Labour History and the Interlocking Hierarchies of Class, Ethnicity, and Gender: A Canadian Perspective

“No nation is supposed to be so advanced as the British nation, no race so progressive as the white”, declared Cotton's Weekly , the newspaper of the Social Democratic Party of Canada. “BUT HERE IN TORONTO NO CHINESE, NO HINDOOS, NO JAPS, NO INDIANS, NO BLACKS, NO FOREIGNERS NEED BE IMPORTED. WHITE GIRLS AND MEN OF BRITISH BIRTH BREAK THE STRIKES.” It was 1911. The newspaper was commenting on strike-breaking by “white” workers during a strike at a Toronto garment factory where male and female Jews had walked out. The newspaper compared this with cases out West: “In British Columbia when miners rise up in rebellion against the shameful conditions, Chinese are brought into the mines. In this and other western provinces, Japs, Hindoos, and Indians fill the places of the white toilers because they live on cheaper food and under such intolerable conditions no white people can stand it.”