From a Conservative website:
"Frank Oliver started Edmonton's influential newspaper the Edmonton Bulletin in 1880. He promoted Conservative party causes and disliked anyone who did not speak English, especially the French and Ukrainians. Elected to the national Parliament, Oliver became Minister of the Interior and reduced support for European immigration"
This is either a mistake or propaganda, or both.
Oliver was a Liberal party MP, sitting in the House of Commons from 1896 to 1917. He pursued Liberal goals such as defending small farmers of the North-West from eastern manufacturers. These manufacturers were charging high prices and were defended by the Conservative Party's National Policy and its high tariff on lower-priced imports from the U.S. His newspaper was so strident in support of the Liberal Party that Conservatives started the Edmonton Journal to be their mouthpiece.
As federal Minister of the Interior, he encouraged immigration. Many Ukrainians were among the hundreds of thousands of immigrants that arrived each year during his oversight of this important aspect of Canadian settlement.
During World War I, he seconded a motion by Wilfred Laurier, leader of the Opposition, that the wartime Unionist government should not bring in forced conscription into the Canadian army if it did not have approval of the people of Canada as proven in a referendum. The motion was voted down by the reigning Unionists MPs.
This happened in June 1917. A few months later Oliver ran for re-election in the Edmonton district. Forced conscription of men into the Canadian army was a major issue in this election, and Oliver running as a Laurier Liberal was vocally against it.
(His personal sacrifice had been great in the war -- he had lost a son and at the time had another son serving.)
Oliver's anti-draft stand was very popular in the Edmonton district. He received more votes than any other candidate. However the Conservative-led Union (coalition) government of Borden allocated the votes cast by soldiers in such a way as to give the Edmonton Unionist candidate William Griesbach the most votes and the seat. (Griesbach later was appointed a Conservative Senator.)
Oliver backed farmers against rapacious corporations. He fought for fair treatment of farmers by the Conservative Party's creation, the Canadian Pacific Railway.
At the same time, he showed himself without sympathy in his statements concerning Native groups in the Edmonton area (such as in Edmonton Bulletin, April 15, 1882). The Papaschase band and the Enoch band all suffered while he was the local representative. Perhaps this is referred to when it is said that Oliver promoted Conservative Party policies.
When he could tar the Conservative government for maltreatment of the First Peoples, his newspaper was clear in accusations against the Conservatives for breaking Indian treaties and of its disrespectful treatment of Metis' rights as inhabitants prior to Confederation.
An example of this is the July 25, 1885 issue when the Edmonton Bulletin placed blame for the 1885 uprising at Batoche on Macdonald's government authorizing a colonization corporation to take land from the Metis at Batoche.
Oliver's newspaper stated support for the Metis resistance against the Conservative government, stating "There is an old saying and more true than old - 'The subject who is truly loyal to the chief magistrate will neither advise nor submit to arbitrary measures.'" Surely not Conservative Party messaging!
Thank you for reading.
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There is outrage nowadays (circa 2023/2024) against Frank Oliver, but like most of us he was a man of his times.
As an elected politician he was even more a man of his times than most.
Did anyone run against him on a more-Native-friendly platform? I have seen no evidence of that. In the LIberal versus Conservative fight that was prevalent at the time, he was a spokesperson for the little guy of any race.
While McDouagall bought and sold Metis Scrip, Oliver called out the federal government for causing 1885 rebellion.
In 1888 he ran against Samuel Cunningham, 1885-1888 sitting member in NWT Council for St. Albert. Did Cunningham take any stand in favour of Native rights? In 1885 Cunningham had fought in the government side in the 1885 rebellion. A few years later Cunningham helped interpret the negotiation of Treaty No. 8.
In 1904 Oliver ran against Richard Secord. Secord made a fortune dealing in Metis Scrip, helping in the dispossession of the Metis old-timers in Western Canada. I know which of the two I would expect fairer handling of Native issues!
In 1908 he ran against arch-Conservative James Hyndman, partner in an Edmonton law firm. Hyndman was hardly a man to speak up for Natives! (Hyndman's grandson, arch-Conservative Lou Hyndman, as Alberta government Treasurer 1982-1986, oversaw government inaction during Alberta's recession of the 1980s, and he was a target of much ridicule by jobless trade unionists at that time, including the "Dandelion" movement.)
In 1911 Oliver ran against Conservative Griesbach (of Mountie and military background) and Labourite Alf Farmilo. By then the Papaschase band had been dispossessed of their lands. No candidate borought up that injustice in the campaign.
