On May 1, 1913, a Labor Day meeting began a general strike to shut down all Vancouver Island coal mining. Strike-breakers undertook operations against 3,500 miners, and there were incidents of destruction, violence, rioting, arrests. In July, Minister of Labour for province of British Columbia visited the mine strike on Vancouver Island. On August 18, the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada were called out to aid civil power during the strike. They remained in Nanaimo till August 1914. A meeting of 1,200 people was held in Nanaimo.