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Drury ministry
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The Drury ministry was the combined cabinet (formally the Executive Council of Ontario) that governed Ontario from November 14, 1919, to July 16, 1923. It was led by the 8th Premier of Ontario, Ernest Drury. The ministry was a coalition made up of members of the United Farmers of Ontario (UFO) and the Labour Party, which commanded the confidence of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
The ministry replaced the Hearst ministry following the 1919 Ontario general election. The Drury ministry governed through the 15th Parliament of Ontario.
It was the first of a wave of United Farmers governments that took power in several provinces and that founded the Progressive Party of Canada. Drury was the first Premier of Ontario to be born after Confederation, though several members of his cabinet were born before.
Drury and the UFO were defeated in the 1923 Ontario general election. He was succeeded as Premier of Ontario by Howard Ferguson.
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A Premier is found
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The 1919 election returned farmer candidates as the largest bloc, or plurality, in the provincial legislature. These MLAs were not members of a conventional party, but were associated with each other under the banner of the United Farmers of Ontario, a largely non-political farmers' organisation; thus they did not have a party leader.
The UFO caucus considered several candidates for the role of Premier of Ontario. Manning Doherty, a professor at Ontario Agricultural College and member of the Conservative party (though he had not run in the 1919 election), was considered for the Premiership because of his excellent leadership skills, but he was ultimately rejected because his Catholicism was a political liability;[1] Peter Smith, elected MLA for Perth, was considered for his immense popularity in the caucus, but ultimately rejected because of his lack of leadership skills.[2]
In the end, the UFO caucus asked Ernest Drury to lead them and take the position of Premier. Drury had been the president of the UFO when it was founded in 1913, but had since stepped away from that role.[3] Also, he was the son of Charles Alfred Drury, Ontario's first Commissioner of Agriculture (serving 1888-1890) and was thus well-connected politically.
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A Cabinet is Formed
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Smith would end up serving under Drury as Treasurer while Doherty served as Minister of Agriculture.
Doherty would not be the only person brought into cabinet from outside the UFO caucus, as Drury appointed Toronto lawyer William Raney, a Liberal who also had not run in the 1919 election, to fill the role of Attorney General because there wasn't a single lawyer in the UFO caucus. Seats in the legislature were found for all three unelected cabinet members in the months after the 1919 election, as incumbent UFO MLAs stepped aside for them: Doherty would represent Peel, while Raney would represent Wellington East, both acclaimed without contest; Drury, alas, was forced to fend off a challenge from Edward Stephenson of the Soldier Party (with both Liberals and Conservatives declining to contest the seat). Drury emerged victorious with 67.7% of the vote. Stephenson was critical of Drury's qualified support of conscription in 1917, but Drury acquitted himself well before the voters.[4]
While very few members of the UFO caucus had experience even sitting in provincial parliament, let alone serving on a ministry, many members had plenty of experience serving in municipal political office.[5] Frank Biggs was recently Warden of Wentworth County, and previously had served as chair of several vital Wentworth County Council committees; he was named both Minister of Highways and Minister of Public Works. Peter Smith, too, had puty in his time in municipal politics.[6]
The UFOs 49 MLAs joined with 11 Labour members to form a coalition government. To secure those vital eleven votes, Labour MLAs Walter Rollo and Harry Mills were brought into the ministry to serve as Minister of Labour and Minister of Mines respectively.[7] The Ministry of Mines was split by Drury from the Minister of Lands and Forests, a post which went to Beniah Bowman, one of few UFO caucus members with experience at Queen's Park.[8]
The ministry was rounded out with the appointment of three more cabinet members: the youngest member, 28 year old Harry Nixon, was named to the position of Provincial Secretary; twice wounded former Lieutenant Colonel of the 157 Regiment Dougall Carmichael was appointed Minister Without Portfolio, albeit with an appointment to serve as government representative on the Hydro-Electric Commission; and Robert Grant was named Minister of Education.[9]
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History
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The Drury government had a significant impact on the Province:
- It introduced allowances for widows and children,[10] a minimum wage for women,[11] a mandatory weekly day of rest,[12] broadened workmen's compensation benefits[13] improved the support mechanisms for parents[14] and children born out of wedlock,[15] and standardized adoption procedures.[16]
- Ontario Hydro saw greater expansion in the field of rural electrification[17] and in 1921, Hydro acquired the Toronto Electric Light Company, together with various railway interests,[18] thus making it the largest electric power system in the world.[19]
- The Province of Ontario Savings Office was created,[20] effectively a provincially-owned bank that was designed to lend money to farmers at a lower rate.[21]
- It began the first major reforestation program in North America,[22] and initiated construction of the modern highway system.[23]
- Drury also arranged for a grant to Frederick Banting and Charles Best, at that time relatively unknown researchers, as a result of their discovery of insulin.[24]
- The government was also a strict enforcer of temperance measures.
- Expenditures on highway construction were significantly increased. [25]
Alas, there were signs that Drury's moinistry was struggling politically. There was a federal election in 1921, after the Drury ministry had been in power two years. Drury and his allies leant their support to the Progressive Party of Canada, and hoped to send around 40 Progressive MPs to Ottawa; in the end the Ontario delegate of Progressive totalled only 24. It was generally concluded that Drury's government had been a liability to the Progressives;[26] it augured poorly for Drury's political popularity.
When Drury went to the polls in the 1923 Ontario general election, the number of farmer candidates returned fell from 44 to 17, although six of the nine farmer cabinet members were returned, with only Drury himself, Grant, and Smith going down to defeat. Labour only returned four candidates, and neither Rollo nor Mills were among them. Even the often sympathetic Liberal party lost several seats, falling from 27 to 14. Doherty would take over nominal leadership of the farmers' caucus, but would not even receive the consolation of appointment as Leader of the Opposition (the appointment went to Liberal William Sinclair), as new Premier Ferguson insisted that Doherty did not lead a formal party.
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Summary
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The Drury Ministry consisted of eleven men; its composition did not change for the duration. Drury, Biggs, Carmichael, Doherty, Nixon, and Smith represented the sprawling farmlands of Southwestern Ontario; Rollo and Raney represented the more urban interests of Hamilton and Toronto respectively; Bowman and Mills represented the frontiers of Northern Ontario; and Grant was the sole representative of Eastern Ontario.
While the ministry was just shy of commanding a majority of the seats in at Queen's Park, even with the support of Labour, several members of the fractured Liberal caucus, and even a few disaffected Conservatives, could often be counted on to support the ministry.[27] Drury's position improved even more when obstructionist Hartley Dewart was replaced as leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario and Leader of the Opposition by a much more accommodating Wellington Hay;[28] in fact there were rumours that the UFO and Liberal caucuses might merge in the latter half of the Drury ministry, but such a course of action would be abandonned as farmer representatives drew a lot of support from rural Conservative voters who would never accept an alliance with the Liberal party.[29]
Doherty, for his sheer talent, and Raney, for his tireless pursuit of the cause of temperance, were generally perceived as the most capable ministers.[30]
Drury's ministry ultimately could not sustain its political base. Part of the reason for the erosion of support was the estrangement of more entrepreneurial, business-minded farmers from so-called "dirt-farmers" who had a completely different set of economic concerns.[31] At the same time, so much of Drury's supporters were not interested so much in holding on to power, but in honest, efficient government;[32] as such, the ministry lacked a certain survival instinct.
Charles M. Johnston summarised the Drury ministry thusly: "It was the perceived values and standards of a Victorian yesterday that Drury and his colleagues soght to entrench through the actions of their government[33]."
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List of ministers
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References
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