Gertrude Balmer Watt and Arthur Balmer Watt -- "Peggy and Balmer"
- Tom Monto
- Feb 13
- 8 min read
Updated: Mar 6
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.
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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 columnist, Saturday News
author of A woman in the west (197) and Town and trail (198)
active in civic affairs
died Edmonton June 12, 1963 (Radford gives date of passing as June 12, 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
Saturday News
Saturday News 1905-1912 publisher Dec 1905-1906 (Strathearn 348)
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 Society of Equity to form the UFA in 1909) (Strathearn 353)
1912 editor of Edmonton Journal until retirement 1945,
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)
died July 12, 1964. (Tom Radford gives July 12, 1964.)
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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 with the book.
Alwyn Bramley-Moore's 1913 book Canada and her Colonies
Hailed (at least partly wrongly) as a call for Alberta secession, a project that I don't agree with.
As I see calls for secession, they are in fact calls not for an independent Alberta (or independent West) but 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.
(March 6, 2025 - while the rest of Canda is feeling nationalist and patriotic toward Canada, Alberta Premier Smith says to the U.S. drop the tariffs and we will tie ourselves closer to you and sell you more oil. As if Canada's present troubles are not due to having too much reliance on the U.S. already.)
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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 (and are) 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 federal Crown until 1929.
Bramley-Moore's 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" of the U.S. Old West - full of mavericks as now seen most forcefully in divorced single white males aggressively driving their pick-up trucks without regard for safety of others, 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, the list goes on.
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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 monetary 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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Those who decry federal treatment of Alberta also bring up Haultain's proposal to have a large prairie province "Buffalo" instead of two provinces - Alberta and Sask.
But having two province gives umore rep at the first minsters meetings.
As well, two things might have happened --
either Tommy Douglas would have not have been elected premier of Buffalo and then Canada would likely not have public healthcare today,
Or the left vote on the prairies would have triumphed, Tommy Douglas (or someone else of leftist sentiment) would have governed in an humane fashion, kept U.S. oil companies out,
and Alberta would have been spared 80 years of right-wing misrule.
The two outcomes mean total victory for one or the other - while in real life, with two provinces we can have both public healthcare and right-wing rule in Alberta and U.S. dominance over our oil and gas sector. (yahoo.)
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Some comments:
Emily Murphy's Daughters of the British Empire (p. ?) is likely reference to Imperial Daughters of the Empire (I.O.D.E.)
p. 51 hanging of "eight Cree warriors" did take place but they were not hanged for being fighters in the rebellion but for killings done outside the rebellion.
no rebels other than Riel himself were hanged for participating in the rebellion - I.e. fighting government troops.
a ninth Cree murderer, Louis Mongrain, was found guilty for murder but his sentence was commuted - one of the Theresa's who had survived the Frog Lake incident claimed that he had protected her from possible harm from other Indigenous people.
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p. 109 Ernest Brown ran as as a candidate of the Independent Labour Party (ILP) in 1921 in Edmonton.
Tom's reference to him running in Vegreville, where he did have photo studio, is intriguing -- was he thinking of running there in Vegreville until the sex photo smear campaign?
p. 301 Edmonton Dunvegan & Yukon Railway was built through to Dawson Creek by 1930. (long before Tom was born)
The Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific Railway never got out to outskirts of Edmonton.
the abandoned railway line Tom saw as kid was either the Canadian Northern line or the Grand Trunk Pacific (I forget which), which was built out of Edmonton, was stopped by the 1906 economic crash, then, when it went ahead later, it was built on a different route.
my book Old Strathcona covers that halted start.
p. 64, 333 1905 Alberta election was not gerrymandered, at least not so as to produce false win for Liberals.
The Liberal party received a majority of votes, and any result other than a Liberal majority government would have been undemocratic.
districts were different sizes, with total vote tallies ranging from 158 in Peace River to 2400 in Calgary City, each electing one member.
both of the districts at the extreme elected Liberals so one's waste was balanced by the other's over-representation.
and Liberals took majority of voters overall.
Liberals did take more seats than its majority should have given the it, but then almost every government right up the present in Alberta has had same experience,
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The Social Credit government was taking more than 90 percent of seats with just 60 or so percent of the vote again and again,
the only exception 2021 - in the 2021 election, the NDPs over-representation in Edmonton was balanced by the UCP's over-representation in rural areas.
and proportional and fair representation in the Legislature did result -- accidentally.
1913 Clearwater district was created long after 1905, prior to the 1913 election.
it had about 100 votes cast in 1913; 300 in 1917; 600 in 1921.
(I have found no district with so few votes as 6.)
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p. 242 Arthur and Mackenzie King at UofT together in 1890s.
his involvement and betrayal of students on strike in the 1890s is reported in Wikipedia article on W.L. Mackenzie King. but the betrayal is not stressed.
p. 282 Arthur said to be referred to as banker's toady in a Social Credit screed.
he is not mentioned as a banker's toady in the famous "banker's toady" leaflet of 1937. (Wiki article on it.)
and Peel's PP website search failed to find any instance of this.
(Radford unfortunately does not give the title of the SC pamphlet in which Arthur is so described.)
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Tom Radford also recounted his lineage in a podcast on the "A Scattering of seeds" website
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