May Day in BC Brings Celebration and Surveillance
Published: April 28, 2021
Authors: Donna Sacuta, BCLHC Executive Director
Labour’s May Day (sometimes called International Workers’ Day) on May 1 has been held around the world for over 120 years. In many countries May Day is a statutory holiday that celebrates international solidarity and the long history of labour battles and victories.
The first May Day took place in 1886 in Europe. Its original purpose was for workers in all countries to participate simultaneously to demand the eight-hour day; essentially a one-day general strike. In 1894 the US government declared the first Monday in September “Labour Day”. They may have hoped to take the wind out of the sails of radicals, however, the dream of international solidarity on May 1 was slow to fade.
State surveillance of May Day parades continued through the years in Vancouver. Amalgamated Building Workers, Fishermen and Cannery Workers at the United May Day Conference Parade, May 1, 1936. Vancouver Police Dept photo, Vancouver Archives CVA 417-5.
In British Columbia during the 1930s May Day parades and rallies drew thousands of people in large cities and in smaller towns such as Nanaimo, Michel and Natal in the East Kootenay region. In Vancouver, May Day parades attracted state surveillance particularly during the 1930s Depression where upwards of 15,000 citizens participated.
HMCS Vancouver, Ken Macpherson / Naval Museum of Alberta – Canadian Navy Heritage
In 1932 the Canadian Navy brought a machine gun squadron to bolster City police forces and positioned a HMCS Vancouver in the harbour in “what they considered adequate precautions.”
For 7,000 citizens assembled at the Powell Street grounds, the Vancouver Sun said, May 1, 1932 was “just a day in May”. The crowd was a mix of whites, Chinese, Japanese and East Indians. They listened to speeches and sang the socialist anthem “The Internationale”.
“Not a hand was raised in violence, not a boo was heard,” wrote the newspaper. “At 7 p.m. the long grey hull [of HMCS Vancouver] slipped out of the harbour.”
Amateur filmmaker Oscar C. Burritt recorded the 1938 May Day parade with citizens and organizations marching in a mass parade through downtown Vancouver. An estimated 5,000 to 8,000 people participated.
Film archivist Dennis J. Duffy describes the footage:
“The parade began at the Cambie Street Grounds (at Cambie and Dunsmuir) and followed the route Cambie – Hastings – Burrard – Georgia. Burritt seems to have shot his footage along West Georgia where it nears Coal Harbour and Stanley Park.”
“A variety of BC labour unions, political associations, ethnic and fraternal organizations, and other groups are represented, and can be identified by their signs and banners. Agitprop floats, displays, and signs reference current social conditions (including poverty, substandard housing, and high mortality in the forest industry). Some also reflect the current world situation, including the Spanish Civil War and the spread of Fascism in Europe. Of particular interest is a banner for the Mackenzie-Papineau Battalion (Canadians fighting for the Republican cause in Spain), a float for the Communist Party of Canada, and a briefly-glimpsed depiction of Nazi repression.”
In ensuing years, May Day parades embraced various causes including unemployment, world peace and workers’ safety. Labour organizations have kept up the fight to restore the First of May to working-class glory, often calling it International Workers’ Day. In 1980 the Canadian Labour Congress resolved to pressure government to declare May 1 a statutory holiday.
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