Description
Book SynopsisOn a promise of 'Clean, Uncorrupt, and Incorruptible Government,' James Pliny Whitney marked the end of an era of Liberal rule that had lasted for over three decades, and introduced to the province a new, 'progressive' brand of conservatism.
As this lively biography demonstrates, Whitney was a gruff and forceful leader. He had a keen understanding of the social and technological forces that were changing Ontario so dramatically in the early twentieth century; he also understood, better than the Liberals, the political implications of those forces. The policies of his government extended to hydroelectric power, bilingual schools, northern development, automobile regulation, temperance (he dealt with the advocates of prohibition 'through gritted teeth'), imperial unity, housing, workmen's compensation, and the suffrage movement. (In a lapse from progressiveness, he argued that women should not be exposed to 'the unlovely influence of party politics.') He had a lasting influence
