Major James William Coldwell (December 2, 1888 – August 25, 1974) was a Canadian democratic socialist politician, and leader of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) party from 1942 to 1960. He served as a Regina city councillor and as a Saskatchewan MP from 1935 to 1958.

Born in England, he immigrated to Canada in 1910. Prior to his political career, he was an educator and union activist. In 1935, he was elected to the House of Commons of Canada for the Rosetown—Biggar electoral district, in Saskatchewan. He was re-elected five times before he was defeated in the 1958 Diefenbaker sweep. He became the CCF's first national secretary in 1934 and the CCF's national leader upon the death of J. S. Woodsworth in 1942. He served as its leader until 1960, when there was a parliamentary caucus revolt against him. When the CCF disbanded in 1961, he joined its successor, the New Democratic Party.

Coldwell is remembered mainly for helping to introduce "welfare state" policies to Canada, by persuading the Liberal government to introduce an Old Age Security programme and child benefits during the mid-1940s. He turned down several offers to join the governing Liberals, including one offer that would have made him prime minister. After his defeat in 1958, he was offered an appointment to the Senate, but he declined this as well. In 1964 he was sworn into the Privy Council, and in 1967 he was one of the initial inductees into the Order of Canada.

Early life

Coldwell was born in Seaton, England on December 2, 1888, the son of Elizabeth (Farrant) and James Henry Coldwell. He attended Exeter University (then called Royal Albert Memorial College), where he met Norah Gertrude Dunsford in 1907, and in December 1909, they became engaged. Norah was born in 1888 and was the daughter of a wealthy newspaper proprietor, John Thomas Dunsford. He and Norah were married at the Wembdon Church in Bridgwater, Somerset, England, on July 22. In 1929, The Farmers' Political Association and the ILP nominated three candidates for the provincial election, under the joint banner of the Saskatchewan Farmer–Labour party, with Coldwell leading it. In the 1935 federal election, he was elected to the House of Commons as Member of Parliament (MP) for the riding of Rosetown-Biggar. Woodsworth, a pacifist, opposed the war effort, while Coldwell and the rest of the CCF caucus supported it, as per the party's official position.

In 1945, Coldwell's book Left Turn Canada was published by Gollancz (London). As well, that year two other of his writings, Jobs and homes for peace: speech delivered in the House of Commons, Sept. 10, 1945, and Planning for peace - CCF proposals. Speeches on the establishment of an international organization for the maintenance of peace and security were published.

The Liberals appropriated many of the CCF's policies and made them government policy.

In 1945, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King offered Coldwell a Cabinet post in his government. When Coldwell refused, King made another offer, which would have made him the next Liberal leader and, by extension, prime minister. On October 11, at a rally for the CCF's by-election candidate, Ford Brand, at Parkdale Collegiate Institute, a member of the audience asked Coldwell about the rumour that he had been offered the leadership of the Liberal Party. They took place at the beginning of the welfare state and set the course of political thought to the end of the century and beyond. diminished the CCF's initially favourable position both provincially and nationally: the September 1943 Gallup poll showed the CCF leading nationally with 29 per cent support, with the Liberals and the Conservatives tied for second place at 28 per cent. By April 1945, the CCF was down to 20 per cent nationally, and on election day it received only 16 per cent. which guaranteed a split in the left-of-centre vote.

Leadership succession crisis

Coldwell had a moderating influence on party policy, and at the party's biannual convention in Winnipeg in 1956, the party passed the Winnipeg Declaration as a statement of party principles to replace the more radical Regina Manifesto. He pushed the party to accept the private sector in a mixed economy in the hope that the new principles would make the CCF more electable.

In the 1958 election, Coldwell lost his seat in the House of Commons, and the party was reduced to a rump of eight MPs. The new Progressive Conservative Prime Minister, John Diefenbaker, offered him an appointment to the Senate, which he declined. During the lead-up to the 1960 CCF convention, Argue pressed Coldwell to step down. The leadership challenge jeopardized plans for an orderly transition to the new party that was being planned by the CCF and the Canadian Labour Congress. CCF national president David Lewis, who succeeded Coldwell as president in 1958, when the national chairman and national president positions were merged, and the rest of the new party's organizers both opposed Argue's manoeuvres and wanted Saskatchewan premier Tommy Douglas to be the new party's leader. In an attempt to prevent their plans from derailing, Lewis tried to persuade Argue not to force a vote at the convention on the question of the party's leadership. The vote went ahead, and there was a split between the parliamentary caucus and the party executive on the convention floor. Coldwell stepped down as leader, and Argue replaced him, becoming the party's final national leader.

As far back as 1941, Coldwell wanted Douglas to succeed him as leader of the national CCF, notwithstanding his willingness to assume the national leadership himself. In 1961, with the formation of the "New Party", Coldwell put pressure on Douglas to run for the leadership. Six months later Argue crossed the floor and became a Liberal.

Coldwell was unenthusiastic about the movement to merge the CCF with the Canadian Labour Congress and create the "New Party", but he joined the New Democratic Party at its founding in 1961, and remained an elder statesman in the NDP until his death in 1974.

Later life

In 1964, he became a member of the Queen's Privy Council for Canada, thereby allowing him to be referred to by the honorific "The Honourable" for the rest of his life. Also in 1964, he was appointed to the House of Commons Advisory Committee on Election Finances chaired by Liberal cabinet minister Judy LaMarsh. In 1966, Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson appointed him to the Royal Commission on Security (the Mackenzie Commission), dealing with the RCMP and security issues that arose from the Munsinger Affair. When Douglas retired as the NDP's leader in April 1971, the party established the Douglas–Coldwell Foundation in Ottawa as its parting gift to both men.

On July 6, 1967, he was appointed a Companion of the Order of Canada. He was invested into the order on November 24, 1967, for "his contribution as a Parliamentarian." His will did not specify in what manner to dispose of his various medals, so his son sold them to a private collector, who put them up for auction. That same year, the Douglas-Coldwell Foundation purchased the medals back for about $10,000 so that they could be displayed in the Tommy Douglas House museum in Regina. He died at age 85 in the Ottawa Civic Hospital after having suffered two heart attacks on August 25, 1974. Archival reference number is R4291.

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Further reading

  • M.J. Coldwell biography (circa. 1953)