Mitchell Hepburn

Mitchell Frederick Hepburn
Mitch; "boy from Yarmouth"
Born	1896-08-12 Yarmouth Township, Ontario
Died	1953-01-05 Yarmouth Township, Ontario
Occupation	Farmer; politician; Premier of Ontario
Father	William Frederick Hepburn
Mother	Margaret Jane Fulton
Partner	Eva Maxine Burton

Mitchell Frederick Hepburn ((1896-08-12)12 August 1896 – 5 January 1953(1953-01-05) (aged 56)), popularly known as Mitch, was a Canadian farmer and politician who served as the 12th Premier of Ontario from 1934 to 1942, and as the leader of the Ontario Liberal Party from 1930 to 1943. He was the only Ontario Liberal leader between 1905 and 1985 to lead the party to electoral victory, doing so twice with solid majorities.

Early life

Hepburn was born on 12 August 1896 in Yarmouth Township, Elgin County, Ontario. His paternal grandfather had emigrated from Scotland to Elgin County in 1843 and established himself as a prosperous farmer. His father, William Frederick Hepburn, was informally adopted by the patriarch and followed the Liberal Party, though he withdrew from a 1906 federal candidacy amid personal scandal. His mother, Margaret Jane Fulton, had spent time in Minnesota before returning to Ontario with her children around 1910. Hepburn attended schools in the St Thomas area, where he gained an early reputation for mischief, reportedly being suspended for hitting a dignitary with an apple. He left school at sixteen to work as a clerk at the Merchants' Bank of Canada, later transferring to the Canadian Bank of Commerce. When his mother briefly reconciled with his father in Winnipeg around 1913, Hepburn followed.

Military service

Already a volunteer with the 34th (Fort Garry) Horse, Hepburn was initially unable to enlist due to his age and his parents' refusal. After the outbreak of World War I, he transferred to the Royal Air Force for training in Deseronto, Ontario. An automobile accident and a bout of influenza kept him from active overseas service. On 11 September 1918 he married Eva Maxine Burton in St Thomas, Ontario. Their two biological children, one stillborn and one who died in infancy, were later supplemented by the adoption of one son and two daughters.

Federal political career

His grandfather gifted him 200 acres of farmland, and by the mid-1920s Hepburn had become a prosperous progressive farmer. He became involved in the United Farmers of Ontario, serving as secretary of his local riding association. After the UFO government's 1923 defeat, he returned to Liberal Party activity.

In the 1926 federal election — held on his 30th birthday, 12 August — he won the riding of Elgin West as an independent Liberal, defeating incumbent Conservative Hugh Cummings McKillop by 178 votes in an upset result. He cultivated appeal among UFO supporters and railway workers by campaigning on tariff and freight-rate reduction.

In parliament, Hepburn initially threatened to cross the floor to the Progressives, but after consultation with Prime Minister King he settled into the role of constructive backbencher. He gained notice for a 1928 budget speech denouncing a Sun Life Assurance Company recapitalization bill as "stock-watering." He won re-election during the 1930 federal election despite the targeted efforts of Conservative Premier George Howard Ferguson.

Ontario Liberal leadership and the road to power (1930–1934)

With provincial Liberals having been out of office since 1905 and devastated by their 1929 defeat, the party sought a charismatic new leader from outside the small Queen's Park caucus. Prime Minister King opposed drafting his unpredictable junior colleague, fearing the loss of a federal seat in a subsequent by-election. At a December 16, 1930 provincial Liberal convention in Toronto, Hepburn defeated Elmore Philpott decisively after his main rival, William Edmund Newton Sinclair, withdrew. At 34, he became the youngest Liberal leader in Ontario's history.

Over the next three years, Hepburn rebuilt the provincial party. Though retaining his federal seat, he concentrated most of his energy on provincial matters, seeking to unite farmers and workers against Conservative Premier George Stewart Henry's government. During a 1932 by-election in York West, he declared: "I swing well to the left, where even some Liberals will not follow me." His health was a recurring concern; he had a kidney removed in June 1931, and his convalescence alternated between Florida and his farm. Three defining issues shaped his pre-election strategy: hydroelectricity contracts, the sale of beer and wine, and Catholic school tax support. In mid-May 1934, when the legislature dissolved and an election was called for June 19, Hepburn resigned his federal seat to run provincially in Elgin.

