Tag Archives: New Democratic Party

“There are few workers’ memoirs as excellent” ~ James L. Turk

Jim Higgins (1907-1982) lived the history of Canadian labour, so it’s fitting that his book, Fighting for Democracy, should launch this Labour Day Weekend, 2020.

Jim came to Canada from England in 1928 at age twenty-one. It didn’t take long for him to experience his first lesson in collective action. He’d arrived with others under the Canadian government’s wheat harvest scheme and while waiting to be assigned to wheat farms across Canada, they stood up to officials who wanted them to stop smoking. (It was a different time!)

continue reading

Hounded by the RCMP

I received Jim Higgins’s RCMP file in Spring 2019 under a Freedom of Information request. Not only did the Royal Canadian Mounted Police file document many of his activities during the Great Depression, and after, it also held an intriguing glimpse into his romantic life, a couple of years before he met his wife, Reta Palliser.

Continue reading