Among the premiers of Ontario, few have had as large of an impact on its history as Oliver Mowat.
No premier served longer than Mowat, a man who came to the top job in the province shortly after Confederation and ushered the province towards the 20th century.
Oliver Mowat was born in Kingston on July 22, 1820 to John and Helen Mowat. Both of his parents had come from Scotland.
When he was only 17, Mowat took up arms to fight with the loyalists in the Upper Canada Rebellion.
A few years after the end of the Rebellion, Mowat was called to the Upper Canada Bar on Nov. 5, 1841.
Mowat excelled as a lawyer and in 1856 was appointed to the Queen’s Counsel.
One year after he was called to the bar, Mowat was elected an alderman for the City of Toronto.
This would be the beginning of his political career.
From 1858 to 1867, he served in the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada. During that time, he served as the Provincial Secretary in 1858 and the Postmaster General from 1863 to 1864.
When The Great Coalition was formed to begin moving Canada towards Confederation, Mowat joined and was a representative at the Quebec Conference in 1864.
From 1867 to 1872, he was the Vice Chancellor of the Court of Chancery of Upper Canada.
On Oct. 25, 1872, Mowat was appointed as the third premier of Ontario. While serving as premier, he would also hold the post of Attorney General.
During his first years as premier, Mowat oversaw the modernization of agriculture in the province, while expanding education and scientific institutions.
He was also a major advocate for provincial rights. He believed that the British North America Act guaranteed the sovereignty of the provinces. His efforts to decentralize the government, which was against what Sir John A. Macdonald wanted, earned him the nickname of Little Tyrant from Macdonald.
In Mowat’s first election, on Jan. 18, 1875, he led the Liberals to a majority government, finishing with 50 seats, an increase of seven. Cameron saw his party lose four seats, finishing with 34.
The Brantford newspaper wrote,
“Mr. Mowat and his colleagues have received at the hands of the people a following which will enable them to carry on the work of the country with success, and not be hampered by a close majority in the business of legislation.”
At the time, Mowat was aided by the fact that the previous government had created a financial surplus, which Mowat would be able to use. His government would quickly get to work promoting railroad construction, investing in land drainage and building colonization roads to the frontiers of the province to encourage settlement.
In 1879, William Meredith took over as the leader of the Conservatives in the province.
For Mowat, he had a great deal of respect for Meredith, writing of him,
“There was no man in the ranks of the Opposition upon whom the choice could be more worthily have fallen. Always ready in debate and judicial in the tone of his arguments, he was a generous and formidable opponent.”
While Mowat had respect for Meredith, that didn’t stop him from doing everything he could to defeat him in the elections. The two men faced off in four elections, with 1879 being the first. One thing Mowat did was to steal many of the proposals put forward by Meredith. Journalist Hector Charlesworth would write quote:
“Mowat frequently rode to victory on policies that had originated with his brilliant opponent.”
When Meredith called for a reduction of salaries of reliable and efficient officials in the government, Mowat leapt on this and reduced the indemnity to $600.
Leading into the election, Mowat also formed an alliance with the Catholics in the province through consulting with the archbishop of Toronto, recruiting the Roman Catholic Christopher Fraser to his cabinet, and listening to the Catholic organization of The Orangemen. When the election came along, those Catholic voters would flock to Mowat and the Liberals.
The election came quite late, something for which Mowat was criticized. The Montreal Gazette would write quote:
“By a wrenching of the constitution from its legitimate meaning, Mr. Mowat succeeding in postponing the electoral trial until now, although the Legislature really expired in the month of February last.”
Usually, the election should have been taking place in January, but this time it came in June.
On June 5, 1879, Mowat continued his domination of Ontario politics with a decisive win for his Liberal Party. The party would pick up 57 seats, an increase of seven, while the Conservatives finished with 29.
The Brantford newspaper would write quote:
“The victory is gratifying, as showing that men can appreciate and reward those who serve them faithfully and well, and it gives assurance that our future destinies are to be controlled by those who have shown their fitness for the important trust by years of patient toil and vigilance in our service.”
Mowat and Meredith once again went head-to-head four years later in the 1883 election.
One year prior, an issue over the border between Ontario and Manitoba became a hotly contested issue with the federal government looking to extend Manitoba’s borders eastwards to the Great Lakes.
Mowat was firmly against this and threatened to pull Ontario out of Confederation over it. Mowat would send police to the disputed area, with Manitoba doing the same. It was not until the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Britain issued several rulings over the border dispute that things died down.
Mowat would also conduct some gerrymandering in 1882 to improve the chances for the Liberals to win the election the following year.
The Conservatives also condemned the government for denying Catholics their share of patronage appointments. Mowat was also be hurt by the fact that his government did not neutralize the Crooks Act. This Act, passed in 1876, limited the granting of licences to municipal councils for the sale of alcohol.
Mowat launched his campaign in January of 1883 with a huge convention in Toronto. He would present the case that it was a moment of crisis for Ontario and that the work the Liberals and Reformers had fought for over the course of 50 years was in danger of being destroyed by the federal government. He would tell the 6,000 delegates quote:
“The great evil we supposed had been corrected by the Confederate Act is rife and no we are no more free than before, as much under the heel of others as when this complaint was first made. Are the men of Ontario no less faithful in devotion to liberty than their fathers were? Or may Sir John A. Macdonald succeed where Sir Charles Metcalfe failed?”
In the Feb 27, 1883 election, the only one ever to be held in February, would see support for Mowat take a dip for the first time. Mowat and the Liberals lost nine seats in the Legislature, falling to 48 seats, while the Conservatives increased by eight to 37.
With a smaller majority, many saw this as the beginning of the end for Mowat. The Toronto Mail would report quote:
“Ontario has not decided as definitely as we had hoped that Mr. Mowat must go, but his going or staying is still a matter of reasonable doubt and may remain so till the meeting of the Legislature. Ontario has not overturned Mr. Mowat with decisive indignation but she has given him a most terrible warning.”
In the Dec. 28, 1886 election, Mowat and the Liberals increased their seat count by nine, to finish with 57. The Conservatives would fall five seats, to finish with 32.
The Manitoba Weekly Free Press reported,
“At the time of writing the returns show that Mr. Mowat has secured a wonderful victory. The patriotic government of Mr. Mowat has not only preserved its hold upon the affections and admiration of the people of Ontario, but has almost doubled its majority. This is a grand victory which must thrill the bosom, not only of every Liberal, but of every Canadian, with glowing pride.”
In 1887, Mowat took part in his first conference of Canadian governments, held in Quebec City. Mowat, as the senior premier in Canada, was the chair of the conference. The conference adopted resolutions that demanded the provinces of Canada have control over what happens in their borders. This conference was a watershed moment in the relationship between the federal government and the provinces.
By the end of the 1880s, Mowat had helped make Ontario the richest province in the country and Toronto was the economic centre of the nation.
During all those years, he also served as attorney general. In that role, he introduced secret ballots in elections, extended suffrage beyond property owners and consolidated laws that related to municipalities.
While he helped Ontario in many ways, his policies were severely harmful to the First Nations. In 1884, he blocked the transfer of land for the Anishanbai People that had been approved by the federal government. He blocked the transfer over his concerns for the land’s value and its worth as a red and white pine lumber harvesting location.
As 1890 came along, Oliver Mowat continued to dominate provincial politics as he had for almost 20 years.
Within the Legislature, the number of seats had increased to 90 with the creation of the new riding of Nipissing in 1889. Once again, the election was also run through the limited voting system, giving two votes to a Toronto voter for three MPPs in the district.
The main issue during this election, and elsewhere in Canada as the Manitoba Schools Question became a national issue, was the segregation of schools for Catholic and Protestant students. The Liberal Party of Canada would support segregation, while the Conservatives opposed it. It would become such a major issue that it would cause the downfall of the Conservatives and the beginning of a Liberal Dynasty in 1896.
The Crooks Act would again be an issue in this election, as Mowat had amended the Act prior to the election to introduce a local option that made it similar to the Scott Act the federal government passed. That Act put the issue of prohibition into the hands of municipalities, which could ban alcohol if they wished.
The Kingston Weekly British Whig reported quote:
“The Montreal Witness thinks the action of the Mowat government on the Scott Act will be a source of weakness to it in a general election.”
Since Mowat had been in power for so long, several newspapers would attack him and his party for what they saw as growing corruption. The Owen Sound Times reported quote:
“Mr. Mowat, has at least three times, passed laws to protect his partisan friends from the penalties for violation of the law. He sacrificed 5,000 acres of timber lands at a loss to the province of $2.6 million to benefit a lot of greedy foreign capitalists. He rejected plans made by Canadian architects for good legislative buildings which would cost $600,000 and then employed a foreign architect to put up inferior buildings, which will cost $2 million.”
Other newspapers, like the one in Brantford, took a different view of Mowat, stating quote:
“Not a breath of corruption or mismanagement has tainted the record of Mr. Mowat and his colleagues during the long period of 18 years, in which they have been at the helm.”
In the June 5, 1890 election, the Liberals lost four seats to finish with 53, but this was still more than enough for a majority over the Conservatives, who gained two seats to finish with 34.
The Winnipeg Tribune reported quote:
“As was generally predicted, the Mowat administration has been sustained. There is no disguising the fact that the Conservatives are completely non-plussed and the Equal Righters are knocked silly so to speak. Even the most ardent Liberals scarcely hoped that Mr. Mowat would be sustained by a majority as large as he had in the last house. Their surprise and gratification knew no bounds, therefore, when the returns pouring in from all quarters show that the little premier was going to have a larger majority than in past years.”
In 1892, Mowat was knighted.
In the 1894 election, the main issues in the province were French Language schools, once again stemming from the Manitoba Schools Question, farmer interests, supporting Toronto businesses, women’s suffrage and the demands of labour unions. The temperance movement was also gaining in strength at this time.
Even with the issues, and the fact that Mowat had been leading Ontario for 22 years, there was still a lot of support for him. The Kingston Whig-Standard reported quote:
“After 22 years of faithful service to the people, the Mowat government is appealing for a renewal of the lease of power it has so wisely exercised. As a faithful servant is judged by his record, so the government of Sir Oliver Mowat appeals confidently on its splendid record in every department of the public service it controls.”
The Legislature had also increased with the number of seats increasing from 91 to 94, thanks to new ridings in Toronto, Hamilton and Ottawa.
In the June 26, 1894, the Liberals lost eight seats but still formed a majority government due to the Conservatives losing nine seats.
In 1896, Sir Wilfrid Laurier won the federal election and he appointed Mowat to be the federal Minister of Justice, a Senator and the Leader of the Government in the Senate. He served in those roles for only one year before he was appointed as the Lt. Governor of Ontario in 1897.
On Jan. 8, 1903, while out walking in Government House where his grandchildren were playing, Mowat tripped and fell heavily. He suffered a fractured neck and of the thigh bone. The Toronto Daily Star wrote,
“He suffered a good deal of pain and discomfort but he gradually recovered and was able to walk with some assistance and to support his weight upon the injured limb.”
Four months later on April 12, while he was being lifted into his chair after he was undressed by his attendants, he fell and broke his thigh bone again. The fracture was set and chloroform was administered so splints could be applied. It was said he stood the injury well and had no alarming symptoms.
The next day, his heart began to give out and he fell into a coma. He never woke up and on April 19, 1903, Mowat died.
The Ottawa Journal wrote,
“So quietly and peacefully did he pass from life to death that the anxious watchers at his bedside did not quite realize the fact until the physicians who had been almost constantly in attendance since the accident, informed them that all was over.”
There is one more interesting connection to Oliver Mowat. He is the great-grand uncle of author Farley Mowat.