Premier of Ontario (1934–1942)

First term (1934–1937)

The 1934 election campaign was bitterly fought. Henry ran on his government's record; Hepburn attacked alleged Conservative corruption and administrative bloat, pledging to auction the government's fleet of limousines. The Liberals, together with Progressive and UFO allies, won 70 of 90 legislative seats with just over half the popular vote. At 37, Mitch Hepburn became Ontario's youngest premier.

Sworn in with his cabinet on 10 July, Hepburn kept his promise and auctioned eighty-seven government automobiles at the University of Toronto's Varsity Stadium. He appointed Toronto barrister Arthur Wentworth Roebuck as attorney general and labour minister, and David Arnold Croll — the former mayor of Windsor and Ontario's first Jewish cabinet minister — as head of public welfare and municipal affairs. Hepburn served as his own provincial treasurer throughout his premiership.

Early economy measures included a 20-percent ministerial salary cut. High-profile Conservative appointees were dismissed, including George Drew from the Ontario Securities Commission chairmanship. Ontario House in London was closed. In his first budget of April 1935, Hepburn halved the inherited deficit through spending cuts and increased gasoline and estate taxes, aided by dedicated civil servant Chester Samuel Walters.

The most controversial legislation of the first session was Bill 89, the Hydro-Electric Power Commission Act, 1935, introduced by Attorney General Roebuck to repudiate hydroelectricity contracts the previous government had signed with four Quebec companies, after 26 hours of non-stop debate.

Other notable achievements included placing the Dionne quintuplets — born near Callander in May 1934 — under provincial wardship; passing the Industrial Standards Act establishing minimum wages; and new welfare legislation creating province-wide eligibility standards. Hepburn also campaigned energetically in the 1935 federal election, traveling over 10,000 miles and delivering more than 65 speeches nationwide; King's Ontario caucus grew from 22 to 56 seats as a result.

The 1936 session was dominated by Catholic school tax reform. Hepburn introduced legislation establishing municipal corporate tax divisions reflecting the province's religious composition, forcing it through his caucus at 5:00 a.m. on April 9 after a week of heated debate. The measure proved administratively complex, and Hepburn later quietly increased provincial grants to Catholic schools to achieve the same purpose without further controversy.

Labour relations and the Oshawa Strike (1937)

By 1937, Hepburn had grown openly hostile to the American Committee for Industrial Organization (CIO), convinced it would destabilize Ontario's economy. His position came to a head in Oshawa, where 4,000 General Motors of Canada workers walked out on April 8 after management refused to recognize their United Automobile Workers of America local, a key CIO affiliate. Hepburn encouraged management to stand firm, requested Royal Canadian Mounted Police reinforcements, and when the federal government was slow to respond, ordered the Ontario Provincial Police to recruit hundreds of special constables, quickly dubbed "Hepburn's Hussars" or "Sons of Mitches." His hard line divided the cabinet; he demanded the resignations of Attorney General Roebuck and Labour Minister Croll, who opposed his actions. Croll famously replied: "My place is marching with the workers rather than riding with General Motors." A settlement was eventually reached, with both sides claiming victory.

During the strike, on April 18, Hepburn publicly warned that the CIO would "never get their greedy paws on the mines of Northern Ontario" as long as he remained premier. He secretly offered Conservative leader William Earl Rowe a coalition government — an overture Rowe declined after consulting colleagues — motivated apparently by a desire both to present a united front against the CIO and to hasten the political departure of Prime Minister King.

1937 election

Though only three years into his mandate, Hepburn called a snap election for October 6, 1937. The Liberals marginally increased their popular vote and lost only a couple of seats. Hepburn was at the peak of his political career.

