Sir Oliver Mowat was a Canadian lawyer, politician, and Ontario Liberal Party leader.
23 Facts About Oliver Mowat
2.
Oliver Mowat served for nearly 24 years as the third premier of Ontario.
3.
Oliver Mowat was the eighth lieutenant governor of Ontario and one of the Fathers of Confederation.
4.
Oliver Mowat is best known for defending successfully the constitutional rights of the provinces in the face of the centralizing tendency of the national government as represented by his longtime Conservative adversary, John A Macdonald.
5.
Oliver Mowat was called to the bar of Upper Canada on November 5,1841.
6.
Oliver Mowat was known to be a tenacious legal practitioner, with two of his cases being upheld by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council.
7.
Oliver Mowat first entered politics as an alderman of the City of Toronto in 1857.
8.
Oliver Mowat served as Provincial Secretary and Postmaster-General in the pre-Confederation governments of George Brown and John Sandfield Macdonald for the Liberal Party of Canada.
9.
Oliver Mowat was a member of the Great Coalition government of 1864 and was a representative at that year's Quebec Conference, where he helped work out the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments.
10.
Oliver Mowat served as his own Attorney-General concurrently with his service as Premier, and introduced reforms such as the secret ballot in elections, and the extension of suffrage beyond property owners.
11.
Oliver Mowat extended laws regulating liquor and consolidated the laws relating to the municipal level of government.
12.
In 1882, Premier Oliver Mowat threatened to pull Ontario from Confederation over the issue.
13.
Oliver Mowat sent police into the disputed territory to assert Ontario's claims, while Manitoba did the same.
14.
Oliver Mowat's government was moderate and attempted to cut across divisions in the province between Roman Catholics and Protestants as well as between country and city.
15.
Oliver Mowat oversaw the northward expansion of Ontario's boundaries and the development of its natural resources, as well as the emergence of the province into the economic powerhouse of Canada.
16.
In 1884, when the federal government urged that Ontario transfer to the Teme-Augama Anishnabai indigenous people all or some of the 2,770 square miles as a reserve, for which that band's head chief, Ignace Tonene, had campaigned with the federal authorities for many years, Oliver Mowat blocked the land transfer, primarily concerned about the value of the red and white pine lumber at the location.
17.
In 1896, the leader of the opposition, Wilfrid Laurier, convinced Oliver Mowat to enter federal politics.
18.
Victory was won, and Oliver Mowat became Minister of Justice and Senator.
19.
Sir Oliver Mowat was the great-granduncle of the Canadian author, Farley Mowat.
20.
Oliver Mowat was knighted in 1892, increasing his importance in Canada.
21.
Oliver Mowat was himself the author of two small books in the field of Christian apologetics:.
22.
Oliver Mowat documented his government's first 18 years of Ontario government in an 1890 book.
23.
Oliver Mowat credited Mowat with giving Ontario "a Government which can be cited as a model for all Governments: a Government which was honest, progressive, courageous, and tolerant".