Early political career

At the time of Stewart's acclamation, Premier Alexander Cameron Rutherford seemed unassailable: he controlled 36 of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta's 41 seats (Stewart's being one),^[4] and his Liberals had just won nearly sixty percent of the vote in their re-election bid.^[5] Months later, however, Rutherford and his government were embroiled in the Alberta and Great Waterways Railway scandal, and the Liberal Party was split.^[4] 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.^[6] As additional details of the scandal emerged, however, Stewart himself became an insurgent, and was pleased when Arthur Sifton replaced Rutherford as Premier.^[4]

In May 1912, Sifton expanded his cabinet, and Stewart was made the province's first Minister of Municipal Affairs.^[7] 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.^[8] 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.^[9] 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.^[10]

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,^[9] which was a farmer-run co-operative with a charter to own and operate grain elevators.^[11]

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 Cushing and Frank Oliver.^[15] Sifton had papered over, if not in fact healed, this rift, and it did not burst open again until the conscription crisis.^[14] 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.^[13]

Stewart was a supporter of conscription and of the Union government,^[16] 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.^[13] 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' dependants on the grounds that he considered it a federal responsibility.^[17]

Stewart (behind the plow) at a sod-turning event in St. Albert, soon after becoming premier

Divisions within the provincial Liberals came to a head in August 1918, when Stewart dismissed Cross as Attorney-General.^[17] 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.^[18]

Prohibition and democratic reform

Alberta had implemented prohibition in 1916 as the result of a referendum supported by the powerful United Farmers of Alberta (UFA) lobby group.^[19] 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.^[20] 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.^[21] Stewart blamed the problems on insufficient public support for the law,^[20] but even as he did so it was clear that there was not enough support to repeal it.^[21]

Charles Stewart as Premier

Prohibition was not the only UFA-endorsed policy to have been passed by Sifton's government: indeed, the legislation that allowed for citizen-initiated referendums of the sort that had led to prohibition was itself the result of UFA advocacy.^[22] Once Stewart became Premier, he committed to the introduction of another UFA-favoured democratic reform—proportional representation.^[23] 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".^[24]

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.^[25] 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.^[26] 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 Railway, 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).^[27]

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 500,000 acres (200,000 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.^[28]

Stewart and the United Farmers of Alberta

The United Farmers of Alberta had its beginnings as a farmers' advocacy organization; Stewart, a farmer, had joined it.^[29] The UFA had achieved several successes in dealing with the Sifton government, and Stewart also endeavoured to cooperate with it. The irrigation project was strongly supported by the UFA, as was Stewart's action on proportional representation.^[24] 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 carriers;^[30] Stewart read it in the legislature, and Rae's bill was withdrawn.^[24] Even given the victories, the UFA was not satisfied with the government's record: in 1918, the government took action on only three of the many resolutions the UFA had sent to it.^[31]

Stewart's official portrait by V. A. Long.

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.^[32] 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.^[33] 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.^[23] The UFA's Alex Moore defeated his only opponent, Liberal Edward V. Thomson, by 835 votes to 708.^[34]

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."^[24] 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."^[35]

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."^[36] 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.^[37] 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),^[38] but he announced otherwise.^[37]

Following his exit from premiership, Stewart resided at Tyrone Manor in downtown Edmonton in the 1920s.^[39]

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.^[40] 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.^[41] Bolstering this challenge by increasing farmers' discontent was a collapse of agricultural prices.^[42] The UFA had no leader, no fixed platform, and no inclination to attack Stewart or his government.^[38] What it did have was superior organization,^[38] and on election day this organization made itself felt in the form of thirty-nine UFA members elected to fourteen Liberals.^[42] Stewart, who has been acclaimed in his own riding of Sedgewick, announced that he would resign as Premier as soon as the UFA had selected somebody to replace him.^[38] Once it selected Herbert Greenfield, Stewart made good on his pledge, and Greenfield replaced him August 13.^[37]

Stewart with his family, c. 1930

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.^[43]

She argues that he was a "decent family man" whose career was a product of the circumstances in which he found himself.^[37]

Historian L. G. Thomas recognized Stewart's admirable qualities,^[17] but criticized him for lacking Sifton's "ruthless and forceful leadership"^[44] and claimed that "few provincial premiers have been more universally praised by their opponents and more unanimously deplored by their supporters."^[17] 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.^[44]

Mount Charles Stewart is located in the Bow Valley just north of Canmore.^[45] The peak was named for him in 1928.

As party leader

As MLA

As MP

Citations

Works cited

• Foster, Franklin L. (1981). John E. Brownlee: A Biography. Lloydminster, Alberta: Foster Learning Inc. ISBN 978-1-55220-004-9.
• Jaques, Carrol (2004). "Charles Stewart". In Bradford J. Rennie (ed.). Alberta Premiers of the Twentieth Century. Regina, Saskatchewan: Canadian Plains Research Center, University of Regina. ISBN 0-88977-151-0.
• Mardon, Ernest; Mardon, Austin (1993). Alberta Election Results 1882–1992. Edmonton: Documentary Heritage Society of Alberta.
• Rennie, Bradford (2000). The Rise of Agrarian Democracy: The United Farmers and Farm Women of Alberta, 1909–1921. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, Incorporated. ISBN 0-8020-8374-9.
• Thomas, Lewis Gwynne (1959). The Liberal Party in Alberta. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9780802050830.
• Wardhaugh, Robert Alexander (2000). MacKenzie King and the Prairie West. Toronto, Ontario: University of Toronto Press, Incorporated. ISBN 0-8020-4733-5.