In the short term, the strike ended in arrests, bloodshed and defeat, but in the long run it contributed to the development of a stronger labour movement and the tradition of social democratic politics in Canada.

A meeting of western labour delegates in Calgary in March 1919 adopted numerous radical resolutions, including support for a five-day week and a six-hour day.

[7] Ernest Robinson, secretary of the Labour Council, issued a statement that "every organization but one has voted in favour of the general strike" and that "all public utilities will be tied-up in order to enforce the principle of collective bargaining".

"[10] Participants assembled in city parks to listen to speakers report on the progress of the strike and discuss the many related social reform issues of the time.

[13] An emerging working-class activist named Edith Hancox, who became a notable defender of the city's dispossessed during the 1920s, is the only woman reported as a speaker at the huge outdoor gatherings at Victoria Park.

[14] Negotiations between members of the Strike Committee, city council and local businesses produced an arrangement to continue milk and bread deliveries.

To make it clear that the delivery men were not strikebreakers, a small poster was printed for display on their wagons reading "PERMITTED BY AUTHORITY OF STRIKE COMMITTEE."

[15] In a city divided on class lines, opposition to the strike was led by a group of local businessmen and professionals who described themselves as the Citizens' Committee of One Thousand.

From their headquarters in the Board of Trade building, they encouraged employers not to give in to the strikers and attempted to stir up resentment of "alien" immigrants, who, they charged, were the principal leaders of the strike.

They published a newspaper, The Winnipeg Citizen, that claimed that "the so-called general strike is in reality revolution – or a daring attempt to overthrow the present industrial and governmental system.

Andrews, the federal government amended the Immigration Act to allow for the deportation without trial of any British citizens not born in Canada who were charged with seditious activity.

As large numbers of veterans were holding marches in the streets in support of the strike, on June 5 Mayor Charles F. Gray announced a ban on public demonstrations.

[19] On June 9 the city also dismissed almost the entire police force for refusing to sign a pledge promising to neither belong to a union nor participate in a sympathetic strike.

With the assistance of the Citizens' Committee, the city police were replaced with a large body of untrained but better paid special constables who patrolled the streets with clubs.

Within hours, one of the special constables, a much-medalled World War I veteran Frederick Coppins, charged into a gathering of strikers and was dragged off his horse and severely pummelled.

The Winnipeg Free Press called the strikers "bohunks", "aliens", and "anarchists" and ran cartoons depicting radicals throwing bombs.

A plan to offer a modified form of collective bargaining to the Metal Trades Council was in the works at the middle of the month, but any efforts at compromise were ended by a series of arrests on charges of seditious conspiracy.

In the early morning hours of June 17, the RNWMP apprehended several prominent leaders of the strike, including George Armstrong, Roger Bray, Abraham Heaps, William Ivens, R.B.

Several foreign-born socialists, including Sam Blumenberg, Max Charitonoff and Solomon Almazoff were also arrested, as was Oscar Schoppelrei, an American-born Canadian war veteran of German ethnic origin.

To protest against the arrest of the strike leaders, the returned soldiers had announced a demonstration in the form of a "silent parade" on Main Street for Saturday afternoon.

When the soldiers refused to call off the demonstration, Mayor Gray requested assistance from the RNWMP, who entered into the crowds on horseback, wielding clubs in an attempt to disperse the assembly.

A streetcar operated by a strikebreaker attempted to travel south on Main Street towards Portage Avenue but was stopped and tipped off the tracks and briefly set on fire.

Under arrangements accepted (and paid for) by the federal government, the prosecution was conducted by Andrews and other "legal gentlemen" who were active in the Citizens' Committee during the strike.

[27]: 13 Seven of the accused (Armstrong, Bray, Ivens, Johns, Pritchard, Russell and Queen) were found guilty by the largely rural juries selected for the trials.

Dixon, who was charged with seditious libel, delivered a strong defence of the right to free speech as an essential element of the British tradition.

The renewed poverty and insecurity of the Great Depression led to a long period of labour militancy across Canada in the 1940s, when union membership increased substantially.

By the end of that decade, a formal industrial relations regime was established in Canadian law that provided some security for unions and their members but also threatened to limit the scope of their activity.

[2] The "red scare" promoted by business and government spokesmen attracted attention, as did the legal manoeuvres that led to the arrest and conviction of prominent strike supporters on charges of sedition.

[43] Recent accounts of the strike have also noted that most strikers were not union members, suggesting that the events might be described as an urban rebellion against the failings of the capitalist social order as it existed at the end of World War I.

[47] Among remembrances of this event in Canadian popular culture is the song "In Winnipeg" by musician Mike Ford, included in the album Canada Needs You Volume Two.