CCF Colonialism in Northern Saskatchewan: Battling Parish Priests, Bootleggers, and Fur Sharks

Michael Payne is head of the Research and Publications Program at the
Historic Sites and Archives Service, Alberta Community Development, and
the co-author of A Narrative History of Fort Dunvegan.

The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), Canada’s first
socialist organization, was started by farm and labour groups in 1933,
on a platform of social equality for all people. This book looks at the
CCF’s ambitious plans for remaking society and the economy in northern
Saskatchewan between 1944 and 1964.

The CCF pursued a generally progressive, but scarcely ideologically
driven, program in southern Saskatchewan. In the north, the government
had freer rein to impose its theories. Quiring argues that in virtually
every respect CCF policies in the north were wrong-headed, and based on
an unfortunate combination of paternalist, socialist, and colonialist
assumptions. He suggests that the results proved to be particularly
disastrous for Aboriginal residents of the north.

Most students of northern history are used to seeing the problems of
northern communities laid at the feet of capitalism, churches,
geography, limited resources, or government disinterest. In this case,
Quiring suggests the CCF government was actually very interested in its
provincial north, but probably even more inept in its dealings with this
region than its more laissez-faire and disinterested fellow governments
in neighbouring provinces. In support of his case, Quiring outlines a
litany of errors: bungled development schemes, thoughtless reliance on
academic experts, wasted taxes, and insensitive policies that hurt the
very people they were supposed to assist. Every chapter offers a biting
condemnation of a government that has generally received favourable
treatment from historians and political scientists.

This book should give all of us pause. It clearly points out that
paternalist and colonialist policies can emerge from all sides of the
political spectrum and that the social and economic issues facing
Northern Canada are not solved simply by choosing the right ideological
nostrums. The disappointing aspect of an otherwise thought-provoking
book is that Quiring never really offers enough comparative evidence to
show that the CCF’s northern policies in the period 1944–64 were
demonstrably more disastrous than policies in other jurisdictions
because of their ideological content. Arguably, no Canadian government
of any political stripe really resolved how to deal with northern issues
in that period. Indeed, northern policy remains a problematic area for
most governments to this day.