Leslie Frost | |
---|---|
![]() The Hon. Leslie Miscampbell Frost | |
16th Premier of Ontario | |
In office May 4, 1949 –November 8, 1961 | |
Monarchs | George VI Elizabeth II |
Lieutenant Governor | Ray Lawson Louis Orville Breithaupt John Keiller MacKay |
Preceded by | Thomas Kennedy |
Succeeded by | John Robarts |
Member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario for Victoria | |
In office October 6,1937 –May 16,1963 | |
Preceded by | William Newman |
Succeeded by | Ronald Glen Hodgson |
Personal details | |
Born | Leslie Miscampbell Frost September 20,1895 Orillia,Ontario,Canada |
Died | May 4,1973 77) Lindsay,Ontario,Canada | (aged
Resting place | Riverside Cemetery |
Political party | Ontario PC Party |
Spouse | Gertrude Jane Carew |
Alma mater | University of Toronto Osgoode Hall Law School |
Military service | |
Allegiance | ![]() |
Branch/service | Canadian Army |
Years of service | 1916-1918 |
Rank | ![]() |
Unit | 157th Battalion (Simcoe Foresters) |
Battles/wars | World War I |
Leslie Miscampbell Frost PC CC QC (September 20,1895 – May 4,1973) was a politician in Ontario,Canada,who served as the province's 16th premier from May 4,1949,to November 8,1961. [1] Due to his lengthy tenure,he gained the nickname "Old Man Ontario";he was also known as "the Silver Fox". [2]
Born in Orillia,Ontario,he was the son of William Sword Frost and Margaret Jane Barker. [3] His father was a jeweller and mayor of Orillia;his mother was an important figure in the early days of The Salvation Army. He attended the University of Toronto and Osgoode Hall Law School. [4] During World War I,he was an officer with "C"Company 157th Battalion (Simcoe Foresters),CEF,and served with the 20th Battalion,Queen's York Rangers in France and Belgium. In 1918,after being wounded,he was discharged with the rank of Captain. [5] He was called to the Bar in 1921.
In 1926,he married Gertrude Jane Carew. They had no children. The couple lived in Lindsay,Ontario,but Frost preferred his property at Pleasant Point on Sturgeon Lake north of Lindsay. When Frost and his brother,Cecil Gray Frost,first moved to Lindsay to establish a law practice,they rented a building at Pleasant Point that had been the community store and commuted to town by steamer. Frost bought the property in 1925 and,in about 1950,bought adjacent property where he built the winterized log cabin that was his refuge while he was premier and in retirement.
In 1937,he was first elected to the Ontario legislature and thereafter never lost an election. He was the Treasurer of Ontario and Minister of Mines from 1943 to 1955. Frost was chosen as leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party (the "Tories") following Premier George Drew's decision to enter federal politics.
Dubbed "The Old Man Ontario" and "The Laird of Lindsay",Frost led the province during the economic boom of the 1950s. [6] His low-key approach garnered him the nickname "The Great Tranquilizer". [7] Combining small-town values with progressive policies,he took the Tories through three successive electoral victories winning majority governments in 1951,1955 and 1959. [8]
Frost's government also attempted to wrest control of the income tax from the federal government,but failed,resulting in the introduction of a provincial sales tax. Frost expanded health care coverage for Ontarians through the creation of the Hospital Services Commission of Ontario Act and the Ontario Hospital Insurance Plan. By 1960,94% of the population of Ontario was enrolled in the Ontario Hospital Insurance Plan. [9]
Frost's government oversaw substantial expansion in public services [10] and substantially increased public investment in the economy, [11] as well as through strong fiscal policies. [12]
Under Frost,the number of universities in Ontario increased from four to twelve. As finance minister in 1943,the total provincial investment in education was just over $13 million. Upon his retirement in 1961,the education budget for Ontario was $250 million. [4]
The Frost government was the first to pass laws providing penalties for racial,ethnic,and gender discrimination on private property;these laws,introduced in the early 1950s as the Fair Employment Practices Act and Fair Accommodation Practices Act, [13] started a movement in Ontario politics that produced the Ontario Human Rights Code in 1962 and later legislation. Frost's government also introduced legislation to ensure women received equal wages. His government also introduced voting rights for First Nations. [4] When confronted by J.A. McGibbon,a judge from Lindsay and fellow fishing companion,regarding an anti-discrimination law about property,Frost told him that his attitudes towards people of color were out of date. [14]
Frost's government oversaw great expansion in the role of government. Under his leadership,Ontario greatly expanded its schools,highways and hospitals. [15] Under his leadership Ontario created the 400 series of superhighways,most notably the Macdonald-Cartier Freeway better known as Highway 401.
Frost's government oversaw the federation of the old City of Toronto with twelve surrounding municipalities to become Metropolitan Toronto.
Frost resigned in 1961, [16] and was succeeded as Tory leader and Premier by John Robarts. [17]
Upon retirement from politics,Frost served on the Board of Governors of the University of Toronto. As well,he was a member of the Board of Directors of the Bank of Montreal,KVP,Canada Life,and Trans Canada Air. Between 1954 and 1969 he also served as Vice-President of the Champlain Society and as its Honorary Vice-President from 1969 to 1973. [18] He served as Chancellor of Trent University from 1967 to 1973. In retirement,he continued his interest in the outdoors. Near the end of his life,he undertook for the government of Ontario an exhaustive investigation of the state and potential of Algonquin Provincial Park. [19] In the last interview he gave,just before he died,to the Toronto Star,he declared:"I am an environmentalist."
Frost was an excellent amateur historian. His book Fighting Men covered the history of the 35th Regiment of Simcoe Foresters from Orillia,Ontario in the context of the First World War. Within that he connects the Canadian home front to the war front in France,and connects the events within the regiment to the bigger picture of the war and Canada's subsequent role in world affairs. [20] His Forgotten Pathways of the Trent (published just after he died) challenged historians' previous conclusions about Indian trade and warfare routes in southern Ontario. He was an avid U.S. Civil War buff and kept on the mantelpiece in his large library a piece of wood that was supposed to have come from Abraham Lincoln's original log cabin.
In 1969,he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada,Canada's highest civilian honour. [21]
Various places across Ontario are named for Frost:
John Parmenter Robarts was a Canadian lawyer and politician who served as the 17th premier of Ontario from 1961 to 1971. He was a member of the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario.
Lindsay is a community of 22,367 people on the Scugog River in the Kawartha Lakes region of south-eastern Ontario, Canada. It is approximately 43 km (27 mi) west of Peterborough. It is the seat of the City of Kawartha Lakes, and the hub for business and commerce in the region.
Orillia is a city in Ontario, Canada, about 30 km north-east of Barrie in Simcoe County. It is located at the confluence of Lake Couchiching and Lake Simcoe. Although it is geographically located within Simcoe County, the city is a single-tier municipality. It is part of the Huronia region of Central Ontario. The population in 2021 was 33,411.
The Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario, often shortened to the Ontario PC Party or simply the PCs, colloquially known as the Tories, is a centre to centre-right political party in Ontario, Canada.
The City of Kawartha Lakes is a unitary municipality in Central Ontario, Canada. It is a municipality legally structured as a single-tier city; however, Kawartha Lakes is the size of a typical Ontario county and is mostly rural. It is the second largest single-tier municipality in Ontario by land area.
William Grenville Davis, was a Canadian politician who served as the 18th premier of Ontario from 1971 to 1985. Davis was first elected as the member of provincial Parliament for Peel in the 1959 provincial election where he was a backbencher in the Conservative caucus led by Premier Leslie Frost.
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The Co-operative Commonwealth Federation – The Farmer-Labor Party of Ontario, or more commonly known as the Ontario CCF, was a democratic socialist provincial political party in Ontario that existed from 1932 to 1961. It was the provincial wing of the federal Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF). The party had no leader in the beginning, and was governed by a provincial council and executive. The party's first Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) was elected by voters in the 1934 Ontario general election. In the 1937 general election, no CCF members were elected to the Ontario Legislature. In 1942, the party elected Toronto lawyer Ted Jolliffe as its first leader. He led the party to within a few seats of forming the government in the 1943 general election; instead, it formed the Official Opposition. In that election, the first two women were elected to the Ontario Legislature as CCFers: Agnes Macphail and Rae Luckock. The 1945 election was a setback, as the party lost most of its seats in the Legislature, including Jolliffe's seat. The party again became the Official Opposition after the 1948 general election, and defeated the Conservative premier George Drew in his seat, when Bill Temple unexpectedly won in the High Park constituency. The middle and late 1940s were the peak years for the Ontario CCF. After that time, its electoral performances were dismal, as it was reduced to a rump of two seats in the 1951 election, three seats in the 1955 election, and five seats in the 1959 election. Jolliffe stepped down as leader in 1953, and was replaced by Donald C. MacDonald.
Robert William Macaulay was a Canadian politician.
Matthew Bulloch Dymond, was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Progressive Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1955 to 1975 who represented the riding of Ontario. He served as a cabinet minister in the governments of Leslie Frost and John Robarts.
Leslie Egerton Blackwell was a Canadian politician, soldier, lawyer, and land developer.
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King's Highway 12, commonly referred to as Highway 12 and historically known as the Whitby and Sturgeon Bay Road, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The highway connects the eastern end of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) with Kawartha Lakes, Orillia and Midland before ending at Highway 93. It forms the Central Ontario Route of the Trans-Canada Highway system from north of Sunderland to Coldwater. Highway 12 connects several small towns along its 146 km (91 mi) route, and bypasses a short distance from many others. It is signed as a north–south route between Whitby and Orillia, and as an east–west route from there to Midland. The rural portions of the highway feature a posted speed limit of 80 km/h (50 mph), often dropping to 50 km/h (31 mph) through built-up areas. The entire route is patrolled by the Ontario Provincial Police.
A leadership election was held by the Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario on April 27, 1949 to replace retiring leader and premier George Drew who had resigned after losing his seat in the 1948 provincial election and deciding to enter federal politics. The interim leader of the party was Thomas Laird Kennedy. The party selected Leslie Frost on the first ballot.
Andrew Miscampbell was an Ontario political figure. He represented Simcoe East from 1890 to 1902 and Sault Ste. Marie from 1902 to 1903 as a Conservative member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario.
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