What is "liberal-labour"

The Liberal-Labour banner has also been used several times by candidates in Canadian elections:

In the early twentieth century when the idea of trade unionists running for elected office under their own banner gained ground, several working class candidates on the provincial or federal level were elected on a Labour ticket. Once elected, in the absence of an organized Labour Party, an MP elected on a Labour ticket would often support, or join, the Liberal Party of Canada and would often be described as "Liberal-Labour"

At other times, the Liberal Party, particularly under William Lyon Mackenzie King would try to co-opt the trade union vote by running Liberal supporters as Labour or Liberal-Labour candidates. These would be official or unofficial "fusion" candidates who would run in the absence of a straight Liberal candidate.

• Ralph Smith was a miner who won election to the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia in 1898 on a Liberal-Labour platform. In the 1900 federal election he was elected to the Canadian House of Commons as a Liberal-Labour candidate defeating the official Liberal candidate. He immediately joined the Liberal Party caucus of Sir Wilfrid Laurier and subsequently ran and won re-election as a straight Liberal against Conservative and Socialist opponents.
• Alphonse Verville was president of the Trades and Labour Congress of Canada when he was elected as a Labour candidate in a 1906 by-election in Maisonville. Verville was elected by defeating a Liberal opponent, however, in subsequent elections the Liberals ran no candidate in Maisonville and threw their support to Verville who would generally support Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Liberals in the Canadian House of Commons. In the 1917 federal election on conscription, Verville ran and was re-elected as a Laurier-Liberal.
• Malcolm Lang, who was elected as a Labour Party of Canada Member of Parliament in the 1926 federal election, was re-elected as "Liberal-Labour" in the north-eastern Ontario riding of Timiskaming South in the 1930 federal election.
• Humphrey Mitchell was elected as a Labour MP in a 1931 by-election in Hamilton East. He was unopposed by the Mackenzie King Liberals and generally voted with the Liberal caucus while having a poor relationship with other Labour MPs in parliament. He refused to join the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation when it was formed the next year and, in the 1935 federal election ran for re-election as a Labour MP. The Liberals supported Mitchell unofficially and did not run a candidate against him. The CCF, however, did stand a candidate in Hamilton East resulting in the labour vote being split and Mitchell's defeat at the hands of a Conservative in a year where the Conservatives lost dozens of seats. Mitchell returned to parliament during World War II as a Liberal MP and cabinet minister.
• From 1949 to 1965, William Moore Benidickson represented the north-western Ontario riding of Kenora-Rainy River as a Liberal-Labour Member of Parliament. Benidickson was elected as a Liberal MP in the 1945 federal election, but ran subsequently as "Liberal-Labour" as the result of an informal electoral pact between the Labor-Progressive Party (i.e., the Communist Party of Canada) and the Liberal Party of Canada (see also Ontario legislature, below.)

Benidickson was succeeded in that riding by John Mercer Reid, who was elected as a "Liberal" in 1966 but then sat as a "Liberal-Labour" MP from the 1968 federal election until the 1972 federal election, when he changed his desigation back to "Liberal". In the 1988 federal election, Liberal candidate Bob Nault identified himself as "Liberal-Labour" on some of his literature (particularly those distributed at plant gates) in his successful attempt to defeat NDP incumbent John Parry who had defeated Reid in 1984. Nault was officially listed as a straight Liberal on the ballot and in his official designation when he became an MP.

• In the 1935 federal election, three candidates ran in Quebec ridings, placing last in each case, and drawing no more than 1.5% of the vote in each case. In all three ridings, at least one other candidate ran as a "Liberal".
• In the 1945 federal election, one candidate ran as a "Liberal Labour" candidate in the Quebec riding of Mercier, placing last in a field of seven, with 345 votes, 1.0% of the total.
• In the 1949 federal election, one candidate ran as a "Liberal Labour" candidate in the Quebec riding of Stanstead, placing last in a field of four, with 433 votes, 2.6% of the total.

Liberal-Labour may refer to:

• Liberal-Labour (UK)
• Liberal-Labour (Canada)
• Liberal-Labour (New Zealand)

Liberal–Labour (often referred to as "Lib-Lab") was a political association in New Zealand in the last decade of the nineteenth and first half of the twentieth centuries.

The Liberal–Labour movement refers to the practice of local Liberal associations accepting and supporting candidates who were financially maintained by trade unions. These candidates stood for the British Parliament with the aim of representing the working classes, while remaining supportive of the Liberal Party in general.

The first Lib–Lab candidate to stand was George Odger in the Southwark by-election of 1870. The first Lib–Lab candidates to be elected were Alexander MacDonald and Thomas Burt, both members of the Miners' Federation of Great Britain (MFGB), in the 1874 general election. In 1880, they were joined by Henry Broadhurst of the Stonemasons' Union and the movement reached its peak in 1885, with twelve MPs elected. These include William Abraham (Mabon) in the Rhondda division whose claims to the Liberal nomination were essentially based on his working class credentials.

The candidates generally stood with the support of the Liberal Party, the Labour Representation League and one or more trade unions. After 1885, decline set in. Disillusion grew from the defeat of the Manningham Mills Strike, a series of decisions restricting the activity of unions, culminating in the Taff Vale Case and largely unchallenged by the Liberal Party, and the foundation of the Independent Labour Party in 1892 followed by its turn towards trade unionism.

The formation of the Labour Representation Committee in 1900 followed by the Labour Party in 1906, meant that in the House of Commons, there were two groups of MPs containing Trade Union sponsored MPs, sitting on either side of the chamber. (about 28 took the Labour whip and about 23 took the Liberal whip) The Trades Union Congress decided to instruct its affiliate unions to require their MPs to stand at the next election as Labour Party candidates and take the Labour whip. Of the 23 Trade Union sponsored Liberal MPs, 15 were sponsored by unions affiliated to the Miners Federation of Great Britain (MFGB). When the MFGB affiliated to the Labour Party in 1909, most of their MPs joined Labour after the January 1910 general election.

The Liberal-Labour group finally died out at the 1918 general election, when Thomas Burt (by then Father of the House) and Arthur Richardson stood down.