In 1917 Oliver ran against Conservative Griesbach (of Mountie and military background). The main issue was forced conscription into the army. Oliver took most of the votes cast in Edmonton. Later the army vote was allocated by the government, and Greisbach was declared the winner.
Oliver's apparent injustice to Natives in the 1800s was not mentioned.
The human right not to be forced into the army was uppermost in many people's minds in 1917. Griesbach won the votes that he did in Edmonton in part due to a Unionist (Conservative) government's promise not to conscript farmers. The Unionist (Conservative) government reneged on that promise a few months after the election, and some farmers were conscripted off their fields and, alongside conscripted city workers, put into the battlefield front-lines against their will in 1918.
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More on Frank Oliver
(some highlights that are left out of the Wikipedia article on Frank Oliver)
1880
Oliver studied journalism in Toronto. In 1880, he moved west and founded the Edmonton Bulletin with his wife, Harriet Dunlop (1863–1943).[2] When the inaugural issue was printed on December 6, 1880, it became the first newspaper in what is now Alberta,[3] and he owned it until 1923. His newspaper was the local organ for the Liberal party and a voice of pioneer farmers along the North Saskatchewan in the western Prairies. Oliver and his writers took issue with the federal government, "land colonization" companies, the HBC and land speculators.
1888
NWT Council/Assembly
Oliver contested and won one of the seats in the two-seat Edmonton district in 1888. He retained the seat by acclamation in the 1891 and 1894 elections. During his time as a territorial representative, he contributed to the creation of the North-West Territories' first public school system.[3]
Oliver was anti-logrolling
In Edmonton Bulletin, Oct. 8, 1894, Oliver defended the NWT Assembly's system of giving each district the same amount of money.
He said the fair division of funds "gave every member a direct interest in keeping down other expenditures with a view of increasing the amount available for public works in his district, and also [the] system .. left every member free to vote for every measure that came up on its merits, without the possibility of pressure being brought to bear upon him by the offer of money for expenditure in his constituency." The system, he claimed, resulted in a larger proportion of public funds being returned direct to the people in aid to schools and public works than in any other provinces.
(quoted in Lewis Herbert Thomas, The struggle for responsible government in the North-West Territories, 1870–97 (Toronto, 1956), p. 245)
1905
As leading federal politician of the western Prairies, Oliver was assigned by Wilfrid Laurier to draw up electoral boundaries used in the 1905 Alberta general election. The boundaries were said to favour Edmonton, where the Alberta Liberal Party enjoyed the most support, although overall, the Liberal Party got the majority of the votes cast and more votes than any other party in the election, including its main competitor, the Conservative party.[15] Seven districts were drawn to touch Edmonton,[15] and Edmonton's political weight is said to have assured the city's designation as the provincial capital, if its central location and long dominance in north-central Alberta had not been enough.[3]
1907
From 1905 to 1911, Oliver served as the Minister of the Interior and Superintendent-General of Indian Affairs in the federal cabinet. Jasper National Park was established during his time as minister responsible for national parks.
"New Forest Park near Edmonton". Edmonton Bulletin (September 19, 1907): 1.
Between 1907 and 1909 he had imported the last significant herd of plains bison from Montana to Elk (Elk Island) Park in Alberta. (from DCB)
1917 EB Jan 11, 918 announced that Oliver had a lead in votes in Edmonton West.
EB March 2, 1918 said that after solder's votes counted, Griesbach had a lead over Oliver. This announcement was made after the deadline for appeal had passed.
1921
Oliver ran in 1921 to regain his Edmonton West seat and was defeated by Donald Kennedy, a candidate of the United Farmers of Alberta.
Legacy
...
The Oliver Canadian Northern (now CNR) railway station in today's northeast Edmonton, and the surrounding area of same name, honours Oliver. (Place Names of Alberta)
As well, a school district in the Ellerslie area, in south Edmonton, was named after him. (South Edmonton Saga)
He drafted a history of the fur trade and a volume of reminiscences (the latter apparently lost) and produced many articles about his early years in the west and on topics of contemporary interest. (DCB: Frank Oliver)
DCB provides this bibliography on Frank Oliver:
Frank Oliver wrote extensively for the Edmonton Bulletin from 1880 to at least 1903 and periodically thereafter.
Some of his speeches have appeared in print, including “Canadian sentiment,” given to the Canadian Club of Toronto and published in its Addresses, 1909/10: 149–54.
