John McDowell (September 16, 1894 – June 10, 1980)
Early life and education
The son of John McDowell and Janet Shaw, McDowell was born in Greenock, Inverclyde, Scotland and immigrated to Canada with his family in 1895. He was educated in Toronto, Ontario.
Career
McDowell worked as a grain dealer, and was president of McDowell Grain Co. Ltd and Ridgewood Development Co. Ltd. He was also on the board of governors of the Winnipeg Grain Exchange.
Manitoba Assembly
He was first elected to the Manitoba legislature in the 1945 provincial election, in the constituency of Iberville. At the time, Manitoba was governed by a coalition ministry of Liberal-Progressives and Progressive Conservatives. McDowell ran as an Independent Progressive Conservative supporting the coalition,
No by-election was called for Iberville, and the seat remained vacant until the 1949 provincial election, held several months after the federal campaign. McDowell ran to succeed himself, and won re-election as an Independent Progressive Conservative opposing the coalition.
He was a forceful debater, and once described the CCF as "a demoralized race, fighting with the wind, soon to be gone with the wind".
McDowell was a supporter of Errick Willis in the party's 1954 leadership convention, and opposed Dufferin Roblin's leadership of the Manitoba Progressive Conservative Party. When Roblin's government enacted progressive legislation in 1958, McDowell dismissed the party as the "Progressive Conservative Commonwealth Federation". McDowell himself declined to be a candidate in the 1958 election.
He came out of political retirement to run in the federal election of 1968, opposing Roblin as an Independent Conservative in Winnipeg South Centre. He received 632 votes.
Death
McDowell died at the King George Hospital in Manitoba in 1980.