In 1904 the SPM became one of the constituent units founding the Socialist Party of Canada, an organisation which continued until 1925.
[1] Although professing a long-term objective of "socialisation of the means of Production, Distribution, and Exchange,"[1] in practice it followed the Fabian agenda of slow, incremental social legislation — a modest programme characterised by one historian as "pure reformist labourism.
[2] Included among the planks of the SPM's ameliorative reform programme were demands for universal suffrage, direct legislation, abolition of standing armies, implementation of the 8-hour day, establishment of old age pensions, and implementation of compulsory public education.
[3] Located in a largely rural province, the SPM had a small membership almost entirely contained in the city of Winnipeg.
They finished a distant third in all three, but may have been responsible for the defeat of reformist Manitoba Labour Party candidate Fred Dixon in Winnipeg Centre.
Dixon's loss provoked a backlash against the SPC from Winnipeg's labour unions, weakening the party.
For the 1920 provincial election, the SPC, SDP and reformist labour parties forged an electoral alliance to contest Winnipeg's ten seats (which were determined by a single transferable ballot).
Milne claimed that neither the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation nor the Labor-Progressive Party was serious about eroding capitalism and poverty.