Feud with Mackenzie King

Relations between Hepburn and Prime Minister King deteriorated sharply through 1937 and 1938 over a series of clashes: the appointment of a new lieutenant governor, the closing of Chorley Park (the vice-regal residence), and the federal government's refusal to permit provincial hydroelectricity sales to New York State. In a Toronto speech shortly after the Oshawa strike, Hepburn declared: "I am a Reformer. But I am not a Mackenzie King Liberal any longer."

Animosity reached a public flashpoint at a Port Arthur federal nomination meeting for transport minister Clarence Decatur Howe on December 10, 1938, when King's labour minister Norman McLeod Rogers denounced an alleged Hepburn–Duplessis conspiracy to topple the prime minister. Hepburn denied the charge but did not conceal his contempt for federal policy.

World War II and the January 1940 motion

When war broke out in September 1939, Hepburn placed Ontario on a wartime footing and initially cooperated with Ottawa. However, frustrated by what he saw as the federal government's lack of urgency, and encouraged by his periodic ally George Drew, on January 18, 1940, Hepburn moved — without consulting his cabinet or caucus — a resolution declaring that the federal government had "made so little effort to prosecute Canada's duty in the war in the vigorous manner the people of Canada desire to see." The motion passed 44 to 10, but split his own party; ten backbenchers voted against it and 22 abstained. Rather than damaging King, the motion gave him grounds to call a snap federal election in March 1940, which the Liberals won decisively.

1941 Rowell-Sirois Conference

At the January 1941 dominion-provincial conference to discuss the Rowell-Sirois Commission report — which proposed sweeping centralization of fiscal powers — Hepburn became the leading champion of provincial rights. He ridiculed the report as the work of "three professors and a Winnipeg newspaper man" and, joined by Alberta Premier William Aberhart and British Columbia Premier Thomas Dufferin Pattullo, forced the conference's collapse by refusing to discuss it. Had he called a provincial election on provincial rights that spring, observers believed he might have won.

Resignation (1942)

Bored with a premiership diminished by the wartime transfer of taxation authority to Ottawa, Hepburn resigned suddenly on October 21, 1942, designating attorney general Gordon Daniel Conant as his successor while agreeing to remain as provincial treasurer. The arrangement unravelled when Conant accepted Hepburn's cabinet resignation on February 28, 1943, after Hepburn publicly charged the federal government with employing "Hitler's Nazi tactics." A leadership convention in April 1943 chose Harry Nixon as the new provincial Liberal leader.

Return and final defeat (1943–1945)

Hepburn returned to the legislature after the August 1943 provincial election — in which the Liberals were reduced to 15 seats — having won his Elgin seat as an independent Liberal. He remained outside the caucus for over a year, then rejoined and was named house leader. He helped bring down George Drew's minority Conservative government by supporting a CCF no-confidence motion in spring 1945, then launched an ambitious Liberal campaign for the June 4, 1945 election. The party was poorly funded and organizationally weak; only 14 Liberals were elected. Hepburn himself was defeated in Elgin by Conservative Fletcher Stewart Thomas. At 48, his political career was over. He returned to his Bannockburn farm in Elgin County, stating he would "listen to the grass grow."

Death

Hepburn died in his sleep on 5 January 1953 at his Bannockburn farm in Yarmouth Township — the same property on which he had been born. He was 56 years old. His funeral was held at Knox Presbyterian Church in St Thomas, attended by five Ontario premiers, past and present.

Thunder Bay connection

Hepburn's most direct connection to the Thunder Bay region came in December 1938, when he attended a federal Liberal nomination meeting in Port Arthur for transport minister Clarence Decatur Howe. At that meeting, King's labour minister Norman McLeod Rogers publicly accused Hepburn of conspiring with Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis to undermine Prime Minister King — an episode that laid bare the depth of the internal Liberal feud. Charles Winnans Cox, a member of Hepburn's cabinet from 1936 to 1937, later represented the riding of Fort William at Queen's Park and served as mayor of Port Arthur, keeping a direct personal connection between the Hepburn era and the Thunder Bay region.

Hepburn also made his famous April 1937 declaration that the CIO would "never get their greedy paws on the mines of Northern Ontario" as long as he remained premier, a statement directly aimed at protecting the mining economy of the region around Thunder Bay and across the north.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography