1st Premier of Saskatchewan, Canada. A member of the Liberal Party, he served as Saskatchewan's first Premier from September 1905 until October 1916. Born in London Township in rural southwestern Ontario, Canada he moved to Portage la Prairie, Manitoba in 1885. The following year he moved to Regina, the capital of the Canadian Northwest Territories where he worked for and then ran a number of Grit newspapers. From 1892 until 1893 he became a partner in the Regina Standard newspaper and from 1894 to 1895 he was the owner and editor of the Moose Jaw Times, after which he purchased the Regina Leader (known today as the Regina Leader-Post) and was its editor until 1900. That year he ran as a Liberal in the federal riding of Assiniboia West and was elected to the Canadian House of Commons and was re-elected in 1904. During the discussions about creating provinces out of the Northwest Territories, he initially supported territorial Premier Frederick Haultain's proposal to create one big province (to be named "Buffalo") out of what is today Alberta and Saskatchewan, but then converted to the two-province option favored by Sir Wilfrid Laurier's Liberal government. In February 1905 the Canadian government introduced legislation to create the provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan effective on July 1, 1905. The legislation was not passed later in July and September 1 was set as the date of provincial autonomy. In August 1905 he was named Premier of Saskatchewan, with its capital in Regina, and sworn in the following month. He also served as its Minister of Public Works until 1916. In 1907 he appointed the province's first Royal Commission, the Municipal Commission, to study the issue of local government, that resulted in the Rural Municipality Act of 1908-1909, which created nearly 300 Rural Municipalities. His administration also undertook a major expansion of public education in Saskatchewan, and between 1905 and 1913, the number of public schools jumped from 405 to 2,747. In the spring of 1907 his government passed the University Act, designed to create a university for the province. In August 1908 he was re-elected as Premier of Saskatchewan and his government passed the Children's Protection Act to care for neglected and dependent children. In April 1909 the government decided to locate the new University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon. The following year he appointed another royal commission, the Magill Commission, to study the issue of grain elevators and the commission rejected proposals to create government-owned elevators, opting instead for a system of elevators owned and operated co-operatively by farmers. In 1912 he was elected to a 3rd term and in 1913 he also served as the Minister of Education. Concerning the issue of women's suffrage, in 1914 he felt the citizens of Saskatchewan did not support such a measure, but when the neighboring Province of Manitoba enacted women's suffrage in late 1915, he followed suit and introduced legislation in February 1916 that gave women the right to vote. In October 1916 he stepped down as Saskatchewan's Premier due to his increasing bouts of depression which led to emotional outbursts and allegations that members of the Liberal Party legislators had been receiving kickbacks for highway work, liquor licenses, and public building contracts. A Royal Commission was appointed, and several Liberal legislators were indicted and eventually convicted. Upon leaving office, he traveled and ultimately settled in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He died at the age of 70.