In the first decade of Saskatchewan’s existence, there was only one premier, Thomas Walter Scott, but in the next decade, there were two. The first was William Melville Martin, and the second is the person we are covering today, Charles Avery Dunning.
Like with Scott and Martin, there is much more to the man that is Dunning than serving as premier.
Charles Dunning was born in Croft, England on July 31, 1885. He spent his youth in England, and as a young teenager he worked in an iron foundry in the country.
Wanting something different, a close friend told him he should move to Canada. Dunning took the advice and moved to Canada in 1902 when he was 16.
He arrived with no money, but by getting a job as a farmhand, making $10 per month. He was able to save up money and within a year of his arrival in Canada he filed a homestead west of Yorkton.
Since he found such quick success in Canada, he convinced the rest of his family to join him in Canada. When they arrived, he started to run the farm in partnership with his father.
Years later, the Regina Leader-Post wrote,
“As a humble homesteader in the Yorkton area in his late teens, he was plain Charley Dunning. He remained Charley Dunning to his Saskatchewan friends to the end.”
Like many other farmers, Dunning got involved with the Saskatchewan Grain Growers’ Association in order to help bring better prices for farmers in the province. It was clear to everyone that he was enthusiastic about the organization and he was made director of his local chapter. One year later, he was vice-president of the association.
Around this same time, Dunning prepared a report on the grain elevator system in Saskatchewan. This report led to the creation of the Saskatchewan Co-operative Elevator Company by the provincial government. This company was financed in part by farmers, who paid $7.50 per share, and in part by a loan guarantee by the provincial government.
Dunning sat on the board, the youngest person there at age 25, and took on the job of organizing capital for the company. In 1911, he was named the general manager of the company and within four years it was the largest grain handling company in the world. Under Dunning, the company built 230 elevators and handled 28 million bushels of grain.
After William Melville Martin became premier of Saskatchewan, he wanted to appeal to farmers and that was when he asked Dunning to sit in his cabinet as provincial treasurer. Dunning accepted and in November 1916, he was elected to the legislature.
Thanks to Dunning, who was able to convince farmers in Saskatchewan to support the Liberals, the Liberal Party of Saskatchewan was able to avoid the rising tide of political parties such as the United Farmers from taking power in an election.
In 1917, running in Moose Jaw in the provincial election, Dunning picked up twice as many votes as his opponent. Four years later in 1921, he won his riding unopposed and in 1925, won by a margin of 2.5 to one.
During this time, Dunning held several posts including Minister of Agriculture, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Minister of Telephones.
When Martin resigned as premier of the province in 1922, he picked Dunning to be the one to succeed him.
On April 5, 1922, Dunning became the third premier of Saskatchewan at the age of 36. As soon as Dunning became premier, he began to work to heal the rift that had developed between the provincial Liberals and the farmers in the province. He met with the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association and assured them he supported the farm movement and not Ottawa. He also used copies of resolutions agreed upon at the association’s annual convention to begin to plan government policy.
Thanks to Dunning, the association did not look to establish a separate farmer party and instead supported the Liberals.
In 1924, Dunning held a plebiscite on prohibition and seeing the tide changing, he ended prohibition but continued regulation through government-owned liquor stores.
In the 1925 election, the first for Dunning as premier, the Liberals took 50 seats, an overwhelming majority and the second most in the history of the province to that point. The Conservatives were left with only three, while the Progressives, who found success in other provinces, could not get more than six.
Following the election, Dunning arranged for legislation to authorize the sale of the Saskatchewan Cooperative Elevator Company to the Saskatchewan Wheat Board. The sale was approved for $11 million. Farmers who had bought shares in 1911 when Dunning was general manager for $7.50 were able to receive $155.84 per share, about $2,700 today.
After seeing the success Dunning had in winning back farmers, Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King began to court Dunning to join the federal government. At the time the farmer led Progressives were a powerful party in the Legislature and helped prop up the King government after the 1925 election resulted in a substantial minority government for King.
Dunning agreed and he resigned as premier.
King wrote in his diary on Feb. 18, 1926,
“Darke of Regina formerly offered resignation of his seat for Dunning today and I wired Dunning accordingly. It is a fine spirit these Saskatchewan men share.”
In March 1926, Dunning was elected to Parliament.
After King’s government fell later that year, some in the Liberal Party started to look to Dunning to replace King as leader.
Once the Arthur Meighen government fell after only a few weeks, and the country went into another election, King came back with a majority government win. At that point, King’s position was secure and Dunning was no longer considered a replacement for him.
King put his one-time possible rival into Cabinet after the 1926 election as the Minister of Railways and Canals. Once again he was a friend to farmers and he used his position to help get a national railway system expanded to more farmers. This included building a branch from Beaver Dale to Parkerview, Saskatchewan. He also made Churchill, Manitoba a terminus for the railroad. This eventually led Churchill becoming a major grain port for shipping from Canada to Europe.
In 1929, Dunning was placed in the Minister of Finance role. Once again, he earned a reputation for his hard work. This was exemplified by the fact that Dunning once stood on his feet throughout the reading and passage of his first set of estimates in his new cabinet role despite being extremely ill. As soon as the estimates passed, he collapsed and was rushed into the hospital to be treated for appendicitis.
Dunning’s first foray in the role of Minister of Finance was short-lived. In 1930, the Liberals suffered a large defeat as R.B. Bennett and the Conservatives came to power. Dunning lost his seat by 3,500 votes. While he was offered safe Liberal seats to return to Parliament, he turned them down and went back into business.
But he was not done with politics.
In 1935, the Liberals roared to back to victory after Canadians grew tired of the lack of Conservative response to The Great Depression. King convinced Dunning that he needed to return to Parliament to help deal with The Depression. Dunning agreed and he was acclaimed in a 1936 by-election in Queen’s in Prince Edward Island.
As soon as he was returned to Parliament, Dunning was placed in the Minister of Finance role once again. In that role, he established the Central Mortgage Bank, which today is known as the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.
Dunning was so respected in government that as King aged, there was talk of Dunning replacing him. All that talk came to an end in 1938 when Dunning suffered a heart attack. Realizing he needed to leave his cabinet position due to the stress, Dunning chose to retire.
The Ottawa Journal wrote,
“In the human body, as in all other things in life, there is a law of diminishing returns. At the age of 54, Charles Dunning had lived perhaps 80 years. The machine is played out. But what a machine it had been.”
He attempted to retire from politics prior to a health-seeking trip to Europe in August 1939 but Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King refused the resignation. He said,
“I told Mr. Dunning I was sure the people of Canada would want him to remain in the government so that when he is restored to health he may return to continue to serve the country as he has served so well in the past.”
After speaking to the press, King went to see Dunning and found him reading in a side verandah. He stated he was looked well. King wrote in his diary,
“It is apparent he felt tremendously relieved in having succeeded in freeing himself completely from the possibilities of a campaign, and having arranged to take a trip abroad to England.”
In the end in September, as the Second World War began, King knew he needed someone in the finance role and he accepted the resignation from the cabinet post of Dunning. He appointed Lt. Col. J.L. Ralston as Finance Minister.
Dunning left Canada soon after but returned in October. He was immediately asked about returning to politics. While he did say the trip to England was successful for his health, he had no thoughts on returning to politics. He said,
“I have not thought about that yet.”
It was clear to everyone that he was not going to return to politics.
Dunning remained as a Member of Parliament until the March 26, 1940 federal election, in which he did not run for re-election.
During the campaign, he took no part, which angered King. He wrote in his diary after Dunning called him to congratulate him,
“I confess that Dunning’s action caused me something more akin to contempt that pleasure. It is the only word that has come from him through the whole campaign. No offer of assistance, no expression of willingness to broadcast a line, but only after victory is positively assured, to be the first to extend congratulations. I asked him how he was and he said something about this being the first campaign he had been out of for years and naturally felt bad on that score.”
In 1940, Dunning moved to Montreal and became the CEO of Ogilvie Flour Mills. He stayed in that role until 1947 when he became chairman of the board for the company. For the next few years, he also sat on various boards including the Canadian Pacific Railway.
Throughout the Second World War, Dunning also served as the chair of the National War Loans Committee, which raised money for the war effort.
In 1940, Dunning was also named the Chancellor of Queen’s University at Kingston. He was skilled at raising money from his wealthy contacts, which helped Queen’s get a new engineering building. For his work with the university, Dunning Hall was named in honour of him.
Dunning died on Oct. 1, 1958 in Montreal. The Regina Leader-Post wrote,
“This remarkable man, who left his humble birthplace, the cottage of a tenant farmer in England, at the age of 17 to migrate to Canada, would have made his mark in this new land no matter where he chose to locate initially.”
In 1985, Dunning was named a National Historic Figure by the Government of Canada. Two decades later, Saskatchewan named the Provincial Revenue Building Dunning Place in his honour.
Dunning Crescent in Regina is also named for him.
