Harry Nixon

Who was Harry Nixon?

Harry Corwin Nixon was a Canadian politician and briefly the 13th Premier of Ontario.

He was born on a farm near St. George, Ontario, the son of Henry Nixon, and studied at the University of Toronto's Ontario Agricultural College.

He was first elected to the Legislative Assembly of Ontario in 1919 as a candidate of the United Farmers of Ontario. He served as a Cabinet minister in the government of Premier Ernest C. Drury as Provincial Secretary and Registrar. Following the defeat of the UFO-Labour government in the 1923 election, Nixon sat as a Progressive Member of the Legislative Assembly, and became the leader of the small Progressive bloc after the 1929 election.

Mitchell Hepburn, a farmer and former UFO organizer, became leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, and Nixon led his Progressive remnant into an alliance with Hepburn's party. In the 1934 election, Nixon and his followers ran as Liberal-Progressives, helping bring the Hepburn to power. He ran and was elected as a Liberal in the 1937 election.

Nixon resumed his former Cabinet position of Provincial Secretary and Registrar in the Hepburn cabinet and was the senior minister in the government. During World War II, Hepburn clashed with William Lyon Mackenzie King, the Liberal Prime Minister of Canada, arguing that King was not sufficiently prosecuting the war effort, in particular by not introducing conscription. Hepburn openly supported King's rival, Conservative leader Arthur Meighen in a 1942 York South by-election, and seemed to be calling for the defeat of King. This was too much for many Ontario Liberals, who were either King loyalists or feared a rift between the federal and provincial parties. Hepburn was forced to resign on October 21, 1942.¹