Thomas Walter Scott

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Thomas Walter Scott

Thomas Walter Scott (born October 27, 1867 in London Township , Ontario , † March 23, 1938 in Guelph , Ontario; also known as Walter Scott ) was a Canadian politician and journalist . From September 5, 1905 to October 20, 1916, he was the first Prime Minister of Saskatchewan and was instrumental in building the newly created province. He was also chairman of the Saskatchewan Liberal Party . From 1900 to 1905 he sat for the Liberal Party of Canada in the lower house .

Early life

Scott grew up in rural southwestern Ontario. In 1885 he moved to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba Province , where he began working as a journalist. In 1886 he settled in Regina , the then capital of the Northwest Territories . There he worked for the Regina Journal . From 1892 to 1893 he was a partner in the Regina Standard , then owner and editor-in-chief of the Moose Jaw Times . In 1895 he bought the newspaper Regina Leader (today known as Regina Leader-Post ) from Nicholas Flood Davin and was its editor-in-chief until 1900. Scott was married to Jessie Read; the couple had no children of their own, but adopted the wife's niece.

Founding of Saskatchewan

For the general election in 1900 , Scott ran as a candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada and beat the conservative incumbent Davin in the constituency of Assiniboia West. In the general election in 1904 he was re-elected. In discussions of the creation of provinces in the Northwest Territories, Scott initially supported the Territory Prime Minister Frederick Haultain's proposal to create a large province called Buffalo that would have included Alberta and Saskatchewan. However, he later advocated the two-provincial solution preferred by Wilfrid Laurier's liberal federal government.

In February 1905, the federal government introduced a bill with two provinces, which should be established on July 1, 1905. Due to strong opposition from the Conservatives, the implementation of the Saskatchewan Act was delayed by three months. In August 1905, the Saskatchewan Liberal Party held its inaugural meeting, and the delegates elected Scott as their party leader. Saskatchewan was founded on September 1st with Alberta. Five days later, Lieutenant Governor Amédée Forget appointed Scott as the new province's first prime minister.

First term

The first election to the Saskatchewan Legislative Assembly took place on December 13, 1905. Prime Minister Scott's Saskatchewan Liberal Party, with its election slogan Peace, Progress, and Prosperity , got around 52% of the electorate behind it and won 16 out of 25 seats. One of the most important issues during the first legislative period was the choice of the provincial capital ( Regina was only temporarily named capital). At the Liberal Congress, two thirds of the delegates voted for Saskatoon , but Scott was able to convince his supporters to definitely declare Regina the capital. On May 23, 1906, the legislative assembly passed a resolution with 21 to 2 votes.

Scott, who in addition to his work as head of government was also Minister for Public Works, began planning a parliament building in Regina. In June 1906 the cabinet agreed on the current location and decided to convert the surrounding area into a spacious public park. The Wascana Center is now one of the largest urban parks in North America with an area of ​​9.3 km². After an architectural competition, construction began in 1908 and lasted four years.

In 1907 Scott set up a commission to determine the form of local government. The Rural Municipality Act of 1908 created around 300 rural parishes, each of which was 324 square miles . They represent a form of organization that is otherwise only available in Manitoba . In addition, his government supported the expansion of the Canadian Northern Railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway , as well as roads and a telephone network.

The number of public schools rose from a good 400 to over 2,800. But while Scott tried to help neglected children and supported the Children's Protection Act , he was not interested in the conditions at the residential schools in which Indian children were held in a kind of boarding school against the will of their parents. The boarding schools were a legacy of Edgar Dewdney and were intended to raise children to become "civilized" Canadians.

In the winter of 1906/07, Scott suffered from severe pneumonia . After recovering, he would leave Saskatchewan every fall to spend a few months in places with milder climates during the winter.

Second term

Scott was confirmed as Prime Minister in the provincial election in August 1908. Despite a slightly reduced share, the Liberals again achieved an absolute majority of the votes and won 27 seats in the legislative assembly, which was expanded to 41 seats. In April 1909, Scott opened the provincial university , the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon , which had been promised in the 1905 election campaign .

Since he preferred a policy of decentralization, he consciously decided against the provincial capital Regina when choosing the location of the university. He behaved accordingly with other projects: The provincial psychiatric clinic was shut down in North Battleford in 1913 , and the provincial prison in Prince Albert in 1911 . In 1910, Scott set up a commission to deal with the important issue of grain silos (Saskatchewan is still largely agricultural today). The commission rejected the proposal to create state silos. Instead, she advocated silos owned and operated by farmers' cooperatives.

Third term

In the July 1912 election, the Liberals gained six percent and won 46 of 54 seats. From 1913, Scott also served as Minister of Education. In the dispute between the denominations and languages, between francophone Catholics and anglophone Protestants, he took a moderate position and could reach against sharp resistance Protestant circles that Catholic schools were supported with tax money and up to an hour a day lessons in French are held could.

After Manitoba introduced women's suffrage , Scott abandoned his hesitant stance and introduced it on Valentine's Day in 1916. In keeping with the zeitgeist of the time, the residents of Saskatchewan also called for alcohol prohibition to be introduced . Scott rejected this request, but scheduled a vote. In December of the same year, 80% of those eligible to vote, including women for the first time, opted for alcohol prohibition.

When issuing alcohol licenses and expanding the infrastructure, benefits and bribery are said to have occurred. A commission appointed came to the conclusion that no members of the government were guilty of corruption . But the allegations against the government were serious enough that Scott submitted his resignation on October 16, 1916; Another decisive factor was his poor health.

Scott spent his old age in Victoria , but his health did not allow him to return to work as a journalist. In 1935 he moved to a sanatorium in Guelph , where he died almost three years later.

literature

  • Gordon Barnhart : Peace, Progress and Prosperity: A Biography of Saskatchewan's First Premier, T. Walter Scott. Canadian Plains Research Center, Regina 2000. ISBN 0889771421 .
  • Gordon Barnhart: Saskatchewan Premiers of the Twentieth Century. Canadian Plains Research Center, Regina 2004. ISBN 0889771642 .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Scott, Thomas Walter
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Scott, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Canadian politician
DATE OF BIRTH October 27, 1867
PLACE OF BIRTH London Township , Ontario
DATE OF DEATH March 23, 1938
Place of death Guelph , Ontario