[1][2] Their support was concentrated among southwestern Canada West farmers, who were frustrated and disillusioned by the 1849 Reform government of Robert Baldwin and Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine's lack of democratic enthusiasm.
The Clear Grits advocated universal male suffrage, representation by population, democratic institutions, reductions in government expenditure, abolition of the Clergy Reserves, voluntarism, and free trade with the United States.
Clear Grits from Upper Canada shared many ideas with Thomas Jefferson.
The Clear Grit platform was first laid out at a convention held at Markham in March 1850, which included the following planks:[1] Initially led by Peter Perry, they later came under the leadership of Toronto newspaper editor George Brown, and in 1857 joined with the Reform Party, which was a loose alliance of liberal-minded reformers that became the Ontario Liberal Party and Liberal Party of Canada.
Later examples were the United Farmers and the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, the direct ancestor of the modern New Democratic Party.