Ontario's Bungled 1880 Competition and What It Stood For The Ontario Provincial Legislature Building Competition

摘要

Christopher Findlay Fraser had not gone into Ontario politics-and fought his way to cabinet rank by the age of 35-for this. Premier Oliver Mowat had slotted him into the pork-barret ministry of Public Works for two reasons: Fraser seemed able to handle so sensitive a position with the skills required: those of a hefty steam shove! scooping up a hanky. Secondly, in an era of tribal politics, the translation of a Roman Catholic into so prominent a post signified that a Liberal government considered Catholics entitled to a finger or two in the public purse. Fraser would make sure that his co-religionists understood that this noble and instant tradition would continue so long as they voted right. Yet March 6, 1890 saw the Commissioner for Public Works standing in the Provincial Legislative Assembly grasping a handful of newspaper clippings like some building inspector who had OK'd a leaky roof. He was volubly denying what those clippings-from a hostile rag controlled by a member of the Opposition-shriiled.