It was the height of the Great Depression, with countless millions out of work and the prairie dustbowl seemingly set to last forever. In both Canada and the United States, governments struggled with their approaches to combatting the crushing depression and every day more and more citizens joined the food-lines as jobs evaporated.Into this breach, offering a democratic socialist alternative for Canadians, stepped the founders of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF), in particular, intellectuals such as Frank Underhill and scholar-poet F.R. Scott. The CCF's founding convention had taken place in 1932 in Calgary, but it was on this date in 1933 that Underhill and Scott and other delegates gathered in Regina to adopt and proclaim the famed Regina Manifesto, which called for an end to traditional capitalism.“When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man’s normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated,” the authors thundered. “We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people.”And all these years later, the CCF (called, of course, the NDP today), still provides Canadians the option to support a left of centre party.The entire Regina Manifesto is found below.Adopted by the founding convention in Regina, Saskatchewan, July, 1933.The CCF is a federation of organizations whose purpose is the establishment in Canada of a Co-operative Commonwealth in which the principle regulating production, distribution and exchange will be the supplying of human needs and not the making of profits.WE AIM TO REPLACE the present capitalist system, with its inherent injustice and inhumanity, by a social order from which the domination and exploitation of one class by another will be eliminated, in which economic planning will supersede unregulated private enterprise and competition, and in which genuine democratic self-government, based upon economic equality will be possible. The present order is marked by glaring inequalities of wealth and opportunity, by chaotic waste and instability; and in an age of plenty it condemns the great mass of the people to poverty and insecurity. Power has become more and more concentrated into the hands of a small irresponsible minority of financiers and industrialists and to their predatory interests the majority are habitually sacrificed. When private profit is the main stimulus to economic effort, our society oscillates between periods of feverish prosperity in which the main benefits go to speculators and profiteers, and of catastrophic depression, in which the common man’s normal state of insecurity and hardship is accentuated. We believe that these evils can be removed only in a planned and socialized economy in which our natural resources and principal means of production and distribution are owned, controlled and operated by the people.The new social order at which we aim is not one in which individuality will be crushed out by a system of regimentation. Nor shall we interfere with cultural rights of racial or religious minorities. What we seek is a proper collective organization of our economic resources such as will make possible a much greater degree of leisure and a much richer individual life for every citizen.This social and economic transformation can be brought about by political action, through the election of a government inspired by the ideal of a Co-operative Commonwealth and supported by a majority of the people. We do not believe in change by violence. We consider that both the old parties in Canada are the instruments of capitalist interests and cannot serve as agents of social reconstruction, and that whatever the superficial differences between them, they are bound to carry on government in accordance with the dictates of the big business interests who finance them. The CCF aims at political power in order to put an end to this capitalist domination of our political life. It is a democratic movement, a federation of farmer, labour and socialist organizations, financed by its own members and seeking to achieve its ends solely by constitutional methods. It appeals for support to all who believe that the time has come for a far-reaching reconstruction of our economic and political institutions and who are willing to work together for the carrying out of the following policies:
- Planning
- Socialization Of Finance
- Social Ownership
- Agriculture
- The improvement of the position of the farmer by the increase of the purchasing power made possible by the social control of the financial system. This control must be directed towards the increase of employment as laid down elsewhere and towards raising the prices of farm commodities by appropriate credit and foreign policies.
- Whilst the family farm is the accepted basis for agricultural production in Canada the position of the farmer may be much improved by: (a) The extension of consumers’ cooperatives for the purchase of farm supplies and domestic requirements; and (b) The extension of cooperative institutions for the processing and marketing of farm products.
- Both of the foregoing to have suitable state encouragement and assistance.
- The adoption of a planned system of agricultural development based upon scientific soil surveys directed towards better land utilization, and a scientific policy of agricultural development for the whole of Canada.
- The substitution for the present system of foreign trade, of a system of import boards to improve the efficiency of overseas marketing, to control prices, and to integrate the foreign trade policy with the requirements of the national economic plan.
- External Trade
- Co-operative Institutions
- Labour Code
- Socialized Health ServicesPublicly organized health, hospital and medical services
- B.N.A. Act
- External Relations
- Taxation And Public Finance
- Freedom
- Social Justice
- An Emergency Programme