United Farmers of Quebec

United Farmers of Quebec

The United Farmers of Quebec (Fermiers unis du Québec) were founded in 1920. PM Borden's decision to conscript farm youths caused a huge farmers' demonstration in Ottawa on 15 May 1918 and gave Québec farmers their first contact with the United Farmers movement in English Canada. By July some 20 local associations had sprung up in western Québec. In September the Interprovincial Union of Farmers was established as an umbrella for the local organizations. In January 1920, 300 farmers voted in Montréal to transform the union into the United Farmers of Québec. In 1921 the United Farmers had some 5000 members in over 20 counties. That year they joined with the Union des cultivateurs du Québec (founded in 1919) to form the Parti fermier-progressiste du Québec (Progressive Farmers of Québec). They had the support of Joseph-Noé Ponton and his Bulletin des agriculteurs. Their detailed program followed the main lines of the progressive movement but also incorporated elements of Henri BOURASSA's nationalist movement.

The PFQ supported 21 candidates in the federal election of December 1921, but none was elected. The Liberals called them Conservatives in disguise, tools of that shameful symbol of CONSCRIPTION, Arthur MEIGHEN. Liberals swept the province; the farmers won a meagre 42,000 votes (11%). They never recovered from this defeat. The apolitical Catholic Union of Farmers was founded in 1924, becoming the dominant farmers' association and marking the end of the Progressive Farmers.