in a week and 15 cents thereafter. The canners then provoked an "incident" as an excuse for three friendly justices of the peace to call out the militia to Steveston. In spite of the Japanese defection and the presence of the militia, the remaining strikers held out for another week. Mediation by E. P. Bremner, Dominion Labor Commissioner, and Francis Carter-Cotton, publisher of the Vancouver News-Advertiser, secured them a negotiated settlement which, though not including any union recognition, guaranteed 19 cents throughout the season. This success led to the creation in January, 1901, of the Grand Lodge of British Columbia Fishermen's Unions, the first coast-wide fishermen's organization in British Columbia. The strike marked the beginning of continuous union activity in the industry and the start of a tradition of radical leadership that persists to the present day.

In the midst of swirling snow and bitter temperatures, Grand Trunk locomotive engineers and firemen struck work on December 29, 1876. Hundreds of men were involved as this four-day Canadian strike marked the beginning of one of the greatest years of labor unrest in North American history. From the evening of December 29, 1876, to the morning of January 3, 1877, the Grand Trunk men refused to work and tried to persuade others not to take their places. [...]This study of the Grand Trunk strike is based primarily upon material found in the Canadian newspapers, the Monthly Journal of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and public records.

This thesis purports to be a narrative account of the factors leading up to the building of the Lachine Canal and the problems dealt with, while it was under construction. In his research, the author found that sources, primary and secondary, bearing directly on the canal, were scarce. This may help to explain the inability to come to more definite conclusions concerning sorne matters raised here. Hugh G.J. Aitken's Welland Canal Company often served as a guidepost while this work was in progress. Although the author found it impossible to emulate that excellent study, it is hoped that this thesis will cast sorne light on an unexplored area of Canadian economie history.