Ginger Group

Ginger Group

The Ginger Group was a faction of radical Progressive and Labour MPs who advocated socialism. The group took its name from Ginger Godwin, a United Mine Workers organizer who was shot dead outside Cumberland, British Columbia by company hired private policemen on July 27, 1918 and his murder sparked the country's first general strike.

The Ginger Group split from the Progressive Party in 1924 and was made up of United Farmers of Alberta MPs G.C. Coote, Robert Gardiner, E.J. Garland, D.M. Kennedy and Henry Spencer as well as United Farmers of Ontario MP Agnes Macphail. The group was later joined by Independent Labour MPs J.S. Woodsworth, William Irvine, A.A. Heaps and Angus MacInnis as well as a number of Indepents.

Members of the Ginger Group played a role in forming the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation in 1932, with Woodsworth becoming the new party's leader.