George Brown (Canadian politician)

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George Brown (November 29, 1818 – May 10, 1880) was a Scottish-born Canadian journalist, politician and one of the Fathers of Confederation. A noted Reform politician, he was also the founder and editor of the Toronto Globe, which is today (having merged with other newspapers) known as the Globe and Mail.

Brown was born in Alloa, Clackmannan, Scotland, on November 29, 1818 and immigrated to Canada in 1843, after managing a printing operation in Boston. He founded the Globe in 1844, which quickly became the leading Reform newspaper in the Province of Canada. In 1848, he was named secretary of a commission of inquiry to investigate alleged abuses in the provincial penitentiary at Kingston. The Brown Report, which Brown drafted early in 1849, produced copious evidence of brutality and maladministration, and the existing warden, Henry Smith, was soon removed from office. Brown's revelations of poor conditions at the Kingston penitentiary were heavily critisized by John A. Macdonald and contributed to the tense relationship between the two Canadian statesmen.

Brown used the Globe newspaper to publish articles and editorials that attacked the institution of slavery in the southern United States. In response to the Fugitive Slave Law passed in the U.S. in 1850, Brown helped found the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. This society was founded to end the practice of slavery in North America, and individual members aided former American slaves reach Canada via the Underground Railroad. As a result, the African Canadian community enthusiastically supported Brown's political ambitions.

Brown was elected to the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada in 1851. He reorganized the Clear Grit (Liberal) Party in 1857, supporting, among other things, the separation of church and state and the annexation of the Northwest Territories, and a small government. But the most important issue for George Brown was what he termed Representation by Population, or commonly known as "Rep by Pop".

From the time of the Union Act in 1841, the Canadian colonial legislature had been composed of an equal number of members from Canada East (Lower Canada, Quebec) and Canada West (Upper Canada, Ontario). At the time of union in 1841, Francophone dominated Lower Canada had a larger population and it was hoped by the British colonial administration that the french in Lower Canada would be legislatively pacified by a coalition of English from Lower Canada with the Upper Canadian side. But during the 1840s and 1850s, as the population of Upper Canada grew larger than the french population of Lower Canada, the opposite became true. Rep by Pop would cure the democratic deficit by electing memebers of the legislature from equally populated ridings, rather than an equal number from Upper and Lower Canada.

For a period of 4 days in August of 1858, political rival John A. Macdonald temporarily ceded his power as premier, and Brown was the de facto premier of Canada West. The short lived administration was called the Brown-Dorion government, named after the co-premiers George Brown and A.A. Dorion. This episode was termed the 'double shuffle'.

[edit] Brown and Confederation

George Brown was a key figure in Canada's path to Confederation during the 1860s. In 1864, he led the Great Coalition with John A. Macdonald and George-Étienne Cartier. Later that year, Brown played a major role at the Charlottetown and Quebec Conferences. He resigned from the Coalition in 1865 over the government's position towards reciprocity with the United States.

In 1867, Brown ran for seats in both the Canadian House of Commons and, as leader of the provincial Liberals for a seat in the Ontario legislature hopefully as Premier but failed to win election to either chamber. He was widely seen as the leader of the federal Liberals in the 1867 federal election. The Liberals were officially leaderless until 1873, but Brown was considered the party's "elder statesman" even without a seat in the House of Commons, and was regularly consulted by leading Liberal parliamentarians.

Brown was made a Canadian Senator in 1873.

[edit] Brown's Post Parlimentary Career

Brown became a leading opponent of Macdonald's Conservative Party and a leader of the opposition Liberals. He lost much popularity, however, by tyrannically trying to crush a printers' strike in Toronto. He had the strikers jailed and fired. In response to these actions by his rival, Macdonald passed laws permitting trade unionism for the first time in Canada.

On March 25 1880, one of the former employees of the Globe, George Bennett, dismissed by a foreman for drunkenness, shot Brown in the leg at the Globe office in Toronto. What seemed to be a minor injury turned gangrenous, and weeks later on May 10, Brown died from the wound.

His residence, formerly called Lambton Lodge and now called George Brown House, at 186 Beverley Street in Toronto, was named a National Historic site in 1974. It is now operated by the Ontario Heritage Foundation as a conference center and offices.

Toronto's George Brown College is named for him. A statue of George Brown can be found on the front west lawn of Queen's Park. A large portrait of Brown also hangs in the upper lobby of the Ontario legislature.

[edit] External links

• Extensive site on George Brown offering biographies, Documents, Studies on Brown and Links
• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography Online
• Synopsis of federal political experience from the Library of Parliament
• An essay by Brown's biographer JMS Careless

Political offices
Preceded by Sir John Alexander Macdonald	Joint Premiers of the Province of Canada - Canada West 1858	Succeeded by Sir John Alexander Macdonald
Preceded by none	Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada West/Ontario Liberal Party 1857-1873	Succeeded by Archibald McKellar
Preceded by Robert Baldwin as Reformer Leader	Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada unofficial 1857–1873	Succeeded by Alexander Mackenzie

	Leaders of the Ontario Liberal Party
Brown | McKellar | Blake | Mowat | Hardy | Ross | Graham | MacKay | Rowell | Proudfoot | Dewart | Hay | Sinclair | Hepburn | Conant | H. Nixon | Hepburn | Oliver | Thomson | Oliver | Wintermeyer | Thompson | R. Nixon | Smith | Peterson | R. Nixon | Elston | Bradley | McLeod | McGuinty