Not To Be Trusted With Knives

BC Premier #17 – Harlan Carey Brewster

July 19, 2009 by Beth

So it’s time for the 17th installment in my series on the Premiers of the Province of British Columbia.  And I have to tell you, this week’s entry, just like last week’s, is boring with a capital BORING.    You probably shouldn’t waste your time reading it. (Hopefully we’ll be getting to Wacky Bennett soon!)

	Name	Harlan Carey Brewster
	Born:	November 10, 1870 in Harvey, Albert County, NB
	Died:	March 1, 1918 in Calgary, AB
	Party:	Liberal
	Held Office:	September 14, 1916 – March 1, 1918

• held a variety of jobs including printer’s apprentice, purser¹ on a coal steamer, postmaster and manager of a salmon cannery
• Feb. 1907: first elected to provincial legislature
• 1909: one of only two Liberals elected¹
• March 1912: elected leader of Liberal party. And then lost his seat in the election
• 1916: returned to the legislature by winning a by-election, promising “promised more reforms, including improved workers’ compensation and labour laws, direct legislation, women’s suffrage, and the abandonment of machine politics and civil service patronage.”⁴.
• summer 1916: won the government with 36 of the 45 seats
• 5 April 1917: women gained the right to vote in BC elections and to be elected to the legislature (as voted for in a referendum)
• 1917: instituted prohibition (also a referendum)
• “brought in women’s suffrage, instituted prohibition, and combatted political corruption”
• 1918: while returning from his third meeting in Ottawa to discuss WWI with P.M. Borden and other premiers, he developed pneumonia and died in a Calgary hospital, where he had been taken from the train

In summary, as stated by the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online⁴, he was “one of British Columbia’s least-known premiers.”

Image credits: Accessed from Wikipedia. In the public domain. w00t!

Footnotes:
¹whatever that is
²The Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online (DCBO) ⁴says he “was the only “straight Liberal”” in the legislature at that time, so I have no idea who the other non-straight Liberal. The Wikipedia³entry lists the DCBO⁴ article as its only a source.
²more stuff

References:
³Wikipedia, the reference of that totally phones in their entry on Brewster.
⁴Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

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