Independent Labour Party (in Manitoba) (II)

Prior to 1920, there were a number of groups in Winnipeg which called themselves the "Independent Labour Party". For information on these groups, see Independent Labour Party (Manitoba, 1895).

The Independent Labour Party was the leading social-democratic party in Manitoba, Canada, prior to the emergence of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation. Several of its candidates were elected to the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba, and it counted federal Members of Parliament J.S. Woodsworth and Abraham Albert Heaps among its members.

The ILP was founded in December 1920 by disgruntled members of the Dominion Labour Party, who left that organization when it was taken over by rightist elements. Like the DLP, the ILP was a reformist labour group, and often had hostile relations with parties further to the left.

In the provincial election of 1920, the combined efforts of reformist labourites and socialists resulted in eleven leftists being elected to the Manitoba legislature. Most of these Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs), including parliamentary leader Fred Dixon, were part of the exodus from the DLP to the ILP later in the year.

The ILP fell to six seats in the election of 1922, and Dixon resigned from the legislature in 1923 following a family tragedy. He was replaced as party leader by John Queen, formerly of the Social Democratic Party of Canada.

Support for left-wing and labour parties declined throughout Canada in the late 1920s. Queen led the ILP through the elections of 1927 and 1932, winning three and five seats respectively. He was replaced by Seymour Farmer in 1935.

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