By 1900 the TLC had become the country's first truly national body. As the Knights of Labor declined in number unions representing skilled trades workers came to dominate the TLC. By the 1890s Samuel Gompers in the U.S. was planning an international federation of labour, starting with the expansion of AFL affiliates in Canada, especially Ontario. He helped the Trades and Labour Congress with money and organizers, and by 1902. At the 1902 TLC conference in Berlin (Kitchener), Ontario, under the influence of the American Federation of Labor (AFL) and its unions in Canada, the Knights along with the purely Canadian unions were banned from membership. The AFL came to dominate the Canadian union movement, although there were also radical unions in British Columbia and Catholic ones in Quebec.