Vivian MacMillan's Story
According to Vivian MacMillan, when she met Brownlee in 1930 he told her that she would "grow up to be a beautiful woman", urged her to move to Edmonton, and offered to arrange a government job for her. He further offered to act as guardian to her and allow her to live in his house until she found a place of her own. On his advice and assurances, she moved to Edmonton and, after graduating from Alberta College, received the stenographer's position that she claimed had been arranged for her by the premier.
Immediately after her arrival in Edmonton, she said, Brownlee had telephoned her—commenting that "a little birdie" had told him that she was in town—and invited her to his home to meet his family; she soon became a regular visitor there. She alleged that in October 1930, while Brownlee was driving her home after one such visit, the premier took her hand and asked her what she knew "about life". On her response that she knew probably as much as any girl of eighteen, he invited her out the next evening for what she presumed would be some advice. Instead, he drove her 6 miles (9.7 km) west of town on Highway 16 and parked on a side road before asking her to have sex with him. He said that he had been madly in love with her from the start, that he was lonely, that he and his wife had not lived together as man and wife in a long time, that his wife (an invalid) would be endangered by a pregnancy, and that he could not be premier any longer unless MacMillan agreed to have sex with him. He told her that if she refused him, he would be forced to resume his sexual relationship with his wife, and that this would likely kill her. MacMillan reacted fearfully, and asked if there was anything else she could do to help Brownlee and his wife; he replied that there was not.
The next week on another ride home, a similar conversation ensued, this one culminating in Brownlee forcing a resisting MacMillan into the car's back seat where he partially penetrated her against her will. Two weeks later, she alleged, they had complete consensual intercourse. After, when she expressed concern about becoming pregnant, he told her that "he knew of some pills that he would give me and if I took them at the end of each month before I menstruated that they would be very safe and there would not be any danger of me becoming pregnant." MacMillan recounted that their relationship continued in this way, with sex occurring an average of three times per week. In September 1931, she stayed in the Brownlee house for three days while Mrs. Brownlee was in Vancouver; she alleged that during that time, Brownlee had his son, who usually slept in Brownlee's room, transferred to a different room so that Brownlee and MacMillan could have sex.
Some of MacMillan's most sensational allegations concerned a six-week period in the spring of 1932 when she was filling in at the Brownlee household for an absent maid. She said that she slept in the maid's room, one of three bedrooms on the second floor of Brownlee's house; a second room was occupied by Brownlee and his son Jack, and the third by Florence Brownlee and her son Alan. During this six-week period, she claimed, she and Brownlee had had sex every night; Brownlee would signal her to leave her room by turning on the tap in the second floor bathroom, and then flush the toilet and walk in lockstep with her to mask the sound of her movement. Once in the premier's room, they would have sex next to his sleeping son, taking care to be quiet. She recounted how on one occasion Jack had seemed to stir, and Brownlee had turned on the light in the middle of intercourse to make sure that his son was all right.
MacMillan said that during the summer of 1932 she experienced a nervous breakdown (for which Florence Brownlee paid the hospital bills), and that she met and fell in love with Caldwell soon after. She resolved to end her affair with Brownlee but he reacted angrily, telling her that it would mean his wife's death and MacMillan's inability to find a job anywhere in Alberta. That evening, she confided the affair to her landlady. On October 31, 1932, she had dinner with Brownlee's sons and visited Brownlee, who was sick in bed. Despite her protestations that she was on her way to a Halloween party with Caldwell, he insisted that they have sex, which they did. Thereafter, the affair resumed. On another occasion, he called her away from her visiting mother to have sex with him at the legislature building.
In late January 1933, Caldwell proposed to her. She broke down and told him of the affair. She described his reaction as sympathetic, though he rescinded the marriage proposal. In May, at Caldwell's urging, she consulted a lawyer, but continued the affair until July 5, the night of the fateful drive.
MacMillan testified that for the duration of the affair she continued to have sex with Brownlee "from terror and because he told me it was my duty to do it and he seemed to have an influence over me which I could not break." She claimed that there had been no love accompanying the sex, and that it had been physically painful for her on each occasion.
Read more about this topic: John Edward Brownlee Sex Scandal
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