Pioneers and Prominent People of Saskatchewan

 

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PROVINCIAL TREASURER - James Alexander Calder, also Minister of Education.

 

These appointments were endorsed by the people at a general election held on December 13th, when the Scott government secured a majority of eight members.

Under the Autonomy Act the choice of Saskatchewan's Capital, or seat of government, was left to the Assembly. Not a few of the members from the northern districts were in favour of Saskatoon. After listening quietly to the arguments advanced, the Premier delivered his quietus, asserting that unless the seat of government could be retained at Regina, he would resign and take the question to the country. Regina was chosen.

 

One of the matters to which the new Government first directed its attention was the erection of a suitable building for legislative and executive purposes. On the fourth of October, 1909, the corner-stone of the splendid pile on the south bank of the Wascana Lake was laid with fitting ceremony. Though the structure was not completed until 1912, the government, under a special arrangement with the contractors, entered into occupancy in December, 1910.

In 1916 Premier Scott, owing to ill health, resigned his office, being succeeded by the Honourable William Melville Martin, whose resignation was followed by his appointment to the Court of Appeal in 1922. His successor, the Honourable Charles Avery Dunning, is still leader of the Government and of the Liberal party in Saskatchewan, which has held the reins of power for nineteen years.

Of the four members who made up the first Saskatchewan Cabinet, the Honourable Walter Scott has retired from public activities; the Honourable J. H. Lamont is Judge of the Court of Appeal; the Honourable W. R. Motherwell, representing the City of Regina in the Dominion House, is Federal Minister of Agriculture, and the Honourable J. A. Calder, after

 

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Pioneers and Prominent People of Saskatchewan