Political Career
Political Career
The Right Honourable James Garfield (Jimmy) Gardiner, P.C.
Gardiner’s political career began when he became a Liberal candidate in December 1913. He was elected to the Saskatchewan legislature in 1914 and, in 1922, appointed to the cabinet. He became Premier in 1926; was leader of the Opposition from 1929 to 1934; and Premier from 1934 to 1935, when he entered federal politics at the urging of Mackenzie King. From 1935 until 1957, Gardiner held the position of Minister of Agriculture. During 1940-41, he also held the portfolio of Minister of National War Service. His tenure as a Minister of Agriculture for 22 years is a record length for any Canadian to hold a cabinet portfolio.
Government of Saskatchewan
Gardiner was MLA in Saskatchewan from 1914 to 1935. In the spring of 1922, Premier C.A. Dunning formed his first government with Gardiner as Minister of Highways and Minister in charge of the Bureau of Labour and Industries. When Dunning stepped down from office to enter the federal cabinet, Gardiner was unanimously chosen to be Liberal leader. As Premier, he also held the post of Provincial Treasurer.
Gardiner considered the Liberal Party to be Saskatchewan's socially progressive party, having introduced cooperative grain elevators and creameries, farm loans, hail insurance, a government telephone system, old age pensions, municipal health and hospital units, and free TB treatment. Many of these advancements in social and economic policies were created by the Gardiner governments of 1926-1929 and 1934-1935. Other initiatives included the Civil Service Superannuation Act of 1927, and the establishment of a Debt Adjustment Board. Other policy proposals called for unemployment insurance and the extension of state medicine, but the great depression and WW II sidelined many social reforms.
A major factor that contributed to the fall of the Gardiner government of 1926-29 was Gardiner's support of a multi-cultural Canada, which came from his personal beliefs about religion and ethnicity. The late 20s to early 30s was one of the most vicious electoral periods in Saskatchewan. This was the period when even the right of Catholics to hang a crucifix in catholic schools was a major issue in Saskatchewan. There were, in Saskatchewan alone, over a hundred Ku Klux Klan chapters with tens of thousands of members. The KKK targeted the Catholic, Jewish and French communities, burned crosses in Saskatchewan, and threatened Gardiner’s life. He led the fight against the KKK, and against religious and ethnic intolerance. Because he supported the rights of Catholics and others to freely practice their faith, parish priests, and heads of other faiths, were known to direct their adherents to vote for Gardiner. Opponents accused him of supporting ethnic and religious elements which would undermine the school system and Saskatchewan’s way of life. The issue was associated with the fall of his government to a Conservative coalition government, referred to as the Cooperative government, after the 1929 election when the Liberals won 28 seats, the Conservatives 24, the Progressives 5 and Independents 6. Thus, while some Canadian leaders were flirting with the KKK and with eugenics, Gardiner was defending human rights; while the KKK held rallies and burned crosses, he stood firm. Gardiner resumed the premiership in 1934.
Gardiner also played a role in the formation of the United Church and was an active member in the church until his death in 1962. As a churchman and politician in Saskatchewan’s formative years, he understood that Church Union was needed for Protestant churches to survive the challenges of the great migration to the sparsely populated northwest of Canada. He helped organise church unions, and was Treasurer of the Union Churches for the Prairie Provinces. In 1925, Gardiner was one of ten delegates who represented the Western Union Churches at the first General Council of the United Church of Canada. His last address at General Council was in 1938.
In non-agricultural economic matters, two particular items stand out. Gardiner was responsible for the Natural Resources Transfer Agreement of 1930: He fought for (conceded at a Dominion-Provincial meeting in 1927) and negotiated the Act that gave Saskatchewan, Alberta and Manitoba natural resource rights, and put them on a level playing field with all earlier partners of confederation. The transfer of jurisdiction over crown lands has been acknowledged as the most significant single economic event of Saskatchewan’s modern history. Gardiner’s government made the decision to have a public, rather than private, power utility and established the Saskatchewan Power Commission.
Parliament of Canada: Constituencies of Assiniboia, 1936-40, and Melville, 1940-1958
The second half of Gardiner’s political career was in the federal government with Mackenzie King and St. Laurent. He was urged by Mackenzie King to join his federal cabinet in November, 1935. After the general election of January, 1936, he became Minister of Agriculture and held that portfolio for 22 years.
In response to the plight of the Prairie farm community during the 1930s, Gardiner was able, through a restructured and enhanced PFRA and creation of the PFAA, to focus programs on the problems faced by Prairie farmers, and particularly those in the Palliser Triangle. He led efforts to rejuvenate Prairie soils and rebuild the Prairie economy through farm assistance. The 1937 reorganisation of the Agriculture Department led to four operating services - production, marketing, experimental farms and science. The Prairie Farm Assistance Act, which provided insurance for crop failure, became effective in 1939.
The Minister of Agriculture was a major posting prior to and during WW II. Gardiner created administrative structures which managed Canada’s contribution of agricultural products, foodstuffs, and other materials to Europe and the allied forces. As Minister of War Services, Gardiner achieved his greatest administrative feat. As Canada’s first Minister of National War Services, he with his chosen Deputy, Justice Davis, assembled a team of 200,000 unpaid workers to register and create a skills bank of virtually all permanent residents sixteen years of age and over within a six week period in 1940. Following the war, Gardiner played a key role in the formation of the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.
Gardiner was dedicated to the harnessing of the water resources of the South Saskatchewan River and forwarded the project to build what is now known as the Gardiner Dam. During the 1950s, the actions to promote this project were a joint endeavour by Gardiner and T.C. Douglas. Gardiner dealt firmly with agricultural challenges such as ‘hoof and mouth’ disease. Canada became successful in securing international wheat agreements.
Gardiner organised Liberal federal election campaigns from the mid 1920s through to the 1950s. When Mackenzie King failed to secure his seat in the 1925 election, Gardiner arranged for the MP from Prince Albert to step down and oversaw the 1926 by-election which saw King elected. King held that seat from 1926 through 1945, when he was defeated in the seventh PA election. Gardiner ran for the Liberal Party leadership in 1948, losing to Louis St. Laurent. His only electoral loss was in the 1958 Diefenbaker sweep.
