Social problems resulting from the liquor trade turned
the question of controlling liquor into an election issue as
early as 1891. Prohibitionists identified alcohol as the
cause of numerous social evils, such as:
Neglect of one's work
Widespread poverty in Canada's fast-growing cities
Immorality and the spread of disease
Neglect of families, as husbands spent money on alcohol rather than feeding and clothing their wives and children
Abuse and battery of women and children
Crime
As Canada industrialized, factory workers wound up
working long hours for very small wages, and both men and
women drank to forget their misery.
The use and abuse of alcohol was seen as a
widespread and growing problem, which gave rise to other
many other social ills. As a result, prohibition became the
focus of social reformers of every stripe, who banded
together in common cause.
As alcohol had the ability to decimate homes and
families, it became the focus of prohibition campaigns by
women's groups like the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU),
and the United Farm Women of Alberta (UFWA). Failing to
achieve the reforms they sought, these groups began
increasingly to view female suffrage as necessary to
achieving prohibition—as well as other social reforms. Women's groups, church groups, farm and industry groups, and
other reformers united in pursuit of similar causes. As
women played a prominent role in achieving prohibition, many
of their allies in that cause supported women's bid for suffrage.
Heritage Trail: Controlling Liquor
in Alberta |
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Whiskey trading in the 1860s
and 1870s was destroying Aboriginal communities and
threatened anticipated settlement of the West. In
1873, the Canadian Government created the Northwest
Mounted Police mainly to control the whiskey trade
in the West. The Northwest Territories Act of 1875
established the first regulations to control
alcohol. And as historian David Leonard explains,
this was done through the granting of permits by the
Lieutenant Governor. . . Listen Now |
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