In the water

Shoal Lake water first flowed in Winnipeg mains on March 29, 1919. About six weeks later, the Winnipeg Trades and Labor Council called a general strike, and this popular revolt would last a remarkable six weeks. The Winnipeg General Strike and the arrival of Shoal Lake water in Winnipeg taps occurred at the same time, and in the same place, and are part of a larger story of Indigenous dispossession.

Winnipeg’s population grew dra­matically in the first decades of the 20th century. A little more than 42,000 people were enumerated in the city in 1901, and within 10 years, there were more than 136,000. Growth and the shape of it stressed an already fragile civic infrastructure. The annual appearance of typhoid in late summer and early fall got worse, especially for the poor who were concentrated in the city’s North End. By 1912, it was widely believed that the city, which had depended first on river water and then on wells, needed a new supply of water.

That new water supply would come from Shoal Lake, approximately 150 kilometres to the east at the border of Manitoba and Ontario. The Greater Winnipeg Water District (GWWD) began doing preliminary work on the Shoal Lake 40 reserve in 1914. Shoal Lake 40 community members negotiated with the GWWD’s contractor, and worked for them, clearing brush near the Falcon River diversion. Winnipeg’s chemist tested water samples and lived in the Presbyterian-run residential school, Cecilia Jeffrey, then located just east of Shoal Lake 40.

Building the aqueduct was expensive in both material and political terms. Winnipeg mayor Thomas Russ Deacon was elected on a “Shoal Lake water” ticket in 1912. To build and consolidate support for his plan, Deacon worked with people he would not have otherwise chosen to, including the organized labour movement. Deacon was a well-heeled civil engineer and businessman who lived in Crescentwood, extolled free enterprise and refused to recognize unions.

The Social Page

Strike centennialManitoba’s unions and Manitoba building trades presented the Winnipeg General Strike centennial gala dinner on May 15 at the RBC Convention Centre Winnipeg. Attended by almost 1,300 people, the event was held 100 years to the day after the strike began and featured songs from Strike! The Musical, performed by composer-playwright Danny Schur and performers from the cast of the upcoming performance of the play at Rainbow Stage, and by singer Lisa Bell from Stand!, the upcoming film adaptation of the musical. The event also featured a performance by Steve Patterson of CBC’s The Debaters.

Firefighters faced dangerous working conditions but didn't get enough respect

A new exhibit now being planned at the Fire Fighters Historical Museum of Winnipeg will tell the story of firefighters and the Winnipeg General Strike. The museum, a designated heritage site that served as an active fire hall from 1904-1990, is the first stop on the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike Driving and Walking Tour: 100th Anniversary Edition.

The Fire Fighters Museum is located at 56 Maple St. near Higgins Avenue and the former Canadian Pacific Railway station, which today is the Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg. This train station was a major point of arrival for tens of thousands of newcomers in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Because of this, the fire hall was planned as a showpiece for the burgeoning city of Winnipeg. The building features ornate stained glass windows and pressed tin ceiling tiles decorated with firemen’s speaking trumpets. It is one of the oldest and most beautiful fire stations remaining in Canada, and its collections, which date to the days of horse-drawn carriages, steam-powered fire apparatus and bronze fire nozzles, are second to none.

Winnipeg firefighters were no strangers to labour activism in 1919. Their working life fostered a culture of caring, and they had been protecting one another on the job since the city’s first volunteer fire brigade formed in 1874. It was a time before universal health care, employment insurance and pensions provided any kind of social safety net. And so, like other workers, firefighters contributed to their own mutual benefit plan — the Winnipeg Firemen’s Benevolent Association. This society provided financial assistance to its members in times of sickness, injury and death.

Firefighting was difficult and dangerous work. Firemen, as they were called at the time, were required to live, make their meals and sleep at the fire hall. They worked 21 hours a day, seven days a week. They were admired for their bravery, skill and dedication, but they received little pay and could be fired for any reason. The rapid growth of Winnipeg’s population — from more than 40,000 residents in 1900 to almost 180,000 by 1920 — and the expansion of the city’s industrial and retail properties during these years made the demands of the job even harder.

