TheGinger Group was not a formal political party inCanada, but afaction of radicalProgressive andLabourMembers of Parliament who advocatedsocialism. The termginger group also refers to a small group with new, radical ideas trying to act as a catalyst within a larger body.
The Ginger Group split with the Progressive Party in 1924 when Progressive leaderRobert Forke proved too eager to accommodate the Liberal government ofWilliam Lyon Mackenzie King and agreed to support the government's budget with only minimal concessions.J. S. Woodsworth, using his right as the leader of the Independent Labour MPs, moved a stronger amendment to the budget based on demands the Progressives had made in earlier years but had since abandoned. The Progressive and Labour MPs who broke with their Progressive colleagues to support Woodsworth became the "Ginger Group".[1][2] It was made up ofUnited Farmers of AlbertaMPsGeorge Gibson Coote,Robert Gardiner,Edward Joseph Garland,Donald MacBeth Kennedy andHenry Elvins Spencer as well asUnited Farmers of Ontario MPAgnes Macphail. The group was later joined byLabour MPs J. S. Woodsworth,William Irvine,Abraham Albert Heaps andAngus MacInnis, independent MPJoseph Tweed Shaw andProgressive MPsMilton Neil Campbell,William John Ward,William Charles Good, andPreston Elliott.[1][2][3]
Members of the Ginger Group played a role in forming theCooperative Commonwealth Federation in 1932, with Woodsworth becoming the new party's leader.[1]
The only sitting United Farmers of Alberta MP who did not join the CCF at its founding wasWilliam Thomas Lucas, who ran for re-election unsuccessfully as a Conservative in 1935.
The name Ginger Group was also used to refer to a group ofConservative MPs who, in 1917 opposedPrime MinisterRobert Borden's use of theMilitary Service Act to introduceconscription during theConscription Crisis of 1917.[2][3]
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