'Henry Herbert Stevens',
PC (
December 8,
1878 –
June 14,
1973) was a
Canadian politician and businessman. Stevens was born in England and immigrated to Canada with his father at the age of nine. His first job was as a grocery clerk. He then worked as a firefighter on the
Canadian Pacific Railway and later as a
stagecoach driver. In 1900, he travelled to the
Philippines and then to
China where he was present during the
Boxer Rebellion before returning to
British Columbia where he found work as a miner. He became active in politics won a seat on the local city council in 1910.
Stevens was first elected to the
House of Commons in the
1911 general election as a
Conservative. He served in the short-lived
Cabinets of
Prime Minister Arthur Meighen in 1921 as Minister of Trade and Commerce and in 1926 as Minister of Customs and Excise.
He was an opponent of
Asian immigration saying, in 1914, "We cannot hope to preserve the national type if we allow Asiatics to enter Canada in any numbers."
When
R.B. Bennett took the Tories to victory in the
1930 general election, he made Stevens his Minister of Trade and Commerce. In 1934, Stevens was chairman of a royal commission on price spreads in which he exposed abuses by big business, attacked corporate interests and called for radical reform. He then resigned from
Cabinet when his recommendations were ignored, and formed the
Reconstruction Party of Canada to run in the
1935 Canadian election. He was the only candidate to win a seat. He subsequently
crossed the floor to rejoin the Conservative Party in 1938, and ran as a candidate in the 1940
Conservative leadership convention. He was eliminated on the first ballot, losing to
Arthur Meighen.
Stevens did not enter the 1945 general election, but ran again in Vancouver Centre in 1949 and again in 1953, losing both times.
External links
★
Political Biography from the Library of Parliament