George Alexander Drew (May 7, 1894 – January 4, 1973) was a Canadian politician. He served as the 14th premier of Ontario from 1943 to 1948 and founded a Progressive Conservative dynasty that would last 42 years. He later served as leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party and Leader of the Official Opposition from 1948 to 1956.
Early life
Drew was born in Guelph, Ontario, the son of Annie Isabelle Stevenson (Gibbs) and John Jacob Drew. He was educated at Upper Canada College and graduated from the University of Toronto, where he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity (Alpha Phi chapter). He then studied law at Osgoode Hall Law School. He served with distinction in World War I as an officer in the Canadian Field Artillery. After the war, he became lieutenant-colonel of the 11th Field Brigade and later honorary colonel of the 11th Field Regiment, Royal Canadian Artillery. He was the author of a book about Canadian aviators in World War I, "Canada's Fighting Airmen."
He was called to the bar in 1920. He married Fiorenza Johnson (1910–1965), daughter of Edward Johnson, who was a noted opera singer (tenor) and later general manager (1935–1950) of the Metropolitan Opera House, in New York City.
First term
Drew won by responding to the mood of the times and running on a relatively left-wing platform, promising such radical reforms as free dental care and Medicare. His government did not implement much of its promised platform (including Medicare or free dental care), but it established the basis for the Tory regimes that followed by trying to steer a moderate course.
Education
His government introduced the Drew Regulation in 1944, which made it compulsory for Ontario schools to provide one hour of religious instruction a week. By religious instruction, Drew meant the "instruction in the tenets of the Christian faith", a measure that was considered to be anti-Semitic by Ontario's Jewish community. Rabbi Abraham Feinberg led the opposition to the Drew regulation and said that it was "undemocratic, imperiling the separation of Church and State, and leading to disunity in society."
Relationship with federal government
Drew was strident in his criticism of the federal government of Mackenzie King, attacked its leadership in the Canadian war effort, chastised it during the Conscription Crisis of 1944 for not instituting full conscription, and accused it of attempting to centralize power.
1945 election
thumb|left|Drew (at the centre) at the Dominion-Provincial Conference on Reconstruction
During the spring 1945 Ontario election, Drew ran a red-baiting campaign against the CCF's Ontario section. The previous two years of anti-socialist attacks by the Conservatives and their supporters, like Gladstone Murray and Montague A. Sanderson, were devastatingly effective against the previously popular CCF. Much of the source material for the anti-CCF campaign came from the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP)'s Special Investigation Branch's agent D-208: Captain William J. Osbourne-Dempster. His office was supposed to be investigating wartime fifth column saboteurs. Instead, starting in November 1943, he was investigating, almost exclusively, Ontario opposition MPPs and mainly focused on the CCF caucus. The fact that Jolliffe knew about these 'secret' investigations as early as February 1944 led to one of the most infamous incidents in 20th-century Canadian politics.
The accusation led to Drew ordering the LeBel Royal Commission to investigate the charges made by Jolliffe. The charges stemmed from Ontario's Official Opposition Leader Jolliffe, during the election campaign. He made the allegations during a campaign radio speech on 24 May 1945. and heard final arguments on 20 July 1945. The report was issued on 11 October 1945, with LeBel agreeing with much of what Jolliffe charged but ultimately ruling that the Premier did not have a secret political police reporting to him, mainly due to the lack of direct documented evidence. In the late 1970s, that documented evidence was found, but the provincial government at the time considered the case closed.
The Conservatives got their majority, as they crushed the CCF on 4 June 1945. Drew's party won 66 out the 90 seats in the legislature and reduced Jolliffe's CCF to just 8 seats, which also meant that it was no longer the Official Opposition.
Second term
Hydro
Drew's government insisted on spending $400 million in a ten-year program to convert Ontario's electricity system from 25 cycles per second (hertz) to 60, which would standardize it with the rest of North America. The standardization allowed the province to join the North American power grid to easily import and export electricity, a prerequisite for the province's industrial development. Drew, a committed British imperialist, focussed on attracting British immigrants because he felt they were "the right class of people" to bring to Canada.
Spending
Drew's government also increased funding for roads and highways and also increased funding for schools by increasing the provincial government's share for education spending from 15% to 50%. Drew blamed a supposed future communist takeover of Ontario on the failure of Ontarians to re-elect him.
Federal politics
While it would have been easy enough for Drew to re-enter the legislature by running in a by-election, Drew decided to enter federal politics. "Colonel Drew" (as he liked to be called) won the 1948 federal Progressive Conservative leadership convention, defeating John Diefenbaker on the first ballot.
Progressive Conservative Party Member of Parliament (MP) George Russell Boucher resigned his Carleton seat so that Drew could then contest it in a by-election in order to enter the House of Commons. The federal Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was determined to defeat him, so they ran Eugene Forsey as their candidate. Bill Temple was brought up from Toronto to appear at a political meeting in Richmond, Ontario's Town Hall, where Forsey and Drew were speaking. He accused the Tory leader of being "a tool of the liquor interests" and also made suggestions about Drew's sobriety. As leader of the federal Progressive Conservative Party and now an MP, he became Leader of the Opposition.
In the 1949 and 1953 federal elections, Drew's Tories were defeated handily by the Liberals, led by Louis St. Laurent. As a federal politician, Drew alienated potential supporters in Quebec when it was remembered that he had called French-Canadians a "defeated race". This rhetoric may not have been as damaging among some English-Canadian voters when he had been a provincial politician, but it was now used against him by his federal opponents. His support for conscription during World War II also hurt his prospects among French-Canadian voters. He ran against Forsey again in the Carleton district and defeated him by an even wider margin on June 27, 1949.
Drew led the PCs into one more general election in 1953, with slightly better results than the previous election. In poor health following a nearly fatal attack of meningitis, Drew resigned as Progressive Conservative leader on September 21, 1956, and was succeeded by John Diefenbaker. On 12 December 1956 he received the Key to the City of Ottawa.
Later life
From 1957 to 1964 he served as Canadian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom and meanwhile worked with the newspaper baron and fellow Canadian Lord Beaverbrook in an attempt to influence British public opinion against joining the European Common Market, which Drew saw as a threat to the British Commonwealth.
Drew served as the first Chancellor of the University of Guelph from 1965 to 1971. In 1967, "for his services in government," he entered the newly created Order of Canada as a Companion. In November 1972, he had a heart attack and was admitted to Wellesley Hospital on November 19. His condition worsened due to congestive heart failure, and he slipped into and out of consciousness in late December and early January. He requested not to receive a state funeral and had a public family funeral in Toronto. He was buried in his family's plot, next to his first wife, Fiorenza Johnson, in the Woodlawn Cemetery in Guelph.
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Archives
George Drew Archives are held at Library and Archives Canada and the Archives of Ontario.
Books and articles
Electoral record (federal)
References and notes
External links
- George Alexander Drew at Canadian Encyclopedia (archived)