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Charles Stewart (Canadian politician)
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Charles Stewart, PC
(August 26, 1868 – December 6, 1946) was a Canadian politician who served as the third Premier of Alberta
from 1917 until 1921. Born in Strabane, Ontario
, in Wentworth County
, Stewart was a farmer who moved west to Alberta
after his farm was destroyed by a storm. There he became active in politics and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta
in the 1909 election
. He served as Minister of Public Works and Minister of Municipal Affairs—the first person to hold the latter position in Alberta—in the government of Arthur Sifton. When Sifton left provincial politics in 1917 to join the federal cabinet, Stewart was named his replacement.
As Premier, Stewart tried to hold together his Liberal Party
, which was divided by the Conscription Crisis of 1917
. He endeavored to enforce prohibition
, which had been enshrined in law by a referendum during Sifton's premiership, but found that the law was not widely enough supported to be effectively policed. His government took over several of the province's financially troubled railroads, and guaranteed bonds sold to fund irrigation projects. Several of these policies were the result of lobbying by the United Farmers of Alberta
(UFA), with which Stewart enjoyed good relations; even so, the UFA was politicized during Stewart's premiership and ran candidates in the 1921 election
. Unable to match the UFA's appeal to rural voters, Stewart's government was defeated at the polls and he resigned as premier.
After leaving provincial politics, Stewart was invited to join the federal cabinet of William Lyon Mackenzie King
, in which he served as Minister of the Interior and Mines. In this capacity he signed, on behalf of the federal government, an agreement that transferred control of Alberta's natural resources from Ottawa to the provincial government—a concession he had been criticized for being unable to negotiate as Premier. He served in King's cabinet until 1930, when the King government was defeated; in 1935, so too was Stewart. He died in December 1946 in Ottawa.
, on Wentworth County
, to Charles and Catherine Stewart. Charles Sr. was a stonemason
and farmer. As a child, Charles Jr. accompanied his father to Carlisle to hear Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald
. According to family lore, Macdonald noticed the young future Premier and told him that he was a fine boy who would make a good politician someday. When Charles Jr. was 16, he moved with his family to a farm near Barrie
. Seven years later, on December 17, 1891, he married Jane Russell Sneath; the pair would have eight children. After marrying Sneath, he converted to her Church of England
faith.
In 1892, Charles Sr. died, leaving his son in charge of the family farm. Twelve years later, this farm was destroyed by a storm, and Stewart decided to move west, settling near Killam
, Alberta
in 1905. His family endured a cold winter—the warmest place in their shack was on the kitchen table, so they kept the baby there—and in the spring their crops were destroyed by hail. As he was unsuccessful at farming, he supplemented his income using the stonemason's skills he had learned from his father: he laid foundations for the Canadian Pacific Railway
, worked on the High Level Bridge
in Edmonton
, and dug Killam's town well. He later worked in real estate and as a farm implement dealer, earning enough to buy a new and larger homestead in 1912.
Stewart was active in his local community: he was the first chair of the Killam School District, attended the first meeting of Killam ratepayers January 19, 1907, and was involved in the incorporation of Killam in January 1908. In 1909, the Alberta Liberal Party
, which had dominated provincial politics throughout Alberta's short history, came seeking a candidate to run in the new riding of Sedgewick
. Stewart agreed to run and was elected by acclamation
in the 1909 election
.
seemed unassailable: he controlled 36 of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta
's 41 seats (Stewart's being one), and his Liberals had just won nearly sixty percent of the vote in their re-election bid. Months later, however, Rutherford and his government were embroiled in the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway scandal
, and the Liberal Party was split. Initially, Stewart remained loyal to Rutherford, and went so far as to allege in the legislature that insurgent Liberal John R. Boyle
had offered two members of the legislative assembly (MLAs), who were also hotel keepers, immunity from prosecution for liquor violations if they would support a new government in which Boyle was Attorney-General. As additional details of the scandal emerged, however, Stewart himself became an insurgent, and was pleased when Arthur Sifton replaced Rutherford as Premier.
In May 1912, Sifton expanded his cabinet, and Stewart was made the province's first Minister of Municipal Affairs. As was required by the custom of the day when an MLA was appointed to cabinet, he resigned his seat to run in a by-election
, in which he easily defeated Conservative
William John Blair
. In cabinet, he became known as an advocate of public ownership of utilities, which placed him more in sympathy with the Conservative opposition than with Sifton. Despite this position, he backed Sifton's 1913 resolution to the Alberta and Great Waterways problem, which involved partnering with the private sector; this vote marked the first time that the Liberal caucus was united on the railways question since before the scandal broke in 1910.
In December 1913, Sifton moved Stewart from Municipal Affairs into the Public Works portfolio; in this capacity, Stewart played a major role in the incorporation of the Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company, which was a farmer-run co-operative with a charter to own and operate grain elevator
s.
(in which Stewart and the Liberals were both soundly re-elected), Canada found itself embroiled in a conscription crisis
. The federal Conservative
government, led by Robert Borden
, supported implementing conscription. The opposition Liberals, led by Wilfrid Laurier
, nominally opposed conscription, but many English-speaking Liberals in fact supported it. The crisis was resolved when Borden formed a Union
government composed of Conservatives and pro-conscription Liberals. Sifton, falling into the latter group, was chosen as Alberta's representative in that government, and resigned as Premier in October 1917. Lieutenant-Governor
Robert Brett
, accepting Sifton's choice of successor, asked Stewart to form a government. His only serious rival for the position of premier was Charles Wilson Cross, who opposed conscription and was therefore not a palatable choice for much of the Liberal establishment.
and Frank Oliver. Sifton had papered over, if not in fact healed, this rift, and it did not burst open again until the conscription crisis. This time, however, the fault lines were different: Cross and Oliver had put aside their longtime enmity to join in opposing conscription, and Sifton, who had been selected Premier in part because he was not identified with either faction in the old feud, was Alberta's most prominent pro-conscription Liberal.
Stewart was a supporter of conscription and of the Union government, but did not take any active part in the acrimonious 1917 federal election
, which was fought on the issue. Several of his ministers were not so circumspect: Attorney-General Cross, Education Minister Boyle, and Municipal Affairs Minister Wilfrid Gariépy
campaigned for the Laurier Liberals
; Public Works Minister Archibald J. McLean
and Treasurer Charles R. Mitchell
stayed out of the fray while leaving no doubt of their support for Union. During the first legislative session after this election, Stewart came under attack from members of his own party. Alexander Grant MacKay criticized his failure to take advantage of the recent conference of premiers to press for the transfer of rights over Alberta's natural resources from the federal to the provincial government (Sifton had made this a priority during the pre-war years, but had largely ceased his advocacy on the breakout of hostilities), and James Gray Turgeon
attacked the government's policy of levying taxes for the support of soldiers' dependents on the grounds that he considered it a federal responsibility.
Divisions within the provincial Liberals came to a head in August 1918, when Stewart dismissed Cross as Attorney-General. It later emerged that Cross had refused to fire two detectives in his department after Stewart had concluded that their work would be better done by the provincial police, and that Stewart had found Cross's work to be generally poor. He had asked for Cross's resignation, received no response, and rescinded the Order in Council appointing him. In an effort to secure Cross's departure from politics, Stewart offered him the position of Alberta's provincial agent in London, England; Cross refused it, and Stewart was criticized for using appointments for political advantage.
in 1916 as the result of a referendum
supported by the powerful United Farmers of Alberta
(UFA) lobby group. By the time Stewart took office, it was becoming apparent that the policy was not being universally complied with: Conservative MLA George Douglas Stanley
alleged that judges were often hungover
when they sat in judgment of those accused of violating liquor laws, and Cross's replacement as Attorney-General, John Boyle, admitted that in his estimation 65% of the province's male population broke the Prohibition Act. In 1921 the government realized profits of $800,000 on alcohol legally sold for "medicinal" purposes, and Boyle estimated bootleggers
' profits at nine times that figure. Stewart blamed the problems on insufficient public support for the law, but even as he did so it was clear that there was not enough support to repeal it.
