Life and Career
Gardiner was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan in 1914, and served as Minister of Highways (1922–26) in the government of Premier Charles A. Dunning from 1922 until succeeding Dunning as Premier in 1926. A highly partisan Liberal, his government lost its majority in the legislature in the 1929 election due to patronage scandals. Although the Conservative Party had won fewer seats, it was able to form a "co-operative government" with the support of some Progressive Party and independent Members of the Legislative Assembly.
As Leader of the opposition, Gardiner accused James Anderson's Conservative government of bigotry, alleging that it was linked with the Ku Klux Klan. Gardiner defeated Anderson in the 1934 election, and became Premier a second time. In 1935 he was involved in negotiations to end the On-to-Ottawa Trek in Regina.
Gardiner left provincial politics later in 1935 to join the federal cabinet of Liberal Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King as Minister of Agriculture. He was elected to the House of Commons a few months later. Gardiner held the agriculture portfolio for twenty-two years until the 1957 federal election when the Liberal government was defeated. He was a powerful figure in both the King and St. Laurent governments.
In 1947, he was sworn into the Imperial Privy Council, allowing him use of the prenominal honorific The Right Honourable.
Gardiner ran for the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada at the 1948 Liberal leadership convention, but lost to Louis St. Laurent. He remained in the Canadian House of Commons until he lost his seat in the 1958 Diefenbaker sweep.
Gardiner was married three times: first to Rosetta Jane Gardiner in 1912, then to Violet McEwen in 1917 and finally to Isabella (Scott) Christie in 1944. His son James Wilfrid served in the Saskatchewan assembly.
Saskatchewan's Gardiner Dam is named after him.
In 2006, the CBC agreed to pull the movie Prairie Giant: The Tommy Douglas Story from all broadcasts in response to criticism about its portrayals of Gardiner. This controversy is ongoing, and the show may be altered to exclude Gardiner or come with a disclaimer.
Read more about this topic: James Garfield Gardiner
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