Hepburn, King, and the Rowell-Sirois Commission

Abstract

FEW POLITICAL CAREERS IN CANADIAN HISTORY have equalled in drama, turbulence, and general interest hat of Mitchell Frederick Hepburn sometime Premier of Ontario, gentleman farmer, Liberal orator, and politician extraordinaire. No Ontario premier since Confederation has cut as vigorous, flamboyant or, indeed, enigmatic a figure as Elgin County's most famous and most controversial native son. It might truthfully be said that a knowledge of the record of Hepburn's tenure as premier of the nation's most populous province is indispensable to an understanding of the course of Canadian politics in the 1930's. Bearing directly on this point is the fact that after 1935 perhaps the most consistently important aspect of Hepburn's career was the growing split, both personal and political, between himself and Mackenzie King. In the federal election 'campaign of 1935, Mitchell Hepburn, as premier of Ontario, had put his political reputation and drawing power squarely on the line and stumped the breadth of Canada for Mackenzie King and the federal Liberals, travelling over ten thousand miles and making sixty-five speeches in six weeks? Yet King in 1940, on hearing that Hepburn had contracted yet another attack of bronchial pneumonia, was prompted to write in his diary, don't often wish that a man should pass away but I believe it would be the most fortunate thing that could happen at this time. 2 The complete split between Hepburn and King, both of whom were in power at the time, both of whom were Liberals, presents a situation unique in Canadian political history. Each came to despise the other with a fierce intensity.