Prohibition was not the only UFA-endorsed policy to have been passed by Sifton's government: indeed, the legislation that allowed for citizen-initiated referenda of the sort that had led to prohibition was itself the result of UFA advocacy. Once Stewart became Premier, he committed to the introduction of another UFA-favoured democratic reform—proportional representation
. However, a committee formed to examine the possibility disintegrated over what historian Carrol Jaques calls "battles within the group and a general dislike of the concept".
, with a clause in the agreement requiring the provincial government to spend $1 million to improve the route, and the Alberta and Great Waterways was taken over by Stewart's government directly (J. D. McArthur, the line's previous owner, retained an option to repurchase it, but it was never exercised).
Irrigation
projects also occupied much of Stewart's attention as Premier. As with railways, the First World War had disrupted planned irrigation projects, and Albertan farmers, especially those from the arid south
, were eager to see them resumed. Specifically popular was a project to irrigate 500000 acres (202,343 ha) in Lethbridge County
, but when bonds
were issued to finance the project, they did not sell. Stewart sought federal backing of the bonds, but Prime Minister Arthur Meighen
declined. Stewart reluctantly agreed to offer a provincial guarantee, but to avoid negative reaction from northern Alberta
he linked the enabling legislation to one allowing for drainage
in northern areas.
had its beginnings as a farmers' advocacy organization; Stewart, a farmer, had joined it. The UFA had achieved several successes in dealing with the Sifton government, and Stewart also endeavored to cooperate with it. The irrigation project was strongly supported by the UFA, as was Stewart's action on proportional representation. When Peace River
MLA William Archibald Rae
introduced legislation to allow Imperial Oil
to build a pipeline
in the province, UFA President Henry Wise Wood
sent Stewart a telegram of protest, as he believed that pipelines should be common carrier
s; Stewart read it in the legislature, and Rae's bill was withdrawn. Even given these victories, the UFA was not satisfied with the government's record: in 1918, the government only took action on three of the many resolutions the UFA had sent to it.
Some in the UFA had long favoured contesting elections directly as a political party instead of remaining on the sidelines as a pressure group, but Wood and other UFA leaders were implacably opposed to the idea. During the war, however, the political wing began to gain momentum, and at the 1919 UFA convention it was decided that UFA candidates would contest the next provincial election. In fact, it ended up doing so somewhat sooner: in 1919 Charles W. Fisher
, Liberal MLA for Cochrane
, died as a result of that year's influenza
epidemic, and a by-election was necessitated to replace him. The UFA's Alex Moore defeated his only opponent, Liberal Edward V. Thomson, by 835 votes to 708.
Stewart felt betrayed: "It has been my fight ever since I became a minister to see that the farmers of the province were having a square deal," he remarked, "and I think I have done this with some success." Despite his general sympathy with the aims of the UFA, he could not support their transition into a political party. For one, he disagreed with the UFA's belief that politics should be conducted along class
, rather than ideological, lines. Stewart believed that "the more strongly armed the classes become the harder will it be to get the things we really need in our government", and asserted that "I never did and never will have any desire to form a coalition with anybody except with men who think the same as I do."
Given the UFA's formal adoption of the goal of replacing Stewart's Liberal government with a Farmer government, it remained surprisingly friendly towards the Premier. While campaigning for Moore during the Cochrane by-election, Wood called Stewart "an honourable, upright citizen, doing the best he could under difficult circumstances" and boasted that "if I have got to tear down the character of an honourable man to build up something that I want, I am not going to build it up." When at last the general election came, in 1921, the UFA declined to run a candidate in Stewart's Sedgewick riding as a sign of respect to the Premier. After the UFA swept to victory, there was even speculation that Stewart, still a UFA member, would stay on as Premier of a new Farmer's government (as part of its opposition to "old style politics", the UFA had contested the election without designating a leader), but he announced otherwise.
, Stewart made good on his pledge, and Greenfield replaced him August 13.
In Jaques' view, Stewart was defined by what he was not:
She argues that he was a "decent family man" whose career was a product of the circumstances in which he found himself.
Historian L. G. Thomas recognized Stewart's admirable qualities, but criticized him for lacking Sifton's "ruthless and forceful leadership" and claimed that "few provincial premiers have been more universally praised by their opponents and more unanimously deplored by their supporters." Even so, he acknowledged that the decisive factor in Stewart's downfall was not anything that he did, but the decision by the UFA to run candidates in 1921; in Thomas's view, Sifton would have been defeated in 1917 if he had had to contend with a politicized UFA.
, William Lyon Mackenzie King
's Liberals came to power in Ottawa. They had not won any seats in Alberta, and Stewart was invited to join King's cabinet as Minister of the Interior and Mines (which included responsibility as Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs). He won a 1922 by-election in the Quebec
seat of Argenteuil, before shifting to the more familiar territory of Edmonton West
in the 1925 election
; he was re-elected there in 1926
and 1930
. In the 1935 election
, he ran in the new riding of Jasper–Edson, where he was defeated by Social Crediter
Walter Frederick Kuhl
.
As a cabinet minister, Stewart aggressively marketed Canada's coal both domestically and internationally, for which he was honoured by Alberta's coal producers at a banquet and later awarded the Randolph Bruce
Gold Medal in Science by the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. He took a great interest in water power, and advised the government on jurisdictional issues surrounding the Niagara
, St. Mary, and Milk Rivers
. In 1927, he served as Canada's representative at the League of Nations
. As Minister of the Interior, he oversaw the 1927 creation of Prince Albert National Park
. Ironically, given the attacks he had sustained as Premier from Alexander Grant MacKay, he was part of the federal delegation that finally negotiated the transfer of resource control from the federal to the Alberta provincial government in December 1929. The same agreement transferred resource rights to Saskatchewan
and Manitoba
. After it was signed but before it took effect, Manitoba Premier John Bracken
concluded an agreement with the Winnipeg Electric Company, a private concern, to develop a hydroelectric dam at Seven Sisters' Reach. Because resource rights were still controlled by the federal government, the deal required federal approval. Stewart advocated withholding this approval in deference to Manitoba public opinion, which favoured public ownership of such projects, but King honoured a provision of the resource transfer agreement that required the wishes of provincial governments to be respected until the transfer was complete and granted approval. Stewart's preference for public over private ownership extended to King's planned creation of the Bank of Canada
; Stewart wanted the new institution entirely under the control of the government, but King preferred an arrangement whereby half of its directors would be appointed by the government and half by private shareholders and suggested that advocates of public ownership might find themselves more at home in the socialist Cooperative Commonwealth Federation than in his Liberal caucus.
Despite Stewart's involvement in transferring resource rights to Alberta, his relationship with the UFA government that had defeated him in 1921 was frosty: Lakeland College
historian Franklin Foster, in his biography of UFA Premier John Edward Brownlee
, alleges that this antipathy influenced Stewart's preference for private corporations over the Alberta government in granting hydroelectric power permits. He also feuded with then-Premier Brownlee over development in Alberta's national parks (Stewart favouring large-scale private development and Brownlee opposing it), causing King to record in his diary "Brownlee strikes me as...being superior to Mr. Stewart, who is handicapped in his dislike of [Brownlee]." When King sought to absorb Progressives
into his Liberal Party to form a stronger coalition against the Conservatives, Stewart opposed cooperation with the UFA leaders who made up a large part of the Progressives' Albertan base. While King was inclined to view UFA politicians, like Progressives elsewhere, as "Liberals in a hurry" who were fundamentally comfortable with his government and preferred it to the Conservatives
, Stewart understood that the UFA was a distinct group whose members were in many respect more conservative than liberal. King dismissed his minister's views as being the result of Stewart's acrimonious history with the UFA.
