17th Parliament of Ontario

17th Parliament of Ontario
← 16th 18th →
Ontario Legislative Building ca. 1948
Overview
Legislative body	Legislative Assembly
Jurisdiction	Ontario, Canada
Meeting place	Ontario Legislative Building
Term	February 2, 1927 – September 7, 1929
Election	1926 Election
Government	Ferguson ministry (Conservative)
Members	112
Speaker	William David Black
Premier	Howard Ferguson (Conservative)
Leader of the Opposition	W.E.N. Sinclair (Liberal)
Party control	74 / 112(66%)

The 17th Parliament of Ontario (or the 17th Legislature of Ontario, as it was known then) was the legislature of Ontario that was in office between December 1926 and October 1929. Its composition was initially determined by the 1926 Ontario general election held on December 1, 1926. Ontario voters re-elected the incumbent Conservative government headed by Premier Howard Ferguson in that election with a substantial majority mandate.

When the dust settled in the days following the 1926 election, the incumbent Conservative government led by Premier Howard Ferguson had undisputedly secure a resounding mandate for his plan to repeal the Ontario Temperance Act and to implement a government controlled liquor retail system. Well over 70 members of his Conservative Party were elected to the new house with 112 seats.

While the overall big picture was abundantly clear, the finer details such as the exact seat counts or the precise make up of the opposition bench was less clear for a number of reasons unique to this election:

• Independent candidates (7 elected) - The principal campaign issue in the 1926 election was the government's plan to end prohibition in Ontario. The issue caused factures among both the governing Conservative Party and the Liberal Party. The incumbent Liberals who were "wet" contested the election as "Independent Liberal" candidates to signal their support for the government's plan and alignment with the opposition Liberals on other issues. Other candidates campaigned as independent-hyphen candidates to broaden their electoral appeal, most with tacit concurrence of their own party. Of the seven members who were elected independent labels, only one of them faced competition from a formally sanctioned candidate from their own party.
• Prohibitionist candidates (3 elected explicitly as such) - The Ontario Prohibition Union, the leading pro-temperance force in the 1924 Ontario prohibition referendum, operated as a militant political action committee in putting forward candidates pleadged to the dry cause in all electoral districts. While in some districts they put forward their own straight prohibitionist candidates, in most cases they broker agreements among pro-temperance candidates whether through a heavy hand behind closed door or through facilitating formal primary ballots. In a small number of districts, they even backed dry Conservative candidates, the most prominent candidate being former Attorney General William Nickle who resigned from the Ferguson ministry at the eve of the election call. Some of the candidates endorsed by the Union sought to highlight the endorsement by adding the prohibitionist, including three elected members.
• Progressive and United Farmer candidates - The members from the earlier United Farmer-Labour government joined forces and rebranded themselves as the Progressive Party. Two incumbent split off and resume their old United Farmer label upon the election of William Raney a non-farmer, as party leader. Many press report simply classified them all as Progressive Party candidate, even thought some of them explicitly repudiated the party. Many Progressive Party candidates campaigned by stressing presenting themselves as farmer candidates, adding to the confusion.

• Liberal-Progressive and Progressive-Liberal candidates - in most electoral districts, the local Liberal Party and Progressive Party associations were able to reach agreements to field not both field candidates, thanks in large part to aggressive pressuring from the Ontario Prohibition Union. In some instances, the agreed upon candidate received the formal endorsement from the other party, and campaign as jointly nominated candidates. Press report immediately following the election identified five such candidates.^[6][7]

The main press outlets reported slightly different numbers on the day after the election. All outlets treated the Liberal-Progressives and the Independent Liberals as distinct categories, but did not report separate tallies for the United Farmers, or the members elected wiht additional Prohibitionist or independent labels.

Two Conservatives, four Liberals, and one Progressive members were returned after having campaigned with the independent labels in addition to their party label. Two Liberals members were returned after having campaigned as Liberal-Prohibitionist. These members all joined their parties' rank in the legislature as expected without controversy. The four Liberals in particular campaigned with the independent labels due to their stance as "wet". They supported the government's implementation of liquor control but sat with the Liberals in the legislature and voted with their Liberal peers on issues other than temperance and liquor control.

Four returned members campaigned as Liberal-Progressive or Progressive Liberals: David Munroe Ross and Merton Elvin Scott, the pair returned for Oxford, and William Newman and Frederick George Sandy, the pair for Victoria. A fifth member, John Henry Mitchell of Simcoe Southwest, was erroneous identified as Liberal Progressive by press reports, and declared his Liberal partisan affiliation in his maiden speech.^[8][9] Ross and Sandy, along with Dufferin member Thomas Slack, were previously part of the United Farmer government. The three joined the vast majority of their former colleagues and sat as Progressives. Scott, who served as mayor of Ingersoll prior to be elected, was well known as a Liberal partisan and joined the Liberal caucus as expected. This leaves William Newman, who was elected as a fusion candidate (as he called himself as such) and wished to remain affiliated with both groups. The clerk of the legislature however advised him that he must opt to sit behind one of the two party leaders. Newman opted to sit with the Liberals with the intention of supporting both leaders where possible.^[8]

A month following the opening of the parliament, on March 9, 1927, Waterloo South member Karl Kenneth Homuth formally joined the Conservative caucus.^[a] After the conclusion of the first session, Progressive leader William Raney resigned his seat upon his appointment to the Supreme Court of Ontario in September 1927, and was succeeded by John Lethbridge as Progressive Party leader. Conservative Horace Stanley Colliver, who held the seat prior to the 1926 election and lost to Raney by less than half of percentage point, recaptured the seat in the subsequent by-election and took his seat at the convening of the second session.

The election of Progressive Member Malcolm Alex McCallum was annuled by the Supreme Court of Ontario after it ruled McCallum and the President of South Bruce Prohibition Union committed the corrupted act of bribery by incentivizing the Progressive candidate to withdraw from the contest by reimbursing his campaign expense. The ruling was upheld upon appeal, leading to McCallum being unseated in November 1927. His seat remain vacant for the entire second session as the byelection to fill the seat was not held until June 1928.

Conservative Alexander Stuart died on the second last day of the second session, becoming the fifth representative for Renfrew North to died in office. Conservative Leeming Carr, a minister without portfolio, resigned in May 1928 to accept the appointment to be Sheriff for Wentworth County. He was the fourth and last member of Ferguson's cabinet to resign.

By-elections for the three vacant seats were held in June 1928, all won by Conservative candidates. Among those elected was Edward Arunah Dunlop, who previously held the Renfrew North seat from 1902 to 1908 and again from 1911 to 1919 and whose father was among the former Renfrew North members died in office. He and Premier Ferguson were among the ardent young turks when Premier James Whitney led the Conservative to power for the first time in 34 years. He was immediatel the third most senior member of the legislature upon his election as member for Renfrew North for the third time, and joined the Ferguson ministry as a minister without portfolio a day before the third session convened, and would be promoted by Ferguson to be Treasurer following the subsequent election. Dunlop did not escape the curse of the Renfrew North seat however. He was the sixth and last member for Renfrew North to died in office, and the second and to date last finance minister to died in office.

Three more members resigned after the conclusion of the third sessions.

Consistent with the usual practice in the first half of the twenties century, the 17th Parliament sat for three months in the early month of each year, in the following three sessions.^[10]

Government			Opposition
	George V (1910–36) King of the United Kingdom [b]
	Henry Cockshutt (1921–27) William Ross (1927–31) Lieutenant Governor
		William David Black, Addington Speaker
Premier Conservative Party Leader		Howard Ferguson Grenville		W.E.N. Sinclair Ontario South	Leader of the Opposition Leader, Liberal Party (interim)
Acting Premier Conservative Party de facto deputy leader		George Stewart Henry York East [c][11][12]		Alexander Mewhinney Bruce North	Whip, Liberal Whip
Chief Government Whip Conservative Whip		William Henry Ireland Hastings West[13]		William Edgar Raney Prince Edward	Progressive Party Leader
				John Giles Lethbridge Middlesex West
				John Wesley Widdifield Ontario North[14][15]	Progressive Whip
				Leslie Warner Oke Lambton East	United Farmers Leader

The class of 1926 included the following notable members.

• W.A. Baird, High Park - was the last mayor of Toronto Junction before it was annexed by Toronto in 1907
• Thomas Farquhar, Manitoulin - a Mayor of Sault Ste. Marie prior to his election, his political career spanned four decades including services in the House of Commons and then Senate until his death, his resignation from the Commons provided Nobel Laureate and future prime minster Lester Pearson his entry into Parliament
• William Martin, Brantford - a Methodist Church minister, later served as Minister of Welfare and Minister of Public Works in the Henry ministry, and as a Manitoba MLA.
• Farquhar Oliver, Grey South - the youngest member in this parliament at age 22, later served as Minister of Public Works and Welfare in the Hepburn and Nixon ministries, and was deputy premier to Nixon; led the Ontario Liberal Party over three stints (1945–50, 1954–58, 1963–64) during its lengthy period in opposition
• Paul Poisson, Essex North - a WWI veteran who was awarded the Military Cross, later served in the Henry ministry as a minister without portfolio
• Frederick Thomas Smye, Hamilton West - appointed to the Ferguson Ministry in March 1929, and served until his death a year and a half later

⁂ Members who served in the Ferguson ministry (during this parliament) § Party leaders in this parliament

• Members in Parliament 17 Archived 2011-06-11 at the Wayback Machine