Charles Avery Dunning

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Charles Avery Dunning

Charles Avery Dunning (born July 31, 1885 in Croft , Leicestershire , England , † October 2, 1958 in Montreal , Québec ) was a Canadian politician and farmer . From April 5, 1922 to February 26, 1926, he was Prime Minister of Saskatchewan Province and Chairman of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party . He then went into federal politics and sat from 1926 to 1930 and from 1935 to 1940 for the Liberal Party of Canada in the lower house. For a total of seven years he was Minister of Transport and Finance in the federal government of William Lyon Mackenzie King .

Early life

Charles Dunning grew up in the English county of Leicestershire and worked in an ironworks. In 1902, at the age of 17, he emigrated to Canada and worked as a laborer on a farm near Yorkton . A year later he let his family join them and together with his father set up their own farm near Riversdale . In 1913 he married Ada Rowlatt; the couple had two children.

During his brief career as a farmer , Dunning was involved with the Saskatchewan Grain Growers Association (SGGA), one of Canada's first agricultural cooperatives to advocate centralized marketing of wheat. At the 1910 general assembly he was elected director. He managed to raise enough capital to build grain silos. In the following year he was promoted to managing director of SGGA. By 1916, 230 cooperative silos had been built in Saskatchewan. Dunning established hail insurance in 1917 , which still exists today as the Saskatchewan Municipal Hail Insurance Association .

Provincial politics

Dunning turned to politics. In 1916 he ran a by-election for a seat in the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly and was elected. The liberal government of Thomas Walter Scott found itself increasingly confronted with allegations of corruption. In several Canadian provinces, the liberals came under increasing pressure from agrarian-populist movements such as the United Farmers or the Progressive Party .

Scott's successor William Melville Martin , however, succeeded in integrating the representatives of the discontented rural population into the Saskatchewan Liberal Party . So he appointed Dunning Treasurer ( Treasurer ) of the province. In the 1917 election, the Liberals won an overwhelming victory. In 1919 Dunning was given additional responsibilities as Minister of Agriculture. When Martin actively campaigned for the Liberal Party of Canada before the general election in 1921 , he turned many peasant representatives against him. To avert a break in the party, he resigned on April 5, 1922. Dunning was elected as the new chairman and sworn in as the new prime minister by the lieutenant governor .

In 1924, after a referendum, Dunnings' government lifted the alcohol prohibition that had been introduced eight years earlier because it could not be implemented. However, it regulated consumption by introducing state liquor stores. In 1925, Dunning led the Liberals to another provincial election victory. As the influence of the Progressive Party began to wane again, it took on greater influence over federal politics and reestablished the formal ties between the liberal parties at the provincial and federal levels, which had been completely separated in 1920.

Federal politics

At the beginning of 1926 Dunning received an offer to participate at the federal level in the liberal minority government of Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King . He resigned as head of government on February 26, 1926, won a by-election in the Regina constituency a few weeks later and was immediately appointed Minister for Railways and Canals.

By the end of June 1926, King was no longer able to continue to rule due to a bribery scandal. However, Governor General Julian Byng refused to dissolve parliament and call for a new election, which sparked the King Byng affair . The Conservatives around Arthur Meighen then formed a new government and Dunning was now in the opposition. But just three months later, the conservative government lost a vote of no confidence in parliament and had to resign itself.

After the early elections in September 1926, the Liberal Party again formed a minority government. Dunning was able to resume his ministerial office; however, he was re-elected in Regina by just 900 votes. The most important project during his tenure was the construction of the Hudson Bay Railway to Churchill in northern Manitoba . After the opening of this railway line and a port in Churchill in 1931, the sea route to Liverpool was shortened by around 1,600 kilometers.

In November 1929, Dunning became Minister of Finance. Since he was also interested in foreign policy, he was a member of the Canadian delegation to the League of Nations . In the 1930 general election , the Liberals suffered a defeat and Dunning lost his seat. He went into business and restructured, among other things, an ailing subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway .

After King became Prime Minister again in 1935, he pressured Dunning to return to government. A Liberal MP in Prince Edward Island Province vacated his secure seat and Dunning easily won the by-election. In October 1935 he resumed his work as Minister of Finance. In 1938 he suffered a heart attack and was only able to carry out his work to a limited extent. Finally, in September 1939, he resigned as a member of the Cabinet and remained in the House of Commons until January 1940.

further activities

After his final retirement from politics, Dunning settled in Montreal . He has served on the boards of numerous companies. During the Second World War he headed the National Committee for War Credits and the state-owned company Allied Supplies Limited, which manufactured ammunition and explosives on behalf of the British government. From 1940 until his death he was Chancellor of Queen's University in Kingston .

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personal data
SURNAME Dunning, Charles Avery
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian politician
DATE OF BIRTH July 31, 1885
PLACE OF BIRTH Croft , Leicestershire, England
DATE OF DEATH October 2, 1958
Place of death Montreal , Quebec