page_title: Canadian Socialist League
section_title: Activities
hierarchical_section_title: Canadian Socialist League / Activities
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Margaret Haile, Ontario Socialist League candidate in North Toronto in the 1902 provincial election in Ontario, Canada. Although she only ended up garnering 74 votes, Haile was the first female candidate for provincial office in Ontario. She may have been the first woman to run for major elected office within the entire British Empire. Haile ran for office in 1902, 15 years before women were allowed to vote in provincial elections. Her name was placed on the ballot even though it was uncertain at that time whether a woman was legally entitled to be a member of the Ontario Legislative Assembly (the first two female MPPs, Agnes McPhail and Rae Luckock, would not be elected until 1943). In 1902, the only elected office women could hope to win in Ontario was school trustee (Toronto voted in its first three female trustees in 1892), and even then only single women and widows qualified.
context_page_description: The Canadian Socialist League was the first nationwide socialist organization founded in Canada. It originated in Montreal in 1898, but was strongest in Ontario and British Columbia.
  The leaders espoused a moderate socialism based on Christian reform principles. Members of the league formed provincial socialist parties. In 1905 these parties merged into the Socialist Party of Canada.
context_section_description: The CSL was primarily concerned with educating the electorate about socialism, and was not a parliamentary party in the modern sense. 
  It held meetings to stir up interest in socialism and to debate subjects such as the relationship between socialism and Christianity.
  Disputes soon erupted between Protestant ministers and Marxists.
  The minister Charles Sheldon of Topeka, Kansas, author of the best-selling novel In His Steps, was invited to Toronto to address the league and accepted the position of honorary president of the league's executive. 
  In his writings Sheldon discussed social problems such as unemployment, poverty, racialism, alcohol, corruption and so on, always asking "What would Jesus do?"
  Edith Wrigley, wife of the publisher George Wrigley, edited the women's column in the Citizen and Country.
  She was also active in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU). In her short-lived column "The Kingdom of the Home" she discussed issues such as suffrage, charity, prohibition, prostitution and the servant problem.  (The so-called "servant problem" was the problem that middle-class families had with cleaning, cooking, and especially entertaining at the level that was socially expected.  It was too much work for any one person to do herself, but middle-class families, unlike wealthy families, could not afford to pay the wages necessary to attract and retain skilled household employees.)  Her message was typical of maternal feminism, that love and purity, the values of the home sphere, should also guide politics. Other women activists in the CSL were Emily Stowe and Augusta Stowe-Gullen.
  In 1902 the CSL nominated Margaret Haile as its candidate for North Toronto in the 1902 provincial election.
  Haile was also active in the WCTU, and took a maternal feminist position.
  As a woman she was opposed by various factions, and an attempt was made to exclude her from the ballot.
  The Toiler, the labour paper, would not endorse her.
  She won only 81 votes in the election, but was hailed by Citizen and Country as the first woman to run in a political election in the British Empire.
caption: Margaret Haile, CSL candidate for North Toronto, from 1902 campaign material
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