The Ferguson ministry, formally the Ferguson-Henry ministry, was the cabinet (formally the Executive Council of Ontario) that directed the provincial government of Ontario, Canada from July 16, 1923, to July 10, 1934.
The ministry was composed, and led for its first seven and a half years, by Howard Ferguson, the 9th Premier of Ontario (styled as Prime Minister of Ontario at that time) and Conservative Party leader since 1920. After leading his party to three consecutive majority victory, Ferguson retired from electoral politics toward the end of 1930 to become Canada's High Commissioner in London. He handed the leadership of his government and of his party to George Stewart Henry, his long time de facto deputy, on December 15, 1930 without a leadership convention. Henry presided over the ministry for another three and a half years for a total of eleven years.
For the entire tenure of the ministry, the Conservative Party held majority of the seats in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario. Accordingly, all members of the ministry were members of the Conservative Party.
The ministry was formed following the 1923 Ontario general election. The Conservative Party was previously in office from 1905 until it was ousted in the 1919 election by the upstart United Farmers of Ontario. Ferguson and Henry were both ministers in the ousted Hearst ministry. Ferguson, the campaign manager for the Conservative Party in 1919, was chosen to rebuild the party after the catastrophic defeat and led his party to back to power after just one term in opposition, securing a majority government.
The Ferguson ministry replaced the Drury ministry of the United Farmers, and governed through the 16th, 17th, and the 18th Parliament of Ontario. It renewed it governing mandate twice, respective in the 1926 election and 1929 election, retaining its majority status in both instances. While the United Farmers rebranded its parliamentary wing as the Progressive Party and contested those elections, they were mostly a spent force, winning less than a tenth of the vote both times. The Conservative under Ferguson won not only the majority of the seats in those two elections but also a majority share of the popular votes both times. The Conservative Party led by Ferguson in 1929 was the last time any party having won a majority share of the popular vote in Ontario by themselves. The 90 seats it won in 1929 remained the largest seat count secured by any political party in Ontario history.
Ferguson resigned as premier in December 1930, upon being appointed Canada's High Commissioner in London by the newly elected Conservative government led by R. B. Bennett. George Stewart Henry, Ferguson's long time designated deputy, and the only other remaining member of the ministry with cabinet experience from prior ministry, succeeded Ferguson as Prime Minister. The successor Henry ministry was largely a continuation of the incumbent industry. All eleven members of the Ferguson ministry at its dissolution aside from Ferguson continued to served in the new ministry, with many holding the same portfolio. With the exception of Dunlop and Monteith who died within ten days of each other, The other nine members all served until the end of the Henry ministry.
Composition The Ferguson ministry was formed on July 16, 1923 with thirteen members. While a new Department of Health was created during the ministry's tenure, the cabinet at no point grew larger than twelve members after its first departure in May 1924. Of the thirteen original members, three including Ferguson has previous cabinet experience.
Adam Beck, as chair of Ontario Hydro was given a seat in cabinet as a minister without portfolio and served for the entire duration of the Whiney and Hearst ministries Ferguson was appointed to cabinet soon after William Hearst assumed the premiership and took over the portfolio previously held by the Premier. Henry entered cabinet in 1918 at the same time as Henry John Cody, Ferguson's university roommate and close personal confidant for whom he orchestrated a direct entry into cabinet as education minister without holding a seat or ever served in government prior.
Six other members have served as backbench members (then referred to as private members) of the previous Whitney-Hearst Conservative government.
Despite sweeping all ten seats in Toronto in 1923 and all fifteen in 1926 and 1929, Treasurer William Herbert Price (later Attorney General) was the only cabinet member representing a Toronto district during Ferguson's premiership after Thomas Crawford's departure within the first year of the ministry, though the members for the two surrounding York Township districts, George Henry and Forbes Godfrey, were both in cabinet. Upon Henry's assumption of the premiership in 1930, Henry Scholfield, representing the downtown district of St. George, was brought into cabinet.
Four member of the ministry, Henry, John Robert Cooke, Charles McCrea and William Herbert Price, served for the entire duration of the ministry, though only McCrea as mines minister held on to the same portfolio for the entire time. Two members of the ministry, and George Holmes Challies, would served again in later Conservative ministry.
Early departures During the 16th parliament, the ministry experienced only minor changes, and three fairly innocuous departures. Thomas Crawford, who served as speaker of the legislative assembly in the early Whitney era and was already 76 when the Ferguson ministry was formed, resigned in May 1924 to accept the appointment as registrar of deeds for the City of Toronto. Sir Adam Beck, the long serving hydro chairman died in late summer of 1925.
On March 1, 1926 Ferguson announced the ministry's first significant resignation by reading in the legislature the resignation letter from land and forest minister James Lyons addressed to him and his reply. Lyon operated a successful fuel and supply company that had been doing business with the government and many operators in the north long before he joined the government. As concerns for the conflict of interests grew and became untenable, he opted to resign in order to protect his business interest. Being very familiar with the department himself, the premier took on the portfolio on as its interim minister.
Split over prohibition On the eve of the 1926 election, Attorney General William Nickle resigned over the government's policy on temperance and ran for re-election as a Prohibition Union's candidate, becoming the highest profile candidate nominated solely by the union. That triggered a major shuffle of the ministry which introduced three new members into cabinet. Among them were Joseph Montieth, who represented a midwestern riding, a region where the opposition is the strongest. One of the three new ministers, David Jamison of Grey South, was defeated by a 22-year old Farquhar Oliver, a future Liberal minister and party leader, and thus resigned shortly after.
1930 Shuffle, Ban of Toronto Daily Star The cabinet line up remained remarkably stable between the 1926 election and the 1929 election, with minister without portfolio being the only departure when he was appointed sheriff for Wentworth County. All portfolio ministers remained in their post during that period.
Despite Ferguson's prominent presence and his boasting of the impending defeat of three Liberal cabinet members during the 1930 dominion election campaign, Ontario failed to deliver significant gains for the national Conservative Party when it won a majority mandate. Ontario delivered only six of the forty-six seats gained by the Conservative Party across Canada, and its portion of the popular vote actually declined slightly. There was little surprised that the Ferguson ministry lost no members in the subsequent formation of the Bennett ministry in Ottawa.
In the fall of 1930, Ferguson executed the most sweeping shuffle to his cabinet, which saw the departures of three senior ministers and the entry of four new members into the ministry. The reorganization plan was leaked in advance. The early leaks correctly identified the three ministers to be ousted — agriculture minister John Strickler Martin, health minister Forbes Godfrey, and Provincial Secretary Lincoln Goldie — and the four new entrants — Leopold Macaulay, Thomas Kennedy (a future premier), John Morrow Robb and William Martin. The Star and the Globe also incorrectly forecasted the demotion or ousting of Attorney General William Herbert Price. They however correctly forecasted the assignments of Kennedy as agriculture minister, Robb as health minister and Martin as public welfare minister, and the promotion of Dunlop to the powerful treasury portfolio. The level of details and the accuracy strongly suggest the leaks to be deliberate and from a source with actual knowledge of the plan.
While agriculture minister John Strickler Martin had long been in ill-health and was reported to have requested to be relived of cabinet duty, other ministers identified for ousters or demotions reacted swiftly. Treasurer Monteith, rumoured to be demoted to a much stripped down provincial secretariat (expected to distribute key functions such as hospital, prison and vehicle management to other departments and gaining fisheries from the mines department) had proxies citing his accomplishments in negotiating good borrowing rate for loans and made it known to the press that he has no interest to serve in a reduced role. His protest was however muted, likely restrained by the prospect of putting the imminent promotion of his first cousin Robb in jeopardy. In an unprecedented move that broke government communication protocol, Lincoln Goldie convened a general meeting of the Wellington South Conservative Association two days prior to announce this pending retirement and orchestrated resolutions by the association and various other petition calling on Ferguson to reconsider.
The most sensational coverage was over the acrimonious departure of health minister Dr. Forbes Godfrey. The Star breathlessly reported Godfrey's initial refusal to submit his resignation, Ferguson's ultimatum to the minister, the speculation of the need of a formal dismissal from the Crown (on the day of the shuffle), and that the crisis was only averted at the last minute. It followed with repeated coverage of angry commentary by Godfrey in the weeks that follow. It also reported that Toronto MPP Henry Scholfield was summoned to attend the cabinet meeting, but departed half way through. (He was not elevated into cabinet until three months later by Premier Henry.) In an extraordinary move of retaliation, Ferguson office announced that access to all ministers will be denied to reporters of the Toronto Daily Star until the outlet retract its reporting of the events.
Not all prediction became reality. Ferguson acknowledged that he canceled his plan to relinquish the education portfolio to , who instead succeeded Goldie as Provincial Secretary. While Monteith was indeed shuffled, he took on two significant portfolios.
The three ousted ministers all died within sixteen months of the shuffle.
Transition to Henry The ