No Popery Here: A short history of the birth of the New Brunswick political party system

From the arrival of the Loyalists on Wabanaki territory in the 1780s until 1850, the population of what is today known as New Brunswick grew from 20,000 to 200,000. Irish immigrants, the majority Catholic, were 70 per cent of the total influx. With their arrival came the inevitable clash with militant Protestantism, especially the Orange Order. More surprising was the tension between the Irish and their fellow Catholics, the Acadians.

Parish priests and bishops were appointed from Ireland. The Irish took over the organisation and power structure of the Catholic Church in New Brunswick, even in Acadian areas. Some Acadian leaders felt that the militant Irish Catholics were worse than ‘the God-damned Orangemen.’ However, events were soon to force them into the same political camp.

Riots on the streets and public disorder between rival Protestant and Catholic factions were one thing. The 1871 Common Schools Act brought matters to a different level. Henceforth all public-supported schools would be non-sectarian. Denominational schools would get no public funding. What followed was a period of rampant bigotry unparalleled in New Brunswick history. Protestants screamed ‘No Popery.’ The Irish and the Acadians united to oppose bigoted Protestantism.

An Irish Catholic meeting in Fredericton declared that the Common Schools Act was ‘an indelible disgrace on all those who conceived it and an indestructible monument to their bigotry and intolerance.’

The dozens of newspapers in New Brunswick at the time were almost all fiercely partisan and took a stand. The Freeman newspaper urged all Catholics to withhold payment of school taxes. Moncton’s Orange Truth dubbed the Roman Catholic Church ‘the rottenest institution that ever cursed the earth.’

The Provincial Government and the Protestant majority were adamant. There would be no popery in New Brunswick. The nascent provincial Liberal Party was soon to take advantage of this opening.

The Catholics took their case to the John A. MacDonald and Alexander McKenzie federal governments in Ottawa, to no avail. In the 1874 New Brunswick provincial election the Conservative government won a record majority. An election slogan read ‘Vote for the Queen and against the Pope.’ There were several riots. In Miramichi two men were killed by provincial constabulary.

Eventually the government and the Catholic Church compromised. Catholics could be taught religion after class hours, religious orders could supply teachers for schools in Catholic areas, and schools could be rented from the church. It seemed that peace had broken out.

However the Orangemen would not let matters lie and they had taken complete control of the Conservative Party. It was an opportunity for the Liberals.

Andrew Blair’s Liberal coalition came into power in 1883. Blair grasped at the issue as a way of widening the base and penetration of the party into the wider community. Accused of being soft on popery by the Orange faction, he declared that ‘live and let live’ was his slogan. He accused the Conservatives of ‘riding into the House on a Protestant horse’.

The Acadians, because of Wilfred Laurier’s French-Catholic leadership of the federal government, were shifting to the Liberals, as were the Irish. What had started as a school issue was evolving into the formation of a coalition of interests that was to become the modern Liberal Party of New Brunswick. The development of party politics in New Brunswick could be said to have evolved on sectarian lines – starting with the Common Schools Act.

Education and religious bigotry were not the only issues all political parties had to face in the period from 1883 to 1907 when Andrew Blair dominated New Brunswick politics. Party loyalty was fragile. One visitor to the province in 1883 commented ‘The price of a New Brunswick politician ranges from two to three thousand dollars down to probably a hundred dollars.’ In those early days a political party was even more of a coalition than it is today. There were plenty of ‘loose fish’ prepared to shift allegiance for the right offer.

Andrew Blair consolidated the Liberal Party at a crucial time in its development. He came into power in 1883 and the party ruled for the next 25 years. He himself moved into federal politics in 1896 but oversaw the election of four successive Liberal premiers: Mitchell, Emmerson, Tweedie and Pugsley. The stage was set for the 20th century Liberal-Conservative rivalry.

Nor did ‘No Popery’ leave the scene entirely. The Ku Klux Klan in New Brunswick was not only anti-Black and anti-Jewish but also anti-Catholic. The KKK played a role in New Brunswick politics well into the 20th century. And, as the present LGBTQ controversy in schools illustrates, education is never far from the political pot.

Further reading: Front Benches and Back Rooms by Arthur T. Doyle.

Gerry McAlister (MA in Modern Irish History) lives in Fredericton.