In 1872, unification of labour began in Canada with the regionally popular Trade Unions Act, enacted by the Conservative Party of the first Canadian Parliament.
[3][4] The new act removed penalties for being a member of a union, which were capable of striking for improved employment, closing a company, and/or disrupting access to goods and services in Canada.
[11] In an effort to unify these scattered forces, a unity convention was held and the Socialist Party of British Columbia was formed.
[16] Unity negotiations followed this left turn for the organization and in November 1902 the SBBC and the Revolutionary Socialist Party were successfully reunited by a membership referendum vote.
[18] Hawthornthwaite won re-election in his Nanaimo riding in October 1903 tenth general election, where he was joined in the legislature by Parker Williams, a former Welsh coal miner who had lived previously in Alberta and Washington state.
Socialist Party gained support especially from employees of coal mines and railways, and with immigrants from non-English speaking Europe, notably in the region of Nanaimo, Vancouver Island.
James Hawthornthwaite and Parker Williams sat for two years with opposition seats in the provincial legislature of BC as members of the SPC.
Three Socialists were elected in a Regional District of Nanaimo electoral area and Grandforks (West Kootenay, central BC).
[21] On 1 May 1913, a Labor Day meeting began a general strike to shut down all Vancouver Island coal mining.
In July, Minister of Labour for province of British Columbia visited the mine strike on Vancouver Island.
[22] This was the end of organized coal mine labor on Vancouver Island, as the union lost to owners and strikebreakers.
Until World War I, United Mine Workers of America continued strike pay for Vancouver Island miners.
On 17 June, eight (also published as ten) strike leaders were arrested and imprisoned, five were members of the Socialist Party of Canada, Winnipeg.
The arrested SPC leaders change their goal to achieving representation of workers for nationally unified employee management named Labour instead of Socialist.
In 1925, SPC membership was declining, and the Western Clarion, which had been unbanned in 1920, was closed after 22 years of publishing socialist and labour news.
Fourteen United Farmers of Alberta delegates were included in choosing a name for a new nationwide socialist-labour party, the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.
In 1935, there was another merger of the Socialist Party of Canada with the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation, but it retained its own organization within the CCF for several years.