In fact, Stewart did not enjoy King's confidence. Though he brought him into his cabinet in 1921 in part at the urging of Progressive leader Thomas Crerar
, King found Stewart to be an inadequate protector of western interests—especially in his advocacy of tariff
reduction, which King found lacklustre—and did not trust his political advice on the west. By 1925 he was considering appointing Stewart to the Senate
, to remove him from active political involvement, but was handicapped by the absence of any other Alberta representation in his cabinet. In 1926 Stewart served as an emissary from King to recruit Saskatchewan Premier Charles Avery Dunning
to the federal cabinet; the mission fulfilled, King kept Stewart in cabinet but wrote in his diary that all matters pertaining to Alberta were to be "left to Dunning to do as he thinks best". By 1927, King complained that Stewart had "no grip" on the province of which he had once been Premier, and in 1930 he wrote "Organization in Alberta is terrible. Stewart is worse than useless, is like an old woman, with no real control of situation." In the 1930 federal election
Dunning and Crerar were both defeated; King complained that it was "perfectly terrible to have Stewart alone representing the West." When Stewart too went down to defeat in 1935, King was pleased "not to have to consider him" in assembling his new cabinet, and opted instead to leave Alberta unrepresented to punish it for failing to elect any Liberals.
to chair the Canadian section of the International Joint Commission
, in recognition of his expertise on international water boundary issues. In 1938, he was appointed chair of the Canadian section of the British Columbia – Yukon – Alaska Highway Commission. In these capacities, he travelled across Canada, visiting his son George at the family homestead near Killam at every opportunity. He died December 6, 1946, leaving an estate of $21,961.
Born in one of Canada's original provinces, Stewart moved west as part of a vast migration to the prairies, and settled in Alberta the year it became a province. As Alberta grew, Stewart played an increasingly important political role in it, until he joined the federal government to become Alberta's voice there, ultimately helping it achieve constitutional equality with the older provinces by transferring to its government control of its resources. As Mackenzie King eulogized him, "in more respects than one, Mr. Stewart's career mirrored the development of Canada itself."
Queen's Privy Council for Canada
The Queen's Privy Council for Canada ), sometimes called Her Majesty's Privy Council for Canada or simply the Privy Council, is the full group of personal consultants to the monarch of Canada on state and constitutional affairs, though responsible government requires the sovereign or her viceroy,...
(August 26, 1868 – December 6, 1946) was a Canadian politician who served as the third Premier of Alberta
Premier of Alberta
The Premier of Alberta is the first minister for the Canadian province of Alberta. He or she is the province's head of government and de facto chief executive. The current Premier of Alberta is Alison Redford. She became Premier by winning the Progressive Conservative leadership elections on...
from 1917 until 1921. Born in Strabane, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, in Wentworth County
Wentworth County, Ontario
Wentworth County, area , is a historic county in the Canadian province of Ontario.It was created in 1816 as part of the Gore District in what was then Upper Canada and later Canada West...
, Stewart was a farmer who moved west to Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
after his farm was destroyed by a storm. There he became active in politics and was elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta
Legislative Assembly of Alberta
The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is one of two components of the Legislature of Alberta, the other being the Queen, represented by the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta. The Alberta legislature meets in the Alberta Legislature Building in the provincial capital, Edmonton...
in the 1909 election
Alberta general election, 1909
The Alberta general election was 1909 was the second general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on 22 March 1909 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta....
. He served as Minister of Public Works and Minister of Municipal Affairs—the first person to hold the latter position in Alberta—in the government of Arthur Sifton. When Sifton left provincial politics in 1917 to join the federal cabinet, Stewart was named his replacement.
As Premier, Stewart tried to hold together his Liberal Party
Alberta Liberal Party
The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time...
, which was divided by the Conscription Crisis of 1917
Conscription Crisis of 1917
The Conscription Crisis of 1917 was a political and military crisis in Canada during World War I.-Background:...
. He endeavored to enforce prohibition
Prohibition in Canada
The temperance movement reached its height in Canada in the 1920s, when outside imports were cut off by provincial referendums. As legislation prohibiting consumption of alcohol was repealed, it was typically replaced with regulation restricting the sale of alcohol to minors and imposing excise...
, which had been enshrined in law by a referendum during Sifton's premiership, but found that the law was not widely enough supported to be effectively policed. His government took over several of the province's financially troubled railroads, and guaranteed bonds sold to fund irrigation projects. Several of these policies were the result of lobbying by the United Farmers of Alberta
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
(UFA), with which Stewart enjoyed good relations; even so, the UFA was politicized during Stewart's premiership and ran candidates in the 1921 election
Alberta general election, 1921
The Alberta general election of 1921 was the fifth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on July 18, 1921 to elect members to the 5th Alberta Legislative Assembly....
. Unable to match the UFA's appeal to rural voters, Stewart's government was defeated at the polls and he resigned as premier.
After leaving provincial politics, Stewart was invited to join the federal cabinet of William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...
, in which he served as Minister of the Interior and Mines. In this capacity he signed, on behalf of the federal government, an agreement that transferred control of Alberta's natural resources from Ottawa to the provincial government—a concession he had been criticized for being unable to negotiate as Premier. He served in King's cabinet until 1930, when the King government was defeated; in 1935, so too was Stewart. He died in December 1946 in Ottawa.
Early life
Charles Stewart was born August 26, 1868, in Strabane, OntarioOntario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, on Wentworth County
Wentworth County, Ontario
Wentworth County, area , is a historic county in the Canadian province of Ontario.It was created in 1816 as part of the Gore District in what was then Upper Canada and later Canada West...
, to Charles and Catherine Stewart. Charles Sr. was a stonemason
Stonemasonry
The craft of stonemasonry has existed since the dawn of civilization - creating buildings, structures, and sculpture using stone from the earth. These materials have been used to construct many of the long-lasting, ancient monuments, artifacts, cathedrals, and cities in a wide variety of cultures...
and farmer. As a child, Charles Jr. accompanied his father to Carlisle to hear Canadian Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald
John A. Macdonald
Sir John Alexander Macdonald, GCB, KCMG, PC, PC , QC was the first Prime Minister of Canada. The dominant figure of Canadian Confederation, his political career spanned almost half a century...
. According to family lore, Macdonald noticed the young future Premier and told him that he was a fine boy who would make a good politician someday. When Charles Jr. was 16, he moved with his family to a farm near Barrie
Barrie, Ontario
Barrie is a city in Southern Ontario, Canada, located on the western shore of Lake Simcoe, approximately 90 km north of Toronto. Although located in Simcoe County, the city is politically independent...
. Seven years later, on December 17, 1891, he married Jane Russell Sneath; the pair would have eight children. After marrying Sneath, he converted to her Church of England
Church of England
The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...
faith.
In 1892, Charles Sr. died, leaving his son in charge of the family farm. Twelve years later, this farm was destroyed by a storm, and Stewart decided to move west, settling near Killam
Killam, Alberta
Killam is a town in central Alberta, Canada. It is located in Flagstaff County, east of Camrose at the junction of Highway 13 and Veterans Memorial Highway, Highway 36. The mayor of Killam is Bud James.- Demographics :...
, Alberta
Alberta
Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces...
in 1905. His family endured a cold winter—the warmest place in their shack was on the kitchen table, so they kept the baby there—and in the spring their crops were destroyed by hail. As he was unsuccessful at farming, he supplemented his income using the stonemason's skills he had learned from his father: he laid foundations for the Canadian Pacific Railway
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
, worked on the High Level Bridge
High Level Bridge (Edmonton)
The High Level Bridge, opened in 1913, spans the North Saskatchewan River in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Located next to the Alberta Legislature Building, the bridge linked the separate communities of Edmonton and Strathcona, which became one city in 1912. It was designed from the outset to...
in Edmonton
Edmonton
Edmonton is the capital of the Canadian province of Alberta and is the province's second-largest city. Edmonton is located on the North Saskatchewan River and is the centre of the Edmonton Capital Region, which is surrounded by the central region of the province.The city and its census...
, and dug Killam's town well. He later worked in real estate and as a farm implement dealer, earning enough to buy a new and larger homestead in 1912.
Stewart was active in his local community: he was the first chair of the Killam School District, attended the first meeting of Killam ratepayers January 19, 1907, and was involved in the incorporation of Killam in January 1908. In 1909, the Alberta Liberal Party
Alberta Liberal Party
The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time...
