First Administration
The new province's first election was held on December 13, 1905. (Scott had arrived in Regina on December 13, 1886, so the day held sentimental value for him.) Scott's Liberals ran under the slogan "Peace, Progress, and Prosperity." Scott easily retained the premiership, with his Liberals winning 16 seats in the provincial legislature, while Haultain's newly-created Provincial Rights Party won only 9. (Though the popular vote was closer than this would indicate, with 52% of the vote going to the Liberals and 47% to the PRP.)
Saskatchewan's first legislative session was convened at the end of March 1906. The major issue dominating this first session was the selection of a capital city. (Regina had only been named temporary capital.) Scott had assumed that Regina would remain the capital, but in May – at a secret meeting of the Liberal caucus – Scott was shocked to learn that two-thirds of his caucus supported moving the capital to Saskatoon. Scott insisted on Regina, though, and his caucus eventually fell in line – when the Liberal MLA from Saskatoon, W.C. Sutherland, introduced a resolution to move the capital to Saskatoon on May 23, 1906, the motion was defeated by a vote of 21 – 02 in the legislature.
Scott, who was the Minister of Public Works in addition to serving as Premier, now began a search for a suitable location for the new Legislative Building. In late June 1906, his cabinet formally approved the location of the current Legislature, and agreed to develop the area around the Legislature into a public park (Wascana Park), which is today the largest urban park in the world. Following a design competition, the commission for the new Legislative Building was awarded to Maxwells of Montreal in December 1907.
In 1907, Scott appointed the province's first Royal Commission, the Municipal Commission, to study the issue of local government. This resulted in the Rural Municipality Act of 1908–9, which created nearly 300 Rural Municipalities (a form of local government unique to Saskatchewan and Manitoba) which are each 324 square miles (840 km2) in area.
A third major policy initiative during Scott's first premiership involved telephone service. In 1907, the government appointed telephone expert Francis Dagger to study the issue, and the result, in 1908, was Saskatchewan's famous solution of letting rural residents form mutual or co-operative companies to provide local phone services.
This government also concerned itself with transportation. In 1906, the Scott government spent nearly $100,000 on highway construction – a figure which would increase tenfold over the course of Scott's first term in office. Furthermore, in 1909, the government agreed to back railway construction bonds (up to a limit of $13,000/mile) to encourage the Canadian Northern Railway and the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway to build new lines in Saskatchewan. By the time of the Great War, this programme had created more than 1,000 miles (1,600 km) of new rail track in the province.
The Scott administration also undertook a major expansion of public education in Saskatchewan. Between 1905 and 1913, the number of public schools jumped from 405 to 2,747. Normal schools were opened in Regina and Saskatoon.
Scott was also very interested in higher education, having promised the creation of a provincial university during the 1905 election campaign. In spring 1907, the legislature passed the University Act, designed to create a university for the province. In August 1908, Walter Murray, a philosophy professor from the Maritimes, was appointed as the first president of the new institution, although the site of the university had not yet been determined.
During the winter of 1906-07, Scott suffered a bout of pneumonia. From this point on, he left the province every fall in search of a warmer setting. In total, he spent approximately half of his tenure as premier outside of the province.
Read more about this topic: Thomas Walter Scott