Gertrude and Arthur Balmer Watt were grandparents of Edmonton filmmaker Tom Radford, as well as being important journalists in early Edmonton and influencers of the local political scene.
Although Tom Radford calls them Peggy and Balmer, I don't feel I know them well enough to use those names so will use Gertrude and Arthur.
Here's a thumbnail sketch of their journalist lives.
Gertrude Balmer Watt nee Hogg "Peggy"
born Ontario
married to Arthur Balmer Watt
women's editor sentinel review, woodstock
women's editor and Communist, Saturday News
author of A woman in the west (197) and Town and trail (198)
active in civic affairs
died Edmonton June 2, 1963
Edmonton Saturday mirror subtitle "A journal of protest and conviction"
Aug 1912-1913. edited by Gertrude Balmer Watt (Strathearn 365)
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Arthur Balmer Watt "Balmer"
born Ontario 1876
worked on newspapers in ontario
married to Gertrude Balmer Watt
came to Edmonton in 1905
1912 editor of Edmonton Journal until retirement 1945,
died July 1 1964.
Edmonton Capital publisher and editor 1909-1910 (Strathearn 356)
Homestead 1908-1913. publisher to Aug 1910. official organ of the Alberta Farmers Association (this group joined with the Siciety of Equity to form the UFA in 1909) (Strathearn 353)
Rural Northwest and Edmonton weekly journal 1913-1916. edited by Arthur Balmer Watt. weekly agricultural digest and feature for Saturday edition of Edmonton Journal (Strathearn 368)
Saturday News 1905-1912 publisher Dec 1905-1906 (Strathearn 348)
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Tom Radford's twin biography of them, Peggy & Balmer (Newest Press), offers us a insightful look at their lives.
oddly enough, the book's foreword by Thorsell (of Toronto) gets right into perhaps where I differ the most from Tom Radford.
Alwyn Bramley-Moore's 1913 book Canada and her Colonies
Hailed (at least partly wrongly) as a call for Alberta secession,
A project ath <I don't agree with -- they are in fact calls not for an independent Alberta (or independent West) abut more as an attempt to give more power and wealth to corporations, to have weak government here that would powerless against international capital, and also at same time helping weaken Canada and leave her open to those same anti-humanist forces.
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And Bramley-Moore was never a rightist, and only a bit of a secessionist.
once I got a few copies of his book from Alwyn's own daughters, then aged. One had never married, having lost her sweetheart in WWI, if you can believe.
They pointed out how his book had been used by Alberta rightists as defence of "Alberta first" right-wing schemes or even Alberts secession. But he had never been like that, they said.
and the proof offered was that he was Liberal MLA - Libeal stood up for little people but never will this happen through some strange nationalism that would put farmers at the mercy of Alberta business people just as much -- perhaps more -- than they already were under a Confederation.
(sure Alberta did not have control of its natural resources (until 1929)
and sure Sifton used that federal power to give a break to Calgary Power against wishes of the UFA.
But fighting against such government handouts to corporate interests is not what a stronger/independent Albert would do - it would just give natural resources even more quickly and with less scrutiny to private interests as part of "making Alberta great again" program. (I know -- I can picture it in my mind!)
And anyways federal power over land went only up to time of its first sale. After that it came into provincial jurisdiction. and was taxed by provincial government. Water and mineral lights though did reside with the Crown until 1929.
This book sets forth a claim for the end of the protective tariff that is "designed to build up Canadian industries," mostly located in central Canada. He also called on the federal government to grant Alberta control of its natural resources and Crown lands (finally achieved in 1929). He described Alberta as a colony of the Phoenician type (that is, settled by emigrants of the home country) and not a colony of the Roman type (a conquered people).
Fair enough if only Alberta had been built up as "little me" of Ontario with its calm, termpance-influenced politics and democratic Brtish fair-mindednes, at least in principle.
but no, Alberta is projected as a sort "little me" fof the U.S. Old West - full of mavericks as now seen most forefully in aggressive pick-up driving divorced single white males and "help the big guy" Conservative/UCP government.
And that reality would only get worse if Alberta was free to cast aside the rational leadership from the House of Commons.
Bramley-Moore though did not call for secession from Canada. He wrote "We are not urging the secession of the West from the East but we are endeavouring to show that such a result must ensue unless a change in her system of colonial government is made by Canada."
He feared for the result if reforms were not made, saying "The laws of evolution are inexorable, and resistance will only result in a catastrophe."
In 1911 an anti-free trade government (Conservative party of Borden) was elected and the economic needs of farmers was stifled.
But Canada did live on.
In these times when Trump is trying to push Canada to surrender under threat of the "pinch of poverty" -- if he is uttering anything more than idle threats - it seems his attention span cannot allow him to centre on one imperialist scheme in any organized way -- we have to consider what might have happened or might have happened that much sooner if Canada had voted for free trade back in 1911.
we can have cheap goods or we can have country but perhaps not both.
and historically Canadian workers and farmers had the choice of "the State or the States"
and a small Alberta is no state at all.
in fact all the good policies coming out of the Parliament since 1940s have been opposed by the Alberta government (unfortunately not excluding on occasion even being opposed by Notley's NDP government):
Family allowance, public healthcare, $25 daycare, environmental protection, etc.
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Showing where Bramley-Moore's priorities lay, during his time as MLA he pushed for cheaper loans to farmers.
and after he retired as MLA, he served on the Alberta Commission of the American Commission for the Study of Agricultural Credit.
He and Henry Marshal Tory, president of the UofA, co-wrote a report on rural credit reform (to address the need for low-interest farm loans).
Peel 3951: Tory, Henry Marshall, Report of the Alberta commissioners on the American Commission for the Study of Agricultural Credit (1914)
This was not the kind of policy that a secessionist Alberta would have brought in, it seems to me.
But perhaps their commission report did start to lead people toward social credit, and we see William Irvine see the need for public control of banks in 1920s.
Those together - plus the lived experience of farmers -- led to the growth of belief in moenetary reform in the 1930s, formation of the Social Credit League in 1934 and Aberhart coming to power in 1935.
And Aberhart too held secessionist or at least Alberta sovereigntist beliefs -- his government's submission to the 1938 Dominion-provincial relations commission was entitled from the "sovereign people of Alberta" (or something like that ).
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