, which had dominated provincial politics throughout Alberta's short history, came seeking a candidate to run in the new riding of Sedgewick
Sedgewick (provincial electoral district)
Sedgewick was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada from 1909 until 1963-MLAs:The district elected the following members to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta:-Results:-1957 liquor plebiscite:...
. Stewart agreed to run and was elected by acclamation
Acclamation
An acclamation, in its most common sense, is a form of election that does not use a ballot. "Acclamation" or "acclamatio" can also signify a kind of ritual greeting and expression of approval in certain social contexts in ancient Rome.-Voting:...
in the 1909 election
Alberta general election, 1909
The Alberta general election was 1909 was the second general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on 22 March 1909 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta....
.
Early political career
At the time of Stewart's acclamation, Premier Alexander Cameron RutherfordAlexander Cameron Rutherford
Alexander Cameron Rutherford was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the first Premier of Alberta from 1905 to 1910. Born in Ormond, Ontario, he studied and practised law in Ottawa before moving with his family to the Northwest Territories in 1895...
seemed unassailable: he controlled 36 of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta
Legislative Assembly of Alberta
The Legislative Assembly of Alberta is one of two components of the Legislature of Alberta, the other being the Queen, represented by the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta. The Alberta legislature meets in the Alberta Legislature Building in the provincial capital, Edmonton...
's 41 seats (Stewart's being one), and his Liberals had just won nearly sixty percent of the vote in their re-election bid. Months later, however, Rutherford and his government were embroiled in the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway scandal
Alberta and Great Waterways Railway scandal
The Alberta and Great Waterways Railway Scandal was a political scandal in Alberta, Canada in 1910. It resulted in the resignation of the provincial government of Alexander Cameron Rutherford over allegations of conflict of interest in the government's involvement in the financing of the Alberta...
, and the Liberal Party was split. Initially, Stewart remained loyal to Rutherford, and went so far as to allege in the legislature that insurgent Liberal John R. Boyle
John R. Boyle
John Robert Boyle was a Canadian politician and jurist who served as a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, a cabinet minister in the Government of Alberta, and a judge on the Supreme Court of Alberta. Born in Ontario, he came west and eventually settled in Edmonton, where he practiced...
had offered two members of the legislative assembly (MLAs), who were also hotel keepers, immunity from prosecution for liquor violations if they would support a new government in which Boyle was Attorney-General. As additional details of the scandal emerged, however, Stewart himself became an insurgent, and was pleased when Arthur Sifton replaced Rutherford as Premier.
In May 1912, Sifton expanded his cabinet, and Stewart was made the province's first Minister of Municipal Affairs. As was required by the custom of the day when an MLA was appointed to cabinet, he resigned his seat to run in a by-election
By-election
A by-election is an election held to fill a political office that has become vacant between regularly scheduled elections....
, in which he easily defeated Conservative
Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta
The Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta is a provincial centre-right party in the Canadian province of Alberta...
William John Blair
William John Blair
William John Blair was an engineer, farmer, teacher, soldier surveyor and Canadian federal politician.-Early life:Blair was born in Embro, Ontario on October 13, 1875...
. In cabinet, he became known as an advocate of public ownership of utilities, which placed him more in sympathy with the Conservative opposition than with Sifton. Despite this position, he backed Sifton's 1913 resolution to the Alberta and Great Waterways problem, which involved partnering with the private sector; this vote marked the first time that the Liberal caucus was united on the railways question since before the scandal broke in 1910.
In December 1913, Sifton moved Stewart from Municipal Affairs into the Public Works portfolio; in this capacity, Stewart played a major role in the incorporation of the Alberta Farmers' Co-operative Elevator Company, which was a farmer-run co-operative with a charter to own and operate grain elevator
Grain elevator
A grain elevator is a tower containing a bucket elevator, which scoops up, elevates, and then uses gravity to deposit grain in a silo or other storage facility...
s.
Premier
Shortly after the 1917 provincial electionAlberta general election, 1917
The Alberta general election of 1917 was the fourth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada, held on 7 June 1917 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta....
(in which Stewart and the Liberals were both soundly re-elected), Canada found itself embroiled in a conscription crisis
Conscription Crisis of 1917
The Conscription Crisis of 1917 was a political and military crisis in Canada during World War I.-Background:...
. The federal Conservative
Conservative Party of Canada (historical)
The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the...
government, led by Robert Borden
Robert Borden
Sir Robert Laird Borden, PC, GCMG, KC was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served as the eighth Prime Minister of Canada from October 10, 1911 to July 10, 1920, and was the third Nova Scotian to hold this office...
, supported implementing conscription. The opposition Liberals, led by Wilfrid Laurier
Wilfrid Laurier
Sir Wilfrid Laurier, GCMG, PC, KC, baptized Henri-Charles-Wilfrid Laurier was the seventh Prime Minister of Canada from 11 July 1896 to 6 October 1911....
, nominally opposed conscription, but many English-speaking Liberals in fact supported it. The crisis was resolved when Borden formed a Union
Unionist Party (Canada)
The Unionist Party was formed in 1917 by Members of Parliament in Canada who supported the "Union government" formed by Sir Robert Borden during the First World War....
government composed of Conservatives and pro-conscription Liberals. Sifton, falling into the latter group, was chosen as Alberta's representative in that government, and resigned as Premier in October 1917. Lieutenant-Governor
Lieutenant Governor of Alberta
The Lieutenant Governor of Alberta is the viceregal representative in Alberta of the Canadian monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who operates distinctly within the province but is also shared equally with the nine other jurisdictions of Canada and resides predominantly in her oldest realm, the United...
Robert Brett
Robert Brett
Robert George Brett was a politician and physician in the North-West Territories and later Alberta, Canada....
, accepting Sifton's choice of successor, asked Stewart to form a government. His only serious rival for the position of premier was Charles Wilson Cross, who opposed conscription and was therefore not a palatable choice for much of the Liberal establishment.
Party division
The Alberta and Great Waterways scandal had opened up a rift in the provincial Liberal Party, between those who remained loyal to Cross and Rutherford and those who did not, with the latter group being led by William Henry CushingWilliam Henry Cushing
William Henry Cushing was a Canadian politician. Born in Ontario, he migrated west as a young adult where he started a successful lumber company and later became Alberta's first Minister of Public Works and the 11th mayor of Calgary...
and Frank Oliver. Sifton had papered over, if not in fact healed, this rift, and it did not burst open again until the conscription crisis. This time, however, the fault lines were different: Cross and Oliver had put aside their longtime enmity to join in opposing conscription, and Sifton, who had been selected Premier in part because he was not identified with either faction in the old feud, was Alberta's most prominent pro-conscription Liberal.
Stewart was a supporter of conscription and of the Union government, but did not take any active part in the acrimonious 1917 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1917
The 1917 Canadian federal election was held on December 17, 1917, to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 13th Parliament of Canada. Described by historian Michael Bliss as the "most bitter election in Canadian history", it was fought mainly over the issue of conscription...
, which was fought on the issue. Several of his ministers were not so circumspect: Attorney-General Cross, Education Minister Boyle, and Municipal Affairs Minister Wilfrid Gariépy
Wilfrid Gariépy
Wilfrid Gariepy was a Canadian politician, member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta and provincial cabinet minister, member of the Canadian House of Commons, and municipal councillor in Edmonton.-Early life:...
campaigned for the Laurier Liberals
Laurier Liberals
Prior to the 1917 federal election in Canada, the Liberal Party of Canada split into two factions:* the Laurier Liberals, who opposed conscription of soldiers to support Canada's involvement in World War I and who were led by former Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier; and* the Liberal Unionists who...
; Public Works Minister Archibald J. McLean
Archibald J. McLean
Archibald J. McLean was a politician from Alberta, Canada.McLean was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta in the 1909 Alberta general election as an Independent Liberal...
and Treasurer Charles R. Mitchell
Charles R. Mitchell
Charles Richmond Mitchell was a Canadian lawyer, judge, cabinet minister and former Leader of the Official Opposition in the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.-Early life:...
stayed out of the fray while leaving no doubt of their support for Union. During the first legislative session after this election, Stewart came under attack from members of his own party. Alexander Grant MacKay criticized his failure to take advantage of the recent conference of premiers to press for the transfer of rights over Alberta's natural resources from the federal to the provincial government (Sifton had made this a priority during the pre-war years, but had largely ceased his advocacy on the breakout of hostilities), and James Gray Turgeon
James Gray Turgeon
James Gray Turgeon was a broker, soldier and a provincial and federal level politician from Canada. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1913 to 1921 sitting with the Alberta Liberal caucus in government. During that time he also served in World War I.Turgeon had a...
attacked the government's policy of levying taxes for the support of soldiers' dependents on the grounds that he considered it a federal responsibility.
Divisions within the provincial Liberals came to a head in August 1918, when Stewart dismissed Cross as Attorney-General. It later emerged that Cross had refused to fire two detectives in his department after Stewart had concluded that their work would be better done by the provincial police, and that Stewart had found Cross's work to be generally poor. He had asked for Cross's resignation, received no response, and rescinded the Order in Council appointing him. In an effort to secure Cross's departure from politics, Stewart offered him the position of Alberta's provincial agent in London, England; Cross refused it, and Stewart was criticized for using appointments for political advantage.
Prohibition and democratic reform
Alberta had implemented prohibitionProhibition in Canada
The temperance movement reached its height in Canada in the 1920s, when outside imports were cut off by provincial referendums. As legislation prohibiting consumption of alcohol was repealed, it was typically replaced with regulation restricting the sale of alcohol to minors and imposing excise...
in 1916 as the result of a referendum
Referendum
A referendum is a direct vote in which an entire electorate is asked to either accept or reject a particular proposal. This may result in the adoption of a new constitution, a constitutional amendment, a law, the recall of an elected official or simply a specific government policy. It is a form of...
supported by the powerful United Farmers of Alberta
United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
(UFA) lobby group. By the time Stewart took office, it was becoming apparent that the policy was not being universally complied with: Conservative MLA George Douglas Stanley
George Douglas Stanley
George Douglas Stanley was a politician and physician from Alberta, Canada. He served as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1913 to 1921 sitting with the provincial Conservative caucus in opposition and he also served as a member of the Canadian House of Commons from 1930 to 1935...
alleged that judges were often hungover
Hangover
A hangover describes the sum of unpleasant physiological effects following heavy consumption of alcoholic beverages. The most commonly reported characteristics of a hangover include headache, nausea, sensitivity to light and noise, lethargy, dysphoria, diarrhea and thirst, typically after the...
when they sat in judgment of those accused of violating liquor laws, and Cross's replacement as Attorney-General, John Boyle, admitted that in his estimation 65% of the province's male population broke the Prohibition Act. In 1921 the government realized profits of $800,000 on alcohol legally sold for "medicinal" purposes, and Boyle estimated bootleggers
Rum-running
Rum-running, also known as bootlegging, is the illegal business of transporting alcoholic beverages where such transportation is forbidden by law...
' profits at nine times that figure. Stewart blamed the problems on insufficient public support for the law, but even as he did so it was clear that there was not enough support to repeal it.
Prohibition was not the only UFA-endorsed policy to have been passed by Sifton's government: indeed, the legislation that allowed for citizen-initiated referenda of the sort that had led to prohibition was itself the result of UFA advocacy. Once Stewart became Premier, he committed to the introduction of another UFA-favoured democratic reform—proportional representation
Proportional representation
Proportional representation is a concept in voting systems used to elect an assembly or council. PR means that the number of seats won by a party or group of candidates is proportionate to the number of votes received. For example, under a PR voting system if 30% of voters support a particular...
. However, a committee formed to examine the possibility disintegrated over what historian Carrol Jaques calls "battles within the group and a general dislike of the concept".
Public works
Railway development had dominated the premierships of Stewart's predecessors and, while losing political potency as an issue, it was still a matter that demanded his attention. Though Sifton had established a railway policy in 1913 that was satisfactory to all wings of the Liberal Party, the outbreak of the First World War the following year had all but put an end to railway construction across Canada. Once peace came, Albertans living near promised but as yet unbuilt lines began to clamour for their completion. The private companies with whom the government had partnered, however, were in no position to undertake the construction. The Edmonton, Dunvegan and British Columbia Railway was taken over by the Canadian Pacific RailwayCanadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...
, with a clause in the agreement requiring the provincial government to spend $1 million to improve the route, and the Alberta and Great Waterways was taken over by Stewart's government directly (J. D. McArthur, the line's previous owner, retained an option to repurchase it, but it was never exercised).
Irrigation
Irrigation
Irrigation may be defined as the science of artificial application of water to the land or soil. It is used to assist in the growing of agricultural crops, maintenance of landscapes, and revegetation of disturbed soils in dry areas and during periods of inadequate rainfall...
projects also occupied much of Stewart's attention as Premier. As with railways, the First World War had disrupted planned irrigation projects, and Albertan farmers, especially those from the arid south
Southern Alberta
Southern Alberta is a region located in the Canadian province of Alberta. As of the year 2004, the region's population was approximately 272,017. The primary cities are Lethbridge and Medicine Hat...
, were eager to see them resumed. Specifically popular was a project to irrigate 500000 acres (202,343 ha) in Lethbridge County
Lethbridge County, Alberta
The County of Lethbridge is a municipal district in southern Alberta. It is in Census Division 2 and part of the Lethbridge Census Agglomeration area.-Demographics:...
, but when bonds
Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a debt security, in which the authorized issuer owes the holders a debt and, depending on the terms of the bond, is obliged to pay interest to use and/or to repay the principal at a later date, termed maturity...
were issued to finance the project, they did not sell. Stewart sought federal backing of the bonds, but Prime Minister Arthur Meighen
Arthur Meighen
Arthur Meighen, PC, QC was a Canadian lawyer and politician. He served two terms as the ninth Prime Minister of Canada: from July 10, 1920 to December 29, 1921; and from June 29 to September 25, 1926. He was the first Prime Minister born after Confederation, and the only one to represent a riding...
declined. Stewart reluctantly agreed to offer a provincial guarantee, but to avoid negative reaction from northern Alberta
Northern Alberta
Northern Alberta is a region located in the Canadian province of Alberta.Its primary industry is oil and gas, with large heavy oil reserves being exploited at the Athabasca Oil Sands and Wabasca Area in the east of the region...
he linked the enabling legislation to one allowing for drainage
Drainage
Drainage is the natural or artificial removal of surface and sub-surface water from an area. Many agricultural soils need drainage to improve production or to manage water supplies.-Early history:...
in northern areas.
Stewart and the United Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of AlbertaUnited Farmers of Alberta
The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary...
had its beginnings as a farmers' advocacy organization; Stewart, a farmer, had joined it. The UFA had achieved several successes in dealing with the Sifton government, and Stewart also endeavored to cooperate with it. The irrigation project was strongly supported by the UFA, as was Stewart's action on proportional representation. When Peace River
Peace River (provincial electoral district)
Peace River is a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada. The district is mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta using the first past the post method of voting...
MLA William Archibald Rae
William Archibald Rae
William Archibald Rae was a businessman and provincial level politician from Alberta, Canada.-Argonaut Company:Rae was instrumental in the founding of Grande Prairie, Alberta with his work as secretary-treasure in the The Argonaut Company Ltd. The company bought and subdivided land that would...
introduced legislation to allow Imperial Oil
Imperial Oil
Imperial Oil Limited is Canada's largest petroleum company. The company is engaged in the exploration, production and sale of crude oil and natural gas. It is controlled by US based ExxonMobil, which owns 69.6% of its stock...
to build a pipeline
Pipeline transport
Pipeline transport is the transportation of goods through a pipe. Most commonly, liquids and gases are sent, but pneumatic tubes that transport solid capsules using compressed air are also used....
in the province, UFA President Henry Wise Wood
Henry Wise Wood
Henry Wise Wood was an American-born Canadian agrarian thinker and activist. He became director in 1914 and was elected president of the United Farmers of Alberta in 1916. Under his leadership the UFA became the most powerful political lobby group in the province...
sent Stewart a telegram of protest, as he believed that pipelines should be common carrier
Common carrier
A common carrier in common-law countries is a person or company that transports goods or people for any person or company and that is responsible for any possible loss of the goods during transport...
s; Stewart read it in the legislature, and Rae's bill was withdrawn. Even given these victories, the UFA was not satisfied with the government's record: in 1918, the government only took action on three of the many resolutions the UFA had sent to it.
Charles W. Fisher
Charles Wellington Fisher was a Canadian politician who served as the first Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.-Biography:...
, Liberal MLA for Cochrane
Cochrane (provincial electoral district)
Cochrane was a provincial electoral district in southern Alberta, Canada. The district was mandated to return a single member to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1909 to 1926 under the First Past the Post voting system and under Single Transferable Vote from 1926 to 1940.-Boundary...
, died as a result of that year's influenza
Influenza
Influenza, commonly referred to as the flu, is an infectious disease caused by RNA viruses of the family Orthomyxoviridae , that affects birds and mammals...
epidemic, and a by-election was necessitated to replace him. The UFA's Alex Moore defeated his only opponent, Liberal Edward V. Thomson, by 835 votes to 708.
Stewart felt betrayed: "It has been my fight ever since I became a minister to see that the farmers of the province were having a square deal," he remarked, "and I think I have done this with some success." Despite his general sympathy with the aims of the UFA, he could not support their transition into a political party. For one, he disagreed with the UFA's belief that politics should be conducted along class
Social class
Social classes are economic or cultural arrangements of groups in society. Class is an essential object of analysis for sociologists, political scientists, economists, anthropologists and social historians. In the social sciences, social class is often discussed in terms of 'social stratification'...
, rather than ideological, lines. Stewart believed that "the more strongly armed the classes become the harder will it be to get the things we really need in our government", and asserted that "I never did and never will have any desire to form a coalition with anybody except with men who think the same as I do."
Given the UFA's formal adoption of the goal of replacing Stewart's Liberal government with a Farmer government, it remained surprisingly friendly towards the Premier. While campaigning for Moore during the Cochrane by-election, Wood called Stewart "an honourable, upright citizen, doing the best he could under difficult circumstances" and boasted that "if I have got to tear down the character of an honourable man to build up something that I want, I am not going to build it up." When at last the general election came, in 1921, the UFA declined to run a candidate in Stewart's Sedgewick riding as a sign of respect to the Premier. After the UFA swept to victory, there was even speculation that Stewart, still a UFA member, would stay on as Premier of a new Farmer's government (as part of its opposition to "old style politics", the UFA had contested the election without designating a leader), but he announced otherwise.
Defeat and legacy
The last provincial election had been held in June 1917, and four years was the normal life of a legislature in Canada. Stewart called an election for July 19. Though the Liberals' fortunes had been sagging in the post-war years, there remained no doubt that they could again defeat the Conservatives; their real challenge was evidently from the newly politicized UFA. Bolstering this challenge by increasing farmers' discontent was a collapse of agricultural prices. The UFA had no leader, no fixed platform, and no inclination to attack Stewart or his government. What it did have was superior organization, and on election day this organization made itself felt in the form of thirty-nine UFA members elected to fourteen Liberals. Stewart announced that he would resign as Premier as soon as the UFA had selected somebody to replace him. Once it had selected Herbert GreenfieldHerbert Greenfield
Herbert W. Greenfield was a Canadian politician who served as the fourth Premier of Alberta from 1921 until 1925. Born in Winchester, Hampshire, in England, he immigrated to Canada in his late twenties, settling first in Ontario and then in Alberta, where he farmed...
, Stewart made good on his pledge, and Greenfield replaced him August 13.
In Jaques' view, Stewart was defined by what he was not:
he was not involved in any of the railway scandals, current or past; he was not conspicuously involved in any of the personal battles that had consumed Alexander Rutherford, Frank Oliver, the brothers Arthur and Clifford Sifton, Charles Cross, or any of their followers; he was not a high-powered flamboyant Liberal partisan; he did not let himself get involved in federal Liberal Party machinations over issues such as the conscription crisis; nor did he seem to be high-handed or dictatorial—a criticism levelled at his predecessor, Arthur Sifton.
She argues that he was a "decent family man" whose career was a product of the circumstances in which he found himself.
Historian L. G. Thomas recognized Stewart's admirable qualities, but criticized him for lacking Sifton's "ruthless and forceful leadership" and claimed that "few provincial premiers have been more universally praised by their opponents and more unanimously deplored by their supporters." Even so, he acknowledged that the decisive factor in Stewart's downfall was not anything that he did, but the decision by the UFA to run candidates in 1921; in Thomas's view, Sifton would have been defeated in 1917 if he had had to contend with a politicized UFA.
Federal politics
Following the 1921 federal electionCanadian federal election, 1921
The Canadian federal election of 1921 was held on December 6, 1921 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 14th Parliament of Canada. The Union government that had governed Canada through the First World War was defeated, and replaced by a Liberal government under the young leader...
, William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King
William Lyon Mackenzie King, PC, OM, CMG was the dominant Canadian political leader from the 1920s through the 1940s. He served as the tenth Prime Minister of Canada from December 29, 1921 to June 28, 1926; from September 25, 1926 to August 7, 1930; and from October 23, 1935 to November 15, 1948...
's Liberals came to power in Ottawa. They had not won any seats in Alberta, and Stewart was invited to join King's cabinet as Minister of the Interior and Mines (which included responsibility as Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs). He won a 1922 by-election in the Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
seat of Argenteuil, before shifting to the more familiar territory of Edmonton West
Edmonton West
Edmonton West was a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1917 to 1988 and from 1997 to 2004.-Demographics:-History and geography:...
in the 1925 election
Canadian federal election, 1925
The Canadian federal election of 1925 was held on October 29 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 15th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Party formed a minority government. This precipitated the "King-Byng Affair".The Liberals under...
; he was re-elected there in 1926
Canadian federal election, 1926
The Canadian federal election of 1926 was held on September 14 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 16th Parliament of Canada. The election was called following an event known as the King-Byng Affair...
and 1930
Canadian federal election, 1930
The Canadian federal election of 1930 was held on July 28, 1930 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 17th Parliament of Canada...
. In the 1935 election
Canadian federal election, 1935
The Canadian federal election of 1935 was held on October 14, 1935 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 18th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King won a majority government, defeating Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's Conservative Party.The central...
, he ran in the new riding of Jasper–Edson, where he was defeated by Social Crediter
Social Credit Party of Canada
The Social Credit Party of Canada was a conservative-populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform...
Walter Frederick Kuhl
Walter Frederick Kuhl
Walter Frederick Kuhl was a teacher and a Canadian federal politician.Born in Spruce Grove, Alberta, Kuhl was elected under the Social Credit banner to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1935 Canadian federal election...
.
As a cabinet minister, Stewart aggressively marketed Canada's coal both domestically and internationally, for which he was honoured by Alberta's coal producers at a banquet and later awarded the Randolph Bruce
Robert Randolph Bruce
Robert Randolph Bruce was an engineer, mining proprietor and the 13th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia from 1926 to 1931....
Gold Medal in Science by the Canadian Institute of Mining and Metallurgy. He took a great interest in water power, and advised the government on jurisdictional issues surrounding the Niagara
Niagara River
The Niagara River flows north from Lake Erie to Lake Ontario. It forms part of the border between the Province of Ontario in Canada and New York State in the United States. There are differing theories as to the origin of the name of the river...
, St. Mary, and Milk Rivers
Milk River (Montana-Alberta)
The Milk River is a tributary of the Missouri River, long, in the United States state of Montana and the Canadian province of Alberta. Rising in the Rocky Mountains, the river drains a sparsely populated, semi-arid watershed of , ending just east of Fort Peck, Montana.-Geography:It is formed in...
. In 1927, he served as Canada's representative at the League of Nations
League of Nations
The League of Nations was an intergovernmental organization founded as a result of the Paris Peace Conference that ended the First World War. It was the first permanent international organization whose principal mission was to maintain world peace...
. As Minister of the Interior, he oversaw the 1927 creation of Prince Albert National Park
Prince Albert National Park
Prince Albert National Park covers in central Saskatchewan, Canada and is located north of Saskatoon. Though declared a national park March 24, 1927, it had its official opening ceremonies on August 10, 1928 performed by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King. The park is open all year but...
. Ironically, given the attacks he had sustained as Premier from Alexander Grant MacKay, he was part of the federal delegation that finally negotiated the transfer of resource control from the federal to the Alberta provincial government in December 1929. The same agreement transferred resource rights to Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan
Saskatchewan is a prairie province in Canada, which has an area of . Saskatchewan is bordered on the west by Alberta, on the north by the Northwest Territories, on the east by Manitoba, and on the south by the U.S. states of Montana and North Dakota....
and Manitoba
Manitoba
Manitoba is a Canadian prairie province with an area of . The province has over 110,000 lakes and has a largely continental climate because of its flat topography. Agriculture, mostly concentrated in the fertile southern and western parts of the province, is vital to the province's economy; other...
. After it was signed but before it took effect, Manitoba Premier John Bracken
John Bracken
John Bracken, PC was an agronomist, the 11th Premier of Manitoba and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada ....
concluded an agreement with the Winnipeg Electric Company, a private concern, to develop a hydroelectric dam at Seven Sisters' Reach. Because resource rights were still controlled by the federal government, the deal required federal approval. Stewart advocated withholding this approval in deference to Manitoba public opinion, which favoured public ownership of such projects, but King honoured a provision of the resource transfer agreement that required the wishes of provincial governments to be respected until the transfer was complete and granted approval. Stewart's preference for public over private ownership extended to King's planned creation of the Bank of Canada
Bank of Canada
The Bank of Canada is Canada's central bank and "lender of last resort". The Bank was created by an Act of Parliament on July 3, 1934 as a privately owned corporation. In 1938, the Bank became a Crown corporation belonging to the Government of Canada...
; Stewart wanted the new institution entirely under the control of the government, but King preferred an arrangement whereby half of its directors would be appointed by the government and half by private shareholders and suggested that advocates of public ownership might find themselves more at home in the socialist Cooperative Commonwealth Federation than in his Liberal caucus.
Despite Stewart's involvement in transferring resource rights to Alberta, his relationship with the UFA government that had defeated him in 1921 was frosty: Lakeland College
Lakeland College (Alberta)
Lakeland College is a post-secondary college in Alberta. It is publicly funded, and maintains two campuses in Vermilion and Lloydminster. Lakeland serves about 7,500 full- and part-time students....
historian Franklin Foster, in his biography of UFA Premier John Edward Brownlee
John Edward Brownlee
John Edward Brownlee was the fifth Premier of Alberta, Canada, serving from 1925 until 1934. Born in Port Ryerse, Ontario, he studied history and political science at the University of Toronto's Victoria College before moving west to Calgary to become a lawyer...
, alleges that this antipathy influenced Stewart's preference for private corporations over the Alberta government in granting hydroelectric power permits. He also feuded with then-Premier Brownlee over development in Alberta's national parks (Stewart favouring large-scale private development and Brownlee opposing it), causing King to record in his diary "Brownlee strikes me as...being superior to Mr. Stewart, who is handicapped in his dislike of [Brownlee]." When King sought to absorb Progressives
Progressive Party of Canada
The Progressive Party of Canada was a political party in Canada in the 1920s and 1930s. It was linked with the provincial United Farmers parties in several provinces and, in Manitoba, ran candidates and formed governments as the Progressive Party of Manitoba...
into his Liberal Party to form a stronger coalition against the Conservatives, Stewart opposed cooperation with the UFA leaders who made up a large part of the Progressives' Albertan base. While King was inclined to view UFA politicians, like Progressives elsewhere, as "Liberals in a hurry" who were fundamentally comfortable with his government and preferred it to the Conservatives
Conservative Party of Canada (historical)
The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the...
, Stewart understood that the UFA was a distinct group whose members were in many respect more conservative than liberal. King dismissed his minister's views as being the result of Stewart's acrimonious history with the UFA.
In fact, Stewart did not enjoy King's confidence. Though he brought him into his cabinet in 1921 in part at the urging of Progressive leader Thomas Crerar
Thomas Crerar
Thomas Alexander Crerar, was a western Canadian politician and a leader of the short-lived Progressive Party of Canada. He was born in Molesworth, Ontario, and moved to Manitoba at a young age....
, King found Stewart to be an inadequate protector of western interests—especially in his advocacy of tariff
Tariff
A tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
reduction, which King found lacklustre—and did not trust his political advice on the west. By 1925 he was considering appointing Stewart to the Senate
Canadian Senate
The Senate of Canada is a component of the Parliament of Canada, along with the House of Commons, and the monarch . The Senate consists of 105 members appointed by the governor general on the advice of the prime minister...
, to remove him from active political involvement, but was handicapped by the absence of any other Alberta representation in his cabinet. In 1926 Stewart served as an emissary from King to recruit Saskatchewan Premier Charles Avery Dunning
Charles Avery Dunning
Charles Avery Dunning, PC was born in Croft, Leicestershire, England. During his career, he was a successful businessman, a Canadian politician , and a university chancellor.-Early life:...
to the federal cabinet; the mission fulfilled, King kept Stewart in cabinet but wrote in his diary that all matters pertaining to Alberta were to be "left to Dunning to do as he thinks best". By 1927, King complained that Stewart had "no grip" on the province of which he had once been Premier, and in 1930 he wrote "Organization in Alberta is terrible. Stewart is worse than useless, is like an old woman, with no real control of situation." In the 1930 federal election
Canadian federal election, 1930
The Canadian federal election of 1930 was held on July 28, 1930 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 17th Parliament of Canada...
Dunning and Crerar were both defeated; King complained that it was "perfectly terrible to have Stewart alone representing the West." When Stewart too went down to defeat in 1935, King was pleased "not to have to consider him" in assembling his new cabinet, and opted instead to leave Alberta unrepresented to punish it for failing to elect any Liberals.
Post-political life
After Stewart's defeat in 1935, he was appointed by George VGeorge V of the United Kingdom
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the First World War until his death in 1936....
to chair the Canadian section of the International Joint Commission
International Joint Commission
The International Joint Commission is an independent binational organization established by the United States and Canada under the Boundary Waters Treaty of 1909.The Commission has responsibilities related to the following treaties and agreements:...
, in recognition of his expertise on international water boundary issues. In 1938, he was appointed chair of the Canadian section of the British Columbia – Yukon – Alaska Highway Commission. In these capacities, he travelled across Canada, visiting his son George at the family homestead near Killam at every opportunity. He died December 6, 1946, leaving an estate of $21,961.
Born in one of Canada's original provinces, Stewart moved west as part of a vast migration to the prairies, and settled in Alberta the year it became a province. As Alberta grew, Stewart played an increasingly important political role in it, until he joined the federal government to become Alberta's voice there, ultimately helping it achieve constitutional equality with the older provinces by transferring to its government control of its resources. As Mackenzie King eulogized him, "in more respects than one, Mr. Stewart's career mirrored the development of Canada itself."
As party leader
| 1921 Alberta provincial election Alberta general election, 1921 The Alberta general election of 1921 was the fifth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on July 18, 1921 to elect members to the 5th Alberta Legislative Assembly.... |
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| Party | Party leader | # of candidates |
Seats | Popular vote | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 1917 Alberta general election, 1917 The Alberta general election of 1917 was the fourth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada, held on 7 June 1917 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.... |
1921 Alberta general election, 1921 The Alberta general election of 1921 was the fifth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on July 18, 1921 to elect members to the 5th Alberta Legislative Assembly.... |
% Change | # | % | % Change |
United Farmers United Farmers of Alberta The United Farmers of Alberta is an association of Alberta farmers that has served many different roles throughout its history as a lobby group, a political party, and as a farm-supply retail chain. Since 1934 it has primarily been an agricultural supply cooperative headquartered in Calgary... |
45 | 38 | 86,250 | 28.92% | |
Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
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61 | 34 | 15 | −67.6% | 101,584 | 34.07% | −14.07% |
Labour | |
10 | 1 | 4 | 33,987 | 3.17% | +7.87% |
Independent | 18 | 2 | 4 | +100% | 28,794 | 9.66% | +3.83% |
Conservative | |
13 | 19 | - | −100% | 32,734 | 10.98% | −30.81% |
Independent Labour | 7 | - | 10,733 | 3.06% | |
Labour Socialist | |
2 | - | 2,628 | 0.88% | |
Independent Liberal | 1 | - | 1,467 | 0.49% | ||||||||||||||
| Total | 157 | 58 | 61 | +5.2% | 298,177 | 100% | |
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As MLA
| 1921 Alberta general election Alberta general election, 1921 The Alberta general election of 1921 was the fifth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on July 18, 1921 to elect members to the 5th Alberta Legislative Assembly.... results (Sedgewick Sedgewick (provincial electoral district) Sedgewick was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada from 1909 until 1963-MLAs:The district elected the following members to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta:-Results:-1957 liquor plebiscite:... ) |
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| Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Charles Stewart | Acclaimed | ||
| 1917 Alberta general election Alberta general election, 1917 The Alberta general election of 1917 was the fourth general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada, held on 7 June 1917 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.... results (Sedgewick Sedgewick (provincial electoral district) Sedgewick was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada from 1909 until 1963-MLAs:The district elected the following members to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta:-Results:-1957 liquor plebiscite:... ) |
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| Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Charles Stewart | 1,657 | 63.1% |
Conservative | John R. Lavell | 971 | 36.9% |
| 1913 Alberta general election Alberta general election, 1913 The Alberta general election of 1913 was the third general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. The writ was dropped on 25 March 1913 and election day was held 17 April 1913 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta. Elections in two northern districts took place on 30 July... results (Sedgewick Sedgewick (provincial electoral district) Sedgewick was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada from 1909 until 1963-MLAs:The district elected the following members to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta:-Results:-1957 liquor plebiscite:... ) |
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| Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Charles Stewart | 889 | 70.1% |
Conservative | W. Watson | 371 | 29.9% |
| 1912 by-election results (Sedgewick Sedgewick (provincial electoral district) Sedgewick was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada from 1909 until 1963-MLAs:The district elected the following members to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta:-Results:-1957 liquor plebiscite:... ) |
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| Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Charles Stewart | 2,022 | 67.7% |
Conservative | William John Blair William John Blair William John Blair was an engineer, farmer, teacher, soldier surveyor and Canadian federal politician.-Early life:Blair was born in Embro, Ontario on October 13, 1875... |
963 | 32.3% |
| 1909 Alberta general election Alberta general election, 1909 The Alberta general election was 1909 was the second general election for the Province of Alberta, Canada. It was held on 22 March 1909 to elect members of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta.... results (Sedgewick Sedgewick (provincial electoral district) Sedgewick was a provincial electoral district in Alberta, Canada from 1909 until 1963-MLAs:The district elected the following members to the Legislative Assembly of Alberta:-Results:-1957 liquor plebiscite:... ) |
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| Liberal Alberta Liberal Party The Alberta Liberal Party is a provincial political party in Alberta, Canada. Originally founded in 1905, when the province was created, it was the dominant political party until 1921 when it was defeated. It has never been in government since that time... |
Charles Stewart | Acclaimed | ||
As MP
| 1935 Canadian federal election Canadian federal election, 1935 The Canadian federal election of 1935 was held on October 14, 1935 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 18th Parliament of Canada. The Liberal Party of William Lyon Mackenzie King won a majority government, defeating Prime Minister R.B. Bennett's Conservative Party.The central... results (Jasper–Edson) |
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| Social Credit Social Credit Party of Canada The Social Credit Party of Canada was a conservative-populist political party in Canada that promoted social credit theories of monetary reform... |
Walter Frederick Kuhl Walter Frederick Kuhl Walter Frederick Kuhl was a teacher and a Canadian federal politician.Born in Spruce Grove, Alberta, Kuhl was elected under the Social Credit banner to the Canadian House of Commons in the 1935 Canadian federal election... |
7,208 | 49.1% |
Liberal Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative... |
Charles Stewart | 5,405 | 36.8% |
CCF Co-operative Commonwealth Federation The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation was a Canadian political party founded in 1932 in Calgary, Alberta, by a number of socialist, farm, co-operative and labour groups, and the League for Social Reconstruction... |
George Elzy Bevington | 2,067 | 14.1% |
| 1930 Canadian federal election Canadian federal election, 1930 The Canadian federal election of 1930 was held on July 28, 1930 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 17th Parliament of Canada... results (Edmonton West Edmonton West Edmonton West was a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1917 to 1988 and from 1997 to 2004.-Demographics:-History and geography:... ) |
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| Liberal Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative... |
Charles Stewart | 9,223 | 50.7% |
Conservative Conservative Party of Canada (historical) The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the... |
Frederick C. Jamieson | 8,960 | 49.3% |
| 1926 by-election results (Edmonton West Edmonton West Edmonton West was a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1917 to 1988 and from 1997 to 2004.-Demographics:-History and geography:... ) |
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| Liberal Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative... |
Charles Stewart | Acclaimed | ||
| 1926 Canadian federal election Canadian federal election, 1926 The Canadian federal election of 1926 was held on September 14 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 16th Parliament of Canada. The election was called following an event known as the King-Byng Affair... results (Edmonton West Edmonton West Edmonton West was a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1917 to 1988 and from 1997 to 2004.-Demographics:-History and geography:... ) |
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| Liberal Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative... |
Charles Stewart | 7,223 | 55.6% |
Conservative Conservative Party of Canada (historical) The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the... |
Frederick C. Jamieson | 5,772 | 44.4% |
| 1925 Canadian federal election Canadian federal election, 1925 The Canadian federal election of 1925 was held on October 29 to elect members of the Canadian House of Commons of the 15th Parliament of Canada. Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King's Liberal Party formed a minority government. This precipitated the "King-Byng Affair".The Liberals under... results (Edmonton West Edmonton West Edmonton West was a federal electoral district in Alberta, Canada, that was represented in the Canadian House of Commons from 1917 to 1988 and from 1997 to 2004.-Demographics:-History and geography:... ) |
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| Liberal Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative... |
Charles Stewart | 6,394 | 48.8% |
Conservative Conservative Party of Canada (historical) The Conservative Party of Canada has gone by a variety of names over the years since Canadian Confederation. Initially known as the "Liberal-Conservative Party", it dropped "Liberal" from its name in 1873, although many of its candidates continued to use this name.As a result of World War I and the... |
James McCrie Douglas James McCrie Douglas James McCrie Douglas was a politician in Alberta, Canada, a mayor of Edmonton, and a member of the Canadian House of Commons.-Early life:... |
4,706 | 35.9% |
Labour Labour candidates and parties in Canada There have been various groups in Canada that have nominated candidates under the label Labour Party or Independent Labour Party or other variations from the 1870s until the 1960s... |
James East James East James East was a politician and labour activist in Alberta, Canada. He was for a time and the longest-serving alderman in Edmonton's history, and was a defeated candidate at the provincial and federal levels. He was also an ardent monetary reformer.-Early life:East was born in Bolton, Ontario on... |
2,007 | 15.3% |
| 1922 by-election results (Argenteuil) | ||||
| Liberal Liberal Party of Canada The Liberal Party of Canada , colloquially known as the Grits, is the oldest federally registered party in Canada. In the conventional political spectrum, the party sits between the centre and the centre-left. Historically the Liberal Party has positioned itself to the left of the Conservative... |
Charles Stewart | Acclaimed |