Politics in Canada (1958)

From the April 1958 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from the March 1958 issue.

Co-operative Commonwealth Federation

We have often been reproached because we criticise the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. It is even said that we spend more time criticising the C.C.F. than we spend on all other groups combined. There may be some truth in this, but it must be pointed out that any group that professes, as the C.C.F. sometimes does, to stand for the same thing we stand for, is bound to find itself the object of more than ordinary attention  from us. After all, if the aim of the C.C.F. is the same as ours, why are we in the field as a separate organization, or, more appropriately, why did the original C.C.F. membership form a separate political organization when the Socialist Party was already in the field? These are questions that cannot be directed towards the Liberals and Conservatives. They are quite happy about capitalism and they don’t mind telling people about it.

The C.C.F., like the Social Credit movement, had its origin during the Hungry Thirties. The statement of its views was adopted at a gathering in Regina in 1933, which afterwards became known as the Regina Manifesto. This manifesto was highly regarded in C.C.F. circles for many years, being described frequently by one prominent C.C.F. member, the late John Queen, as a historical document. It is now almost forgotten, having been replaced by a new document identified as the Winnipeg Declaration of Principles. This declaration was said by many of the C.C.Fs. opponents to have scrapped the Party’s adherence to Socialism. In reality, it scrapped or partly scrapped what some C.C.F. members thought was Socialism, an act that brought some relief and some indignation amongst different groups within the Party—but no exodus towards the Socialist Party. The C.C.F. could not adhere to something it never understood and it could not scrap something it never accepted. C.C.F. ideas have always, even in the Regina Manifesto, been linked with those of the Social Democratic Parties of Europe, particularly the British Labour Party. The British Labour Party was formed in 1906. One of its founders and first leader was Keir Haidie, who expressed himself as bang favourable to Labourism, not Socialism. The second Labour Party leader was Ramsay MacDonald, who was prime minister of two Labour governments and completed his political career as prime minister of a national government made up mainly of Conservatives. The third Labour Party leader was Clement Attlee, who was prime minister of the post-war Labour government and who retired not long ago from active politics to become a peer of the British realm, a status so elevating that on his visit to Canada a year ago he avoided questions on political subjects and declared to press reporters that he was a statesman, not a politician. The C.C.F. has never been critical of this sort of thing. It evidently sees nothing in this to be critical about.

Like the British Labour Party, the C.C.F. has never advocated Socialism. It has sponsored and supported numerous schemes for public or government ownership and it has at times referred to these collectively as Socialism and individually as steps towards Socialism. To the C.C.F. the city-owned Winnipeg Hydro, the government-owned Canadian National Railways and all such concerns are Socialist in character. If there are certain evils attached to these establishments, that is because of Liberal or Conservative administration. Under C.C.F. administration they would lose these evils. This, of course, is foolishness, but it is the kind of thing the C.CJ7. has been putting forward for many years under the heading of advanced and responsible politics. Perhaps the acme of foolishness was reached recently when some of its official representatives declared that the pressing need of today was for the government ownership of the natural gas pipe line that is at present stretching in all directions from Alberta. That this is not a pressing need at all is something the C.C.F. will probably never find out

So much for the larger aims of the C.C.F. It gains much of its support, indeed, most of its support, not because it advocates government ownership. This just serves to give it a serious and learned appearance, so providing a credible base for other things, and it is these other things that are the main attraction to the average C.C.F. supporter. High wages, low prices (except to farmers), larger pensions and unemployment benefits, low taxes (except to “big shots”)—in brief, legislation to improve (or convey the impression that they will improve) the living conditions of the “common man.” These things usually come under the heading of reforms, and reforms are the main stock in trade of the C.C.F.

A vast amount of sincerity rests behind most of the activities of the C.C.F. But sometimes one feels that this term can only be used with the greatest charity. More than 23 years ago a convention of the C.C.F. was held in Winnipeg and a resolution was brought before the delegates calling for old age pensions of $40 a month. This resolution created a lot of discussion, but hardly any of it concerned itself about the needs of the old people. Mostly it centred around the response the $40 proposal would receive from the electorate. To some, it was pointed out, this figure would seem sufficient; to others, it might seem miserly; while a third group might regard it as extravagant. The C.C.F. hoped to gain support from all sections of the people, so it was desirable to frame the resolution in such a way that it would have wide appeal. The delegates saw the logic of this position and the amended resolution dropped the $40 proposal and called instead for an adequate pension. Over the years since this time the word “adequate” has relieved the C.C.F. of many a potentially embarrassing situation.

It might also be mentioned in passing that the $40 pension which the CC.F. found too hot to handle in 1934 has been in effect now for many years, introduced by a Liberal government The Liberals also increased the amount not long ago by $6, and the Conservatives more recently have increased it by an additional $9.

Time and circumstance very often nullify the effects of reform. Capitalism has a bad habit of throwing up new evils or new twists to old evils, and it can manage to do this with as much rapidity as the reformers can cope with. No sooner is a patch applied here than the need arises for a patch elsewhere, and while this is being attended to the old patch breaks out again. And while reformers often point with pride to the reforms they have enacted or helped to enact, they are less frequent in pointing with pride to the wholesome, healthy and happy living conditions of those who have benefited by these reforms. It is doubtful if a reformer can be found anywhere so foolhardy as to declare that the country with the greatest number of reforms is the country with the highest standard of living.

A great deal more could be said about the C.C.F., its policies and activities, but space will hardly permit. It must be added, however, that there is no good reason for the existence of the C.C.F. Its existence is actually harmful to the best interests of the workers, for it spreads wrong ideas about Socialism and helps to preserve the belief that the present system can be improved in such a way as to make life really worth while for the mass of people.

The Communist Party

Of the various other groups that seek the support of the Canadian electorate it is possible here to comment only, and briefly, on the Communist Party. This organization has been clamouring for the support of the workers ever since the early 1920s. It has existed under various names: the Workers' Party, the Communist Party, the Workers Unity League, the Labour-Progressive Party (its present name) and others. At election times it sometimes refers to itself as the Labour Election Committee. The reason for all this is partly to fool the authorities (who have sometimes been troublesome) and partly to fool the workers. That it has succeeded at any time in fooling the authorities is doubtful; but it has had some success in fooling workers.

The Communist Party has always claimed to represent the workers, but it has never at any time concerned itself about the interests of the workers. It began as a section of the so-called Third or Communist International, which was organized and controlled by the Russian government, and it has at all times since then been completely subservient to that government. Whatever ideas and policies have been considered to be in line with the interests of Russia's rulers at any given time, these have been the ideas and policies of the Communist Party. There has never been a time when the C.P. has opposed a position taken by the Russian 'government, even when, as has frequently occurred, that position has been at variance with the interests of the workers. To show the unwholesome nature of this party one needs only to note that Stalin, who is so roundly condemned today, was worshipped and fawned upon by Communists during all the years he was dictator of Russia, praised in the most revolting way even in the midst of his greatest villainies, and is criticised today only because he is criticised by the Russian government

The record of the C.P. is almost unbelievable in a group professing to represent the working class. During its earlier years it sought to control movements of workers and tried to destroy those it could not control. For many years it carried on mudslinging campaigns and violent attacks against other groups. On various occasions it sponsored strike breaking activities. And during the second world war it supported both sides at different times, in line with Moscow's changing fortunes. At no time has it taken an independent working class stand on any issue. At all times it has been an enemy of the workers.

The Socialist Party

The Socialist Party of Canada is different from the parties named above in various ways, but it is different in one very important respect: it advocates Socialism. This is something none of the others do or have ever done. Often have spokesmen for the C.C.F. complained about “old line" parties (Liberal and Conservative) stealing planks from their platform. It would be impossible to imagine a Socialist complaining about any part of the Socialist platform being stolen. We have only one plank; it is not necessary for anyone to steal it; we urge everyone to accept it. It calls for the establishment of a system of society in which the means of life will be owned, controlled and operated by and for the whole of the members of society. This plank forms the objective of the S.P.C. It is the one tiling we ask people to accept and support, and we ask people to support it because it is the one thing that can bring about an effective treatment to the major problems of today. Poverty, wars, depressions, all the evils that loom large in the lives of people, have a common origin in the nature of existing society. They can be ended only with the ending of capitalism. The Socialists have been carrying this message to the workers continuously over the years. Today, at what may be the closing of another of capitalism's booms, with the world standing on the brink either of war or depression, the message becomes more urgent. How much longer will the workers disregard it and continue to place their trust in the system that is bringing them ever closer to destruction?

Jim Milne

(Socialist Party of Canada.)

(Concluded.)

Confusion in British Columbia. (1932)

From the October 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

Earlier in the year the Socialist Party of Canada was formed, based on our Declaration of Principles, and with headquarters in Winnipeg. Shortly afterwards it was reported in the O.B.U. Bulletin (June 30th, 1932) that the I.L.P. of British Columbia had changed its name to the Socialist Party of Canada. A member of the latter body claimed in the same issue of the O.B.U. Bulletin that for the past two years the I.L.P. in British Columbia had been a strictly Socialist Party, and not open to the criticisms rightly levelled against the I.L.P. elsewhere in Canada. Had this been true the obvious course would have been for the two Socialist Parties of Canada to join forces, but later information has shown that the British Columbia body has changed nothing except its name. What motive the promotors had, except the desire to escape the discredit associated with the name I.L.P. we do not know, but there is no room for doubt about the anti-Socialist character of the organisation. In November, 1931, it ran candidates at a municipal election. The eight points of their programme mainly concerned the details of municipal administration, and contained no reference whatever to Socialism. Municipal control of public utilities was one demand. Another was “efficient organisation of our relief department.” As this headed the list it was presumably regarded as the most important. (See O.B.U. Bulletin, July 21st.)

The Vancouver District Council of the so-called Socialist Party of Canada, on June 16th, passed a resolution laying down policy for the City Council. This also contained no reference to Socialism. One funny passage in it instructs the Party’s representatives to be “non-committal” on the question of legalised sweepstakes O.B.U. Bulletin, July 21st).

This fraudulent “Socialist Party” has published the first issue of a monthly journal, The British Columbia Clarion. It reports a “Conference of Political Labor Parties.” held at Calgary on July 30th, and attended by the Party’s own delegates, as well as by delegates of the I.L.P. in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and of the United Farmers of Canada. The Conference formed a National Labour Party described as “The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Farmer, Labor, Socialist),” of which the “Socialist Party” will form a part. The Clarion contains many references to Marx, but is quite lacking in a grasp of the Socialist position. The printed Constitution of the party carefully prepared the way for the alliance with the I.L.P. and the farmers’ groups by declaring in Clause (1) that members shall not be allowed to retain membership of another political party, “except under special circumstances, at the discretion of the Provincial Executive.” Another clause allows the Provincial Executive to give “special permission” for members and branches to support or endorse candidates “other than an official nominee of the Party.”

In short, the British Columbia so-called Socialist Party bears every sign that it is being run by typical Labour leaders “on the make,” misusing the name of Socialism to mislead politically inexperienced workers.

Editorial Committee.

Editorial: No Socialism in Saskatchewan (1944)

Editorial from the July 1944 issue of the Socialist Standard

Readers of London newspapers may have noticed the practical unanimity of the reports that the recent elections in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan were a triumph for Socialism. The Daily Worker (June 17, 1944) gave as its headline “First Socialist Government in Canada," and the Daily Herald of the same date published the following :—

Socialist Triumph in Canada.

  The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation—Socialist—had a sweeping victory in the Saskatchewan provincial elections yesterday.
     It won 43seats to the Liberals’ four, with four still doubtful.
  As a result, Canada will have its first Socialist provincial Government.—Daily Herald Correspondent.

The Evening Standard (June 15) used the heading "First Govt. of Socialists?” They queried it, but they were not casting doubt on whether the C.C.F. are Socialists, but only on whether the C.C.F. would actually obtain n majority; the Evening Standard report was published before the result was announced. This latter report, however, interests us for another reason, which will be apparent from the following passage:—

  If the Socialists win in a predominantly rural Saskatchewan it would be a feather in their cap. Liberals and Conservatives have been trying to make the most of C.C.F.’s intention to socialise the land, but such plans are stoutly denied by the battery of C.C.F. orators who have descended on the province.

Note the curious situation. A “Socialist” party is alleged to have won a "Socialist" triumph, but it did so by having a battery of orators to convince the electors that the party did not intend to "socialise"!

Further information on the way in which the C.C.F. runs away from its professed objects is given in an article by the Saskatchewan correspondent of the Manchester Guardian (June 19, 1944). According to this report, the British Columbia Convention of the C.C.F. in 1943 "advocated . . . the collectivisation of agriculture."

The leader of the Party, Mr. J. Coldwell, referring to the Party’s original manifesto, adopted in 1933, which "called for socialisation of monopolistic industries and services,” etc., is reported now as having said, "The manifesto was and remains a statement of basic principles of the C.C.F. It is, however, a statement of long-range views.” In other words, the declared object is deferred and pushed into the background in order not to interfere with the present problem of getting votes from all and sundry, whether they agree with the object or not.

Socialist victories are not to be won in this way, as the many examples of Labour Governments here and in other countries show. Parties which win elections on non-Socialist votes are committed irrevocably to the futile task of trying to administer the capitalist system. No matter what evasions and short cuts are sought, the inescapable truth remains that there will be no triumph for Socialism until the necessary spadework has first been done of winning over the electors to Socialism.

Canada's White Hope — the C.C.F. (1934)

From the June 1934 issue of the Socialist Standard

Ever since Jack Johnson won the heavyweight championship many moons ago, the world has with eagerness watched the coming and going of white hopes. In the more important realm of politics new movements are born and quickly die, the remains creating fertilizers for new hopes to befog the minds of the majority, who so far have shown no desire for a real change in the system.

It is two years since the birth of the C.C.F. in Calgary, and British workers may be interested to know what the mystic letters “ C.C.F.” mean, and what the organisation stands for.

The Canadian Co-operative Federation is the fine-sounding title represented by the letters in question, and to those of us who have had the Co-operative Commonwealth, i.e., Socialism, as our objective for years it is difficult to understand the minds which claim that their ultimate aim, but spend all their time advocating something else now.

The outstanding figure of the C.C.F. is James S. Woodsworth, one of the Winnipeg Labour M.P.'s in the Parliament at Ottawa. He is an ex-preacher noted for his radical ideas, and has turned out an able politician, judged by the standards of the capitalist parties.

In the 1921 election to the Federal House, sixty-four Progressives were elected, all with more or less Radical ideas. By 1925 most of them were absorbed by the Liberal Party, and in 1930 (including the Labourites), they only mustered fifteen members, who have since that time cooperated in a loose group.

August 1st, 1932, saw the first meeting and the first attempt at organisation, when a Farmer-Labour Federation was formed. This meeting was attended by delegates of Labour Parties of the four Western Provinces and the organised farmers of Alberta and Saskatchewan.

The movement spread rapidly and culminated in a great Convention, held in Regina, July 19th to 21st, 1933. It was attended by 135 delegates, from Toronto and Montreal in the East to Vancouver on the Pacific Coast, at which the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation was founded.

The affiliations of the Federation consist of the Farmer-Labour Party of New Brunswick, the Labour Party of Quebec, the Labour Conference of Ontario, the I.L.P. of Manitoba, the Labour Party of Saskatchewan, the Canadian Labour Party of Alberta, and the so-called Socialist Party of British Columbia. Next, and perhaps most important, the organised Farmers of Ontario, Saskatchewan and Alberta joined up, with Manitoba farmers giving half-hearted support, but likely to continue to vote for the Farmer-Liberal Government which has power in this Province at present.

Another group giving support to the C.C.F. consists of a sprinkling of “intellectuals” of the Radical type, mostly college professors, doctors, lawyers and preachers. In addition, the organised Protestant churches have practically blessed the C.C.F. by passing resolutions calling for the "transformation of the present competitive system into a co-operative one.” C.C.F. leaders frequently quote from a recent encyclical of Pope Pius in an effort to link up the powerful Roman Catholic vote to their side.

The semi-feudal background of the peasants and workers of Roman Catholic Quebec will be hard to overcome, and radicalism of the pinkest type has not yet penetrated to that home of what has been termed bush-culture. To illustrate the outlook of some of the farming element of Canada to which the C.C.F. appeals, it has been related that a C.C.F. speaker, after declaiming against the Wages system, had one farmer agree with him in the following words: “Yes, I agree we should abolish wages. Hired men want far too big wages nowadays.”

The economic background of the new movement, therefore, is made up of, first, a very reactionary farm population whose main desire is a big price for farm produce. On the other hand, they demand a low wage scale for labour, not only amongst their hired hands, but also amongst the men who make their farm machinery, and those who on the railroads, etc., transport their produce to the markets of the world.

Secondly, a Labour movement with the regular Trade Union outlook largely imported from Great Britain but contaminated by the ideas of that most pitiful Trade Union movement, the American Federation of Labour, to which most of our unions are affiliated.

There are also groups organised as Social Reconstruction Clubs which are affiliated to the C.C.F., and from the leaders of those clubs flow a constant stream of half-boiled schemes and plans, and a constant fight against anything pertaining to a recognition of the class struggle.

The usual Left and Right Wings are already developing. The reformist S.P. of British Columbia is led largely by some ex-members of the old S.P. of Canada, who could see no possible career in the new Party organised in Winnipeg a few years ago with a programme similar to that of the S.P.G.B. They, along with some young members of the I.L.P. in Winnipeg and a small group of ex-semi- Communists in Toronto, comprise the Left.

The Farmers of Ontario are led by an avowed anti-Socialist, Miss Agnes McPhail, M.P. She has the help of two other fierce opponents of Sodalism, in the persons of Mr. Elmore Philpott, much boosted soldier-orator-journalist in Toronto, and Mr. John McLean, M.A., B.A., L.L.D. (Oxon.), Rhodes scholar and lawyer here in Winnipeg.

We see then that the new Federation represents (a) the wage workers of Canada, whose ideas are as nebulous as the ideas of the same class in other lands, and of course it can well be understood their immediate demands are equally confusing; (b) the farmers of Canada, whose hopes and demands have already been outlined as high prices for farm produce and low wages for the industrial workers as well as the farm labourers.

The C.C.F. have fourteen planks in their platform, subject, of course, to additions and reductions to suit the vote-catching needs of the moment. Some of the planks appeal specially to the wage workers. Plank 7, for instance, calls for “A National Labour Code to secure for the workers maximum income and leisure, insurance covering illness, accident, old age and unemployment, freedom of association and an effective participation in the management of his industry or profession.”

Mr. Elmer E. Roper, one of the Alberta Labour leaders, tells us, in the February issue of the Saskatchewan C.C.F. Research, that this plank is one that might easily appear in the Election platform of either of the old parties.”

The same could well be said of the other thirteen planks, but we will deal with them as we go on.

Plank 4 deals with “Agriculture” and features as its chief aim “Security of Tenure” for the farmers of Canada. To get what is meant by that elusive term we can refer to the "C.C.F. Agricultural Policy” as outlined by their principal farmer leader, G. H. Williams, President of the Saskatchewan Farmer-Labour group, in his speech at the Regina Convention, July 22nd, 1933. The present real owners of Canadian Farm lands—the Mortgage and Insurance Companies—are to be treated real rough by Mr. Williams and the C.C.F. when they get power. He says: ”We will give you bonds for your equity, bonds that will not carry interest. . . . These bonds will be payable over a period of years in the currency of the province as it may be at the date of payment." Then to the farmer, Mr. Williams says: “All improvements will, of course, increase the value of the land, and the State will guarantee to compensate you for the increase in the value of the land, brought about by your efforts." Not only that, but Mr. Williams says they are going to supply “through Socialism to the agriculturist, a marketing board, State credit and pegged prices. . . . In industry we guarantee to the worker a job at an adequate wage and we use the production for the benefit of the Canadian people. We will do the same for agriculture."

So that brings us to a new problem for the C.C.F. What will people use for money? Planks 2, 11 and 14 deal with this absorbing question. 1 Mr. C. G. Coote, M.P., one of their money experts, tells us, in the House of Commons on February 1st, 1933: “ The first step is a planned economy," and the next: "A central bank owned by the State, whose duty it would be to see that sufficient money is at all times available to allow us to distribute among our people the consumable goods which we can produce."

That, in part, is what the C.C.F. have copied from that enemy of Socialism, Major Douglas. Let us again quote from the organ of the "Saskatchewan C.C.F. Research Bureau," December, 1933, issue, where we read: "The only shortage is in money, and this artificial shortage is due to the policy of the financiers and is maintained by the powers of the State. The State will then make every man, woman and child an equal partner in the wealth of the country as a going concern. Backed by the inexhaustible resources of the nation the State can issue as much credit as is needed." Later we read: "There is no shortage of anything, except money, wherewith to purchase the things we produce, and a sane system of finance is all that is required to make things available. Sufficient purchasing power for everybody is merely a matter of accounting."

Here we have revealed the C.C.F. answer to Socialism. Socialism involves that goods shall be produced for use and not for sale. The C.C.F. say goods will be produced for sale, but that they will provide the people with money to purchase them, an impossible attempt to keep capitalism but escape the consequences of so doing.

The depression of the Seventies produced on this Continent the American Grange or the Patrons of Industry, the Nineties had their Populist Movement, and later we had Townley and his Non- Partisans, and in Canada the depression of the early Twenties produced the Progressives.

The Farmer Movement of Canada has its roots in those old discredited movements, with the same kind of currency cranks leading them, and the British Columbia “Socialists" and Winnipeg I.L.P.'ers trailing behind. Reactionary farmers representing the dog, and confused workers the tail. Why should the gods not laugh?

Plank 1 calls for “ Planning," as if capitalism was not planned beautifully for the capitalists!

Plank 3, on Social Ownership, reassures the most reactionary that confiscation is unthought of. It says: "We do not propose to adopt any policy of outright confiscation," and again: “We recognise the need for compensation."

Plank 5 calls for “ Import and Export Boards" to deal with foreign trade.

Planks 8, 9 and 10 deal respectively with “Health Service", “The British North America Act,’’ which governs the Canadian Constitution, and “External Relations." Then 12 and 13, dealing with “Freedom" and “Social Justice" bring to a close a programme which is a mixture of decadent Liberalism, Fabian Bureaucracy and Currency Confusion.

Practically every plank and clause is a denial of the purpose of the Federation, which is supposed to be: “The establishment of a Co-operative Commonwealth, in which the basic principle regulating production, etc., will be the supplying of human needs and not the making of profits."

The attitude of the Socialist Party of Canada towards this Federation is one of unbending opposition. We are opposed to the spurious “Socialism" advocated by their spokesmen and leaders, the Socialism that “recognises the need for compensation," or a Socialism which is going to issue money “to purchase the things we produce," or one that guarantees to the worker “a job at an adequate wage." We do not want a “Co-operative Commonwealth" like the one envisaged by Professor Frank H. Underhill, the head of the Brain Trust, when he says in his essay on Dictatorship: “The direct ownership and operation by government of the great strategic services, such as transportation and distribution of electric power." We don’t even want our planning done by “public officials."

No! we are opposed to bureaucracy, to a wage system, to compensation, and not only to Government ownership but to the coercive State itself. When all the people own all the earth and the means whereby wealth is produced, classes will automatically disappear, and if society has no owning and governing class, how can we have a Government, the function of which is to protect class ownership? The kind of administrative organisation then required will be essentially different.

To the young and earnest workers in the Federation we constantly repeat the old truth, that non-Socialists organised on a programme of reforms cannot further the work for Socialism. The changing economic conditions are working for us, disillusion will follow the futile efforts of Woodsworth, Pritchard and Queen to make a coherent movement out of such widely divergent elements as constitute the C.C.F. Some of their leaders will openly join the avowedly capitalist parties, but there will be no place for any of them in the Socialist movement, which has no use for Leaders, any more than it has for the other evil features of a system so detrimental to human welfare as modern capitalism.

Alex Paterson

(Socialist Party of Canada)

The C.C.F. in Saskatchewan (1938)

From the May 1938 issue of The Western Socialist 

The C.C.F. has evidently decided that it is not going to be out-manoeuvred by the Communist Party in the laudable work of uniting the anti-Socialist elements in society. For the forthcoming provincial election in Saskatchewan, “Social Creditors, Conservatives and the C.C.F. decided to join hands to nominate one ‘unity’ candidate in the Wilkie riding.” (Free Press,” April 21st.) The same report states that S. N. Horner, an independent, already endorsed as Conservative candidate, has also been endorsed by the C.C.F., and will represent both parties in the Milestone constituency.

But the C.C.F. will have to get up early in the morning if it is going to put one over on our wide-awake Communists, for the same report also states that, in Regina, “T. G. McManus, 36-year old provincial secretary of the Communist Party, was nominated . . . by the Labor-Progressive unity group, along with Rev. S. B. East, 66-year old Regina alderman. United Church clergyman.”