John Edward Brownlee Sex Scandal - John Brownlee's Story

John Brownlee's Story

Brownlee denied absolutely MacMillan's claims. He said that there had been no sexual activity between him and MacMillan, likening their relationship instead to that of an uncle and his favourite niece. To claims that he had induced MacMillan to move to Edmonton and arranged a position for her in the Attorney General's office, he asserted "in the thirteen years I have been in public life I have never promised any person in this Province a position." He denied having convinced MacMillan to move to Edmonton and stated that he had not even known that she had done so until Christopher Pattinson, Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) for Edson, told him. He further claimed that his sex life with Mrs. Brownlee was what he would consider normal for a husband and wife (which was corroborated by his wife).

He acknowledged that he had been driving MacMillan around the evening of July 5, 1933, when he was followed by Caldwell and MacLean, but gave a dramatically different account of his reasons for doing so. According to him, there had been talk of MacMillan joining his family at their rental cottage at Sylvan Lake that weekend provided that she could get the necessary time off work, and that evening he called her to see whether or not she had been able to. During the ensuing phone conversation, MacMillan told him that she had other problems bothering her, and asked if Brownlee would take her for a drive to discuss them. He agreed to do so, and it was during this drive that he noticed that he was being followed.

In support of this story, Brownlee pointed to investigational work by Harry Brace, a private detective in the employ of Attorney General John Lymburn. According to Brace, Caldwell had told at least three witnesses that he expected to soon receive a large amount of money from someone "high up in political life". He also specifically told one of Brace's agents that he had deliberately set out to frame Brownlee, that in selecting Neil MacLean as his lawyer he had deliberately chosen a Liberal (the Liberals were considered the major opposition to Brownlee's government at the time), and that if the Liberals won the next election there would be "nothing I want I won't be able to get". Disappointingly for Brownlee, Brace did not uncover evidence that MacMillan was lying about the affair itself: Caldwell, based on his comments to Brace's men, seemed very much under the impression that the affair had occurred exactly as claimed. Moreover, Brace found that Carl Snell, MacMillan's one-time suitor, claimed to have been told in 1932 that MacMillan was having a consensual affair with the premier.

Brownlee's defenders called into doubt MacLean's motivation for involvement in the case: according to rumour, MacLean had been involved in a drunk driving incident several years previous in which he had driven his car into a ditch. When another motorist had pulled him out, MacLean had attempted unsuccessfully to drive away with the chains still attached to his vehicle, for which he was charged. He had reputedly asked Brownlee, then the Attorney General, to have the charges dropped. Upon Brownlee's refusal, he had allegedly vowed to "get" him. Finally, Brownlee made a point of noting that, as a medical student, Caldwell would have been well-positioned to coach MacMillan on her claims about the pills she was taking to avoid pregnancy. According to Brownlee, the events alleged were a complete fabrication, the result of scheming by an opportunistic young medical student and his impressionable girlfriend, encouraged by a vindictive lawyer and unscrupulous political opponents.