Not To Be Trusted With Knives

Sir Richard McBride, the 15th Premier of the Province of British Columbia.

	Name	Sir Richard McBride, KCMG
	Born:	December 15, 1870 in New Westminster, BC
	Died:	August 6, 1917) in London, UK
	Party:	BC Conservative
	Held Office:	June 1, 1903 – December 15, 1915

• considered the founder of the (now pretty much defunct¹) BC Conservative Party
• September 1887: went to Dalhousie Law School. While there, he did really well in the mock Parliament and, in a bit of foreshadowing that my grade 9 English teacher would have loved, he was the mock Parliament Premier in his third year
• 1896: ran in the federal election for the oddly named Liberal-Conservative party (no idea who their opponents were), but lost
• 1898: elected to the provincial legislature in the Westminster-Dewdney riding; given the nickname “Dewdney Dick”
• 1900: appointed to Dunsmuir’s cabinet as the Minister of Mines, having done a bunch of legal work sorting out mining claims in the mining boom in the northwest part of the province during recess between legislative sittings;
• fall 1900: elected president of the BC consverative organization (not Party, ‘cuz they didn’t quite have provincial parties yet)
• September 1901: he resigned from Dunsmuir’s cabinet when Dunsmuir appointed a Joseph Martin ally to his cabinet, as Dunsmuir had said he was going to work against Martin
• Feb 1902: chosen to be the leader of the Opposition
• Sept 1902: not re-elected as the president of the provincial Conservative organization, but since the guy who was elected didn’t have a seat in Legislature, he remained the leader of the Opposition.  This led to…
• June 1, 1903: appointed Premier by the Lieutanent Governor. He felt that the no-party system was lame, so he declared his administration to be a Conservative Party one (which seems slightly odd, given that he was specifically not elected as the leader of the Conservatives, but so it was) and that he’d fight the fall election as the Conservative Party
• October 3, 1903: won the first partied² Government with a two seat majority (22 of 42 seats).  This party tried “to stablize the economy by cutting spending and raising new taxes”⁵ and implemented “progressive reforms of the province’s labour law”⁵- you know how Conservatives love labour and higher taxes³.  Also, like many politicians of the time I’m discovering as I write this series of blog postings, he was a big fat racist who called for “a halt to Asian immigration”⁶
  

  “He shared the widespread belief in “a white B.C.,” called for “Mongolian exclusion,” and sought to shut out the “Asiatic hordes.” His particular concern was “cheap” Japanese labour competing in the fisheries and in “everything the white man has been used to call his own.” He endorsed anti-Asian measures in order to bring the “Asian problem” to the attention of eastern Canadians, and he employed the federal government’s repeated disallowance of the province’s legislation on the matter, notably the so-called Natal Acts which imposed a language test on prospective immigrants, in his “Fight Ottawa” crusade. After the Conservatives formed the federal government in 1911, he urged Borden to honour a promise to legislate against immigration from Asia. By then McBride also perceived a Japanese military threat.”⁶

  On the other major racial issue that seems to come up in this period of BC history:

  “McBride’s approach to Indian peoples, whom he had known from his boyhood and legal practice and with whom he could converse in Chinook Jargon, was paternalistic. As a young lawyer he got a charge of murder reduced to manslaughter because his drunken client “was an Indian.” He believed the Indians had “been treated fairly and equitably,” and thought they “should play a very important part in the material advancement and welfare of the community.””⁶

• 1907: won another election, this time with 26 of the 42 seats
• 1908: decided that the province should have its own provincial university (UBC, which opened in 1915), because Conservatives love higher education³, and promised more railway lines
• 1909 & 1912: kicked serious ass in these elections, which 38 of 42 seats and 40 of 42 seats, respectively.
• was BFFs with Robert Borden’s federal Tories
• during WWI: in response to rumours of German ships in the North Pacific, he bought two submarines from Seattle and then sold them to the federal government at the same price for which he bought them. He was accused of making some coin on the transaction, but a Royal Commission “determined that the whole transaction was “of blameless character””⁶
• in addition to his racism, he was also sexist and “never believed”⁶ in women’s suffrage
• 1915: called an election for April 10, then three days later postponed it indefinitely under the dubious explanation of “unexpected difficulty in revising the voters’ lists and getting ballot boxes to remote areas”"⁶
• 1915: UBC opened
• as seems to be the downfall of many early BC politicians, the railway did McBride in. An economic downturn along with “mounting railway debts”⁵ caused the people to like his government a lot less, so he resigned as Premier on December 15, 1915 and became BC’s rep in London, UK.
• 1917: having suffered from nephritis and diabetes for several years, McBride went blind (presumably from the diabetes, not the nephritis)
• 1917: died in London, less than three months after resigning. His body was returned to Victoria, BC for burial.
• things that are named after him: the town of McBride, BC; the McBride River in Northern BC; Sir Richard McBride Elementary School in Vancouver⁴.

In summary, a racist and a sexist (though both of those seemed to be quite common at the time), McBride did very well in politics when times were good, but didn’t seem to have the skills to pay the bills when times went bad.  Also, I suppose I have him to thank for the creation of one of my alma maters, UBC.

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

Footnotes:
¹It’s not totally defunct, as you do see candidate running on the Conservative banner in elections, but I don’t I’ve seen a Conservative party candidate win an election in the entire time I’ve lived in BC. And really the conservatives MLAs are all hiding over in the BC so-called-Liberal Party.
²Is *too* a word.
³I wish there were an “I’m joking” font…
⁴This is where I’ve heard of him. I used to run a science outreach program that put volunteers into elementary schools to teach science to the kids, so I know the names of most of the schools in Vancouver.

References:
⁵Wikipedia, the reference of that also likes to party party.
⁶Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online

Wow, I’ve been a total slacker in writing entries on my BC Premiers series lately.  I haven’t actually written one in more than a month.  I blame the economy. And the prorogation of Parliament.

Anyway, I’m back.  And I’m back with the eleventh Premier of the province of British Columbia – Charles Augustus Semlin.

	Name	Charles Augustus Semlin
	Born:	4 December 1836 near Barrie, Upper Canada
	Died:	2 November 1927 in Cache Creek, British Columbia
	Party:	none
	Held Office:	15 August 1898  – 27 February 1900.

• had a lot of different types of jobs:
  • quit his job as a school teacher in Barrie, Upper Canada to try his hand a prospecting in the gold rush, but, not being very good at it, he became a packer (like, he carried other people’s stuff for them), followed by managing a roadhouse and ranch
  • I guess he liked running a roadhouse, ‘cuz then he bought one (1865)
  • But I guess he liked being a rancher more, ‘cuz then he traded the roadhouse for a ranch (1870)
  • in addition to ranching, he was the first postmaster in Cache Creek, became a school board member, became an MLA and got Cache Creek a school, which turned out to be controversial and closed in 1890; but then he became a school trustee for the school district created in the region after the school he got started was shut
• he doesnt’ seem to have been a very good politician:
  • his entry to provincial politics in 1871 was kind of messed up: he was tied for third in a three-member riding, so the returning officer put their names in a hat, drew Semlin’s name and declared him the third MLA for the riding. Awesome.
  • he ran unsuccessfully in the next two elections (1875 and 1878), but then won his seat back in 1882 and retained it for the next four elections (1886, 1890, 1894, and 1898)
  • 1894: became leader of the opposition after the election of 1894, although he was widely recognized as being rather meh as a leader. Yes, meh is a word.
  • 1898: Premier Turner failed to win a clear majority, so Lieutenant Governor Thomas Robert McInnes kicked out Turner and asked Beaven to form a government. Sure Beaven didn’t even win his own friggin’ seat, but this didnt’ appear to matter to McInnes.  Not-so-surprisingly, Beaven couldn’t get enough support to form a government (did I mention that he didn’t even win a seat?), so McInnes asked Semlin, being the ineffectual leader of the opposition from the last government, if he could form a government.  And Semlin did, so then he was the Premier. Some other dudes were trying to put together a provincial Liberal party (remember, they still didn’t have political parties at this point), but they didn’t have it together yet and so weren’t asked to form the government.
  • Semlin was, did I mention, a pretty meh leader and that, combined with infighting within his Cabinet and Semlin’s attempts to initiate a bunch of reforms (people hate that) meant for a short lived (18 month) premiership for Semlin.
  • A speech given by his Attorney General, Joseph Martin, ended in a brawl that had to be broken up by the cops and Semlin demanded Martin’s resignation. So Martin was pissed at Semlin and joined the opposition.  This resulted in Semlin receiving a vote of non-confidence, but asked Lieutenant Governor McInnes for a some time to prove he could regain the confidence of the house, which he did by getting some opposition ministers to to join him. But the McInnes, who apparently liked doing weird things, ignored Semlin’s newfound confidence and asked Martin to form a government.  Which pissed off the MLAs, so they voted Martin out in no-confidence.  So, basically, it was a really big shit show. So they had an election in 1900 (in which Semlin didn’t run) and, when the dust cleared, Dunsmuir became the next Premier.
  • Semlin won a by-election in 1903, but then didn’t run in the 1903 general election. Then ran and lost in 1907.
• And now a tidbit about his personal life:
  • Although he didn’t marry, he raised a daughter, ironically named Mary.  Her mother, according to the 1881 census, was a First Nations woman named Caroline Williams, who lived with Semlin and used the last name Semlin, but was not married to him.

In summary, he had a lot of jobs, he was a meh politician and his daughter was a bastard.

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

Wikipedia, the reference that has a grand total of seven sentences about Charles August Semlin.
Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online