Former Winnipeg mayor played pivotal role in opposing labour movement

Veteran Toronto Daily Star reporter William Plewman arrived in Winnipeg on May 22 and over the next five weeks wired more than 90 reports and 150,000 words to his paper. His coverage about the event proved to be the most accurate, objective and insightful provided by any newspaperman.

One of the best examples of Plewman’s reporting is his final dispatch, Andrews the Brains of Strike Opponents. In this account, Plewman astutely identified Citizens’ Committee of One Thousand executive member Alfred Andrews as the individual most responsible for defeating the strike.

Andrews, a corporate lawyer and former Winnipeg mayor, was appointed early in the walkout as special representative of the Justice Department to collaborate with the North-West Mounted Police and the Manitoba government to end the strike unconditionally.

Plewman began Andrews the Brains by comparing him with strike leader Bob Russell.

Figuring out what to do with labour leaders was no easy task

When the strike ended, the police and legal officials had eight men out on bail (George Armstrong, Roger Bray, Abe Heaps, Bill Ivens, Richard James Johns, John Queen, Bill Pritchard and Bob Russell) and four men in jail (Michael Charitonoff, Oscar Schoppelrie, Solomon Alamazoff and Mike Verenchuck), but were not sure what to do with them.

The men had been arrested under provisions of the Criminal Code of Canada, though the Attorney General had not given approval to make the arrests. After the arrests, the police did get the authority from the Minister of Immigration to apprehend the men, so the police could claim the men were suspected of Immigration Act violations. But the situation was complicated. George Armstrong was born in Canada and therefore was not subject to immigration laws. Moreover, if the other men were subject to the Immigration Act, the only punishment available would be immediate deportation. The authorities knew the men would become martyrs if they were deported, which very likely would provoke continued massive labour and public protest. Dropping charges and letting them go would imply the government made a mistake in the arrests. So, letting them go was not going to happen.

The legal option available was to put the men on trial as “leaders of the strike,” accused of sedition, of advocating the overthrow of the Canadian government. The problem with this option was that the provincial government was responsible for sedition-related offences and prosecutions, and the Attorney General did not believe there were grounds for prosecution. He said he would not take the men to court. Alfred J. Andrews and the Citizens’ Community of One Thousand were then in a position where their only option was to take on a “private prosecution,” which was allowed under the Criminal Code. If the justice system could not or would not prosecute, a citizen or group of individuals could allege a violation of the law and take an accused to a court for judgement.

As authors Reinhold Kramer and Tom Mitchell observe in their comprehensive analysis of the situation, “Perhaps the most compelling reason for Andrews’ use of the Criminal Code was his and the citizens’ growing wish to criminalize the strike. The leaders must be brought to heel, but the issue of general strikes in Winnipeg must also be settled definitively and publicly.” In a private letter to acting Minister of Justice Author Meighen dated July 10, 1919, Andrews put his strategy simply: “the only way to deal with Bolshevism is to hit and hit it hard, every time it lifts its ugly head,” which he did in the next six months of preliminary hearings and trials.

Faces in the crowd

In the spring of 1919, thousands of residents took to the streets in support of the Winnipeg General Strike. The six-week demonstration attracted media coverage from across Canada, with photographers capturing key moments.

The main photo on this page was taken at Portage and Main during the early days of the strike. Today, thanks to the use of large-format cameras in the early 1900s, we can see in greater detail who took a stand for labour rights 100 years ago.

Brookside Cemetery tours feature fascinating figures connected to General Strike

The events surrounding the 1919 Winnipeg General Strike have been well-documented. The largest open-ended general strike in Canadian history continues to be of great interest to academics, trade unionists and the public at large.

Fourteen people connected to the strike are interred in Brookside Cemetery. Their lives, and the connections between them, offer a fascinating glimpse at key storylines associated with the strike.

Consider these facts associated with these citizens.

Two Russian immigrants, Rachel (Rose) Shapack and Jacob Penner, met here at a meeting of the Winnipeg Radical Society. Of note was the guest speaker that evening, American political activist Emma Goldman.