William Ralph Meredith - Political Career

Political Career

Meredith had entered into politics in 1872 as a Conservative, when he succeeded Sir John Carling (whose daughter, Jessie, married his brother, Thomas) as London's representative to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. He was considered a radical by many Tories, but this didn't prevent him being named Deputy Leader of the Party in 1878 and after the retirement of John Hillyard Cameron the following year, without even the formality of a ballot, he was chosen as the Party's Leader. Charles Biggar, the biographer of Meredith's chief political rival, Sir Oliver Mowat, wrote,

There was no man in the ranks of the Opposition upon whom the choice could more worthily have fallen... Always ready in debate, and judicial in the tone of his arguments, he was a generous and formidable opponent. Especially in Committee of the Whole House, where details of legislation were worked out and party issues are for the moment forgotten, Mr Meredith's services to the Province were simply invaluable. His personal popularity was great. The "Montreal Witness", a Liberal Journal, declared him to be perhaps "the most popular public man personally we have ever had in Canada"; And the House testified its appreciation of his services by voting him a salary of $2,000 per annum, which, however, he declined to accept.

However, he was actively against women's rights. This was however somewhat counterbalanced by his progressive political philosophy towards the (albeit male) Native Americans, and the relief of male suffrage in his legislation in favour of worker's rights. See section on Workers' Compensation and The Meredith Principles. Despite this and other succeses under Meredith's leadership, the Conservatives never reached power. Meredith saw his position as a part-time commitment (he had a full-time legal practice in Toronto) and Prime Minister Sir John A. Macdonald's conservative hard-line approach caused Meredith many embarrassments. But, to a greater extent his lack of real political success was a direct result of the superior political skill of the Liberal leader in power, Sir Oliver Mowat.

Meredith's disagreements with Macdonald culminated in his and his immediate friends refusing to take part in Macdonald's electoral campaign of 1891. Considered as one of the best campaign orators, Meredith's decision caused both shock and disappointment within the Tory ranks. Meredith saw Macdonald's campaign, led by Sir Charles Tupper, as "a slanderous crusade against his fellow countrymen".

Though the Merediths were Anglo-Irish, his paternal grandmother was from a prominent Catholic family in Ireland, and as such the Catholic population in Ontario had initially hailed Meredith as one of their own. But in his later political years, Meredith felt that Mowat's Liberals were granting 'humiliating concessions' to the Catholic minority, and this led to his final political demise. As a matter of conscience and increasingly frustrated by Macdonald's refusal to listen to him, Meredith launched an attack on what he saw as unfair advantages enjoyed by the separate Catholic schools. He denounced the Catholics' rights to a guaranteed seat on all secondary school boards and the use of unapproved texts in separate schools. In comparison to The Toronto Mail his attacks were measured, but it was enough to draw the wrath of the Catholic population who immediately swung their support firmly behind the Liberals.