John Campbell Bowen (October 3, 1872 – January 2, 1957) was a clergyman, insurance broker and long serving politician and government official in Alberta, Canada. He served as an alderman in the City of Edmonton and went on to serve as a member of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta from 1921 to 1926, sitting with the Liberal caucus in opposition. He also briefly led the provincial Liberal party in 1926.
Bowen served as the sixth and longest-serving lieutenant governor of Alberta from 1937 to 1950.
Early life
John Campbell Bowen was born in Metcalfe, Ontario, on October 3, 1872. He was the son of Peter Bowen and Margaret Poaps, and grew up in Ottawa.
He took his post-secondary education at Brandon Baptist College, where he earned a degree in theology, and also at McMaster University. After university he moved west to Dauphin, Manitoba, to become the pastor of the Baptist church in that town. He married Edith Oliver on October 25, 1906. He also got into the insurance business.
Bowen won election to the Alberta Legislature in the 1921 Alberta general election and decided not to run for re-election in the municipal election that year. He failed in his re-election bid in the 1926 Alberta general election when Edmonton seats were filled using the single transferable voting election system, and then returned to municipal politics by winning an aldermanic seat in the 1927 Edmonton municipal election held using the single transferable voting election system.
Bowen ran for mayor in the 1928 Edmonton municipal election after serving only one year of his two-year term as alderman. He was defeated by incumbent mayor Ambrose Bury in a close two-way race.
Provincial
Bowen was elected to the Alberta Legislature as a Liberal candidate in the electoral district of Edmonton in 1921. He won the second of five seats that were filled in a contest between 26 candidates, under the plurality block voting system. In his maiden speech to the legislature, Bowen brought attention to the need for increased government assistance for the unemployed and for adjustment to the taxation system to reduce the financial burdens facing urban centres.
In 1926 Bowen briefly held leadership of the Alberta Liberal Party and also became Leader of the Official Opposition in Alberta. Bowen ran for re-election in the 1926 Alberta general election but was not re-elected.
Bowen attempted a political comeback five years later. On December 19, 1930, he won the Liberal nomination for a by-election in the Edmonton electoral district on January 9, 1931. Bowen defeated Joseph Clarke for the right to stand as the Liberal candidate, at a convention attended by almost 200 delegates with a vote of 98 to 54. He was defeated in the election, coming in third place in the field of four candidates - Conservative candidate Frederick Jamieson won the seat.
Lieutenant governor
On March 23, 1937, following the sudden death in office of his predecessor, Philip Primrose, Governor General the Lord Tweedsmuir, on the advice of Prime Minister Mackenzie King appointed Bowen as the sixth lieutenant governor of Alberta.
One of Bowen's first acts as Lieutenant Governor on May 1, 1937, was an order in council regarding the "resignation or retirement" of William Chant, Minister of Agriculture, after Premier Aberhart requested Chant's resignation to implement a "more aggressive" Department of Agriculture. It was the second occasion in Alberta where a lieutenant governor removed a cabinet minister from office, after Charles W. Cross was removed as attorney general by Robert G. Brett in 1918. and was heavily criticized by the government and by some members of the public, who appeared at the door of Government House, threatening the governor and his family. The three bills were later declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of Canada and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. In 1938, Bowen threatened to dismiss Aberhart's government, which would have been an extraordinary use of his reserve powers. The Social Credit government remained immensely popular with the Albertans, however, so the threat was not carried out.
In the summer of 1938 Aberhart's government announced the elimination of Bowen's official residence, his government car, and his secretarial staff. Biographers attribute this action to retaliation by Aberhart. For a time, Bowen defiantly remained in Government House, despite the power, heat, and telephone service being cut off by the government. Eventually, however, after being forced to sign an order-in-council closing Government House, Bowen moved to a suite at the Hotel Macdonald. The building, the furniture, and fixtures were subsequently sold, and Bowen was the last lieutenant governor to officially reside at Government House. Bowen would eventually move into a home in Edmonton's Glenora neighbourhood.