United Reform

United Reform

The United Reform Movement or United Reform was an attempt in Saskatoon to create a left wing farmer-labour coalition. Clergyman Walter George Brown won election to the House of Commons as a United Reform Movement candidate in a 1939 by-election and was re-elected in the 1940 general election. Following his re-election, Brown announced he woudl be sitting as a Unity MP but he died on March 30, 1940, four days after being re-elected.

The URM recruited Agnes MacPhail, a long time MP who had been defeated in the general election to run in the by-election to fill Brown's vacancy. MacPhail had been an MP since 1921, first as a representative for the Progressive Party of Canada and since 1930 as a United Farmers of Ontario-Labour MP though she was active with the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation. In deference to her nominators she ran as a United Reform candidate in the August by-election but was defeated.

There was also a United Reform candidate in Weyburn, Saskatchewan who ran in the March 26 general election but as he ran against Tommy Douglas of the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation and had the profession of company manager it's unlikely he had any connection with Brown's United Reform Movement.