First leader helped to lay base for CCF
Although Thomas Clement (Tommy) Douglas is the better-known name, George Hara Williams was instrumental in the early years of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation.
Saskatchewan’s socialist political party was officially founded in 1934, but its roots are a bit older.
In 1929, Williams became president of Saskatchewan’s section of the United Farmers of Canada, which had a membership of between 20,000 to 30,000.
In that role until 1931, he was a “radical socialist” who had pledged to abolish “capitalist robbery,” according to Thomas H. McLeod and Ian McLeod. The Saskatchewan UFC merged in 1932 with the Independent Labour Party to form the Farmer Labour Group, a short-lived moniker — the CCF was christened two years later.
Williams became leader of the Opposition as one of five CCF MLAs elected to the legislature in 1934.
The following year, he became party organizer, then spent the next five years as president, organizer and leader. In 1941, Douglas challenged him as party leader and won.
The far-left Williams, a former secretary of the Marxist Farmers’ Educational League, clashed with Douglas. In his latter years as party leader, Williams is painted dictatorially, demanding all mail come through him, rarely calling executive or council meetings, and reluctant to separate the positions of party leader and president.
“George Williams deserves more credit than he has received as a founder and builder of the CCF, but his last years as leader were marked by something like dementia,” the McLeods wrote. Williams had served in the First World War before beginning to farm at Semans in 1921. In 1941, he rejoined the army for the Second World War, and returned to Saskatchewan in 1944.
Williams was back in the legislature following the election in June that year, serving as minister of agriculture under new premier Douglas, but resigned in February 1945 due to poor health.
Born in 1894 in Binscarth, Man., Williams died in September 1945 in Vancouver at age 50.
With files from the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan, The Rise of the New West by John F. Conway, and Saskatchewan Premiers of the 20th Century.