“Address delivered … at the Clover Bar jubilee celebration” is included in J. P. Berry, Clover Bar in the making, 1881–1931 (n.p., [1931?]), 27–32.
A speech by Oliver is excerpted in The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway: pointed paragraphs from parliamentary speeches upon the new transcontinental line (n.p., n.d.).
His “Across the prairies fifty years ago,” which originally appeared in two parts in Country Guide (Winnipeg), 15 Sept. 1928, 3, 16–17, and 1 Oct. 1928, 6, 45–46, was reprinted as “Frank Oliver’s journey to Edmonton, 1876” in Alberta History (Calgary), 51 (2003), no.2: 2–12.
Most of Oliver’s personal papers appear to have been destroyed after his death.
A descendent donated a collection to the PAA in 1992 (PR1831), the great bulk of which dates from the 1920s and 1930s, though a few items shed light on earlier years.
The collection was exploited in a sketch of Oliver that appeared in Alberta in the 20th century: a journalistic history of the province in twelve volumes [ed. Ted Byfield et al.] (12v., Edmonton, 1991–2003), 4 (The Great War and its consequences, 1914–1920, 1994): 102–5.
Other pieces on his life and career are scattered throughout the first five volumes of that series.
The City of Edmonton Arch. holds the Frank Oliver fonds (MS 172), containing published and unpublished material, and also has an extensive clippings file on Oliver and his family.
There are two important theses on Oliver:
W. S. Waddell, “The Honorable Frank Oliver” (MA thesis, Univ. of Alta, Edmonton, 1950), and
K. T. Hollihan, “‘We want, not your money, but your citizenship’: the immigration policy of Frank Oliver” (MA thesis, Univ. of Alta, 1989).
Edmonton Bulletin, 7 April 1905, 14 July 1930, 1 April 1933.
Ottawa Citizen, 1 April 1933.
Pierre Berton, The promised land: settling the west, 1896–1914 (Toronto, 1984).
Canada, House of Commons, Debates, 1896–1917;
Parliament, Sessional papers, 1906–34 (reports of the auditor general, 1904/5, 1909/10, 1929/30;
reports of the Dept. of the Interior and the Dept. of Indian Affairs, 1904/5–1911/12; reports of the Board of Railway Commissioners for Canada, 1923–33).
Canadian annual rev., 1901–33.
The Canadian newspaper directory (Montreal), 1892–1921.
P. [A.] Dutil and David MacKenzie, Canada 1911: the decisive election that shaped the country (Toronto, 2011).
E. J. (Ted) Hart, J. B. Harkin: father of Canada’s national parks (Edmonton, 2010).
Heritage Community Foundation, “AlbertaSource.ca: the Alberta online encyclopedia”: www.albertasource.ca (consulted 23 May 2011).
K.T. Hollihan, “‘A brake upon the wheel’: Frank Oliver and the creation of the Immigration Act of 1906,” Past Imperfect, 1 (1992): 93–112.
Ninette Kelley and Michael Trebilcock, The making of the mosaic: a history of Canadian immigration policy (2nd ed., Toronto, 2010).
A.B. Kilpatrick, “A lesson in boosterism: the contest for the Alberta provincial capital, 1904–1906,” Urban Hist. Rev. (Toronto), 8 (1980–81): 47–109.
M. [L.] Lang, Women who made the news: female journalists in Canada, 1880–1945 (Montreal and Kingston, Ont., 1999).
W.F. Lothian, A history of Canada’s national parks (4v., Ottawa, 1976–81), 1.
M.R. Lupul, The Roman Catholic Church and the North-West school question: a study in church-state relations in western Canada, 1875–1905 (Toronto, 1974).
Peggy Martin-McGuire, First Nation land surrenders on the prairies, 1896–1911 (Ottawa, 1998). D. R. Morrison, The politics of the Yukon Territory, 1898–1909 (Toronto, 1968).
L.G. Thomas, The Liberal party in Alberta: a history of politics in the province of Alberta, 1905–1921 (Toronto, 1959).
Lewis Herbert Thomas, The struggle for responsible government in the North-West Territories, 1870–97 (Toronto, 1956).
[E.] B. Titley, The frontier world of Edgar Dewdney (Vancouver, 1999); A narrow vision: Duncan Campbell Scott and the administration of Indian Affairs in Canada (Vancouver, 1986)
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for more information see
Montopedia blog "Early elections in Alberta"
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