Article

Ginger Group

Published Online February 7, 2006

Last Edited March 4, 2015

Ginger Group, an independent group of members of Parliament who in 1924 split from the PROGRESSIVE PARTY because they did not support a party structure that inhibited an MP's ability to act solely as the representative of his constituents.
James Shaver Woodsworth, Methodist minister, politician
Woodsworth was the best known of the reform-minded Social Gospel ministers and led many of them into the politics of democratic socialism (courtesy Library and Archives Canada/C-55449).

Ginger Group

Ginger Group, an independent group of members of Parliament who in 1924 split from the PROGRESSIVE PARTY because they did not support a party structure that inhibited an MP's ability to act solely as the representative of his constituents. The group, named after the Tory MPs who in 1917 opposed the MILITARY SERVICE ACT, was initially composed of UNITED FARMERS OF ALBERTA representatives G.C. Coote, Robert Gardiner, E.J. Garland, D.M. Kennedy and Henry Spencer, and UNITED FARMERS OF ONTARIO representative Agnes MACPHAIL.

Later, working with Labour MPs J.S. WOODSWORTH, William IRVINE, A.A. HEAPS and Angus MacInnis, it included Ontario MPs W.C. GOOD and Preston Elliott, Alberta Independent Joseph Shaw, Milton Campbell from Saskatchewan and W.J. Ward from Manitoba. The Ginger Group declined along with the Progressive Party; some members later helped found the CO-OPERATIVE COMMONWEALTH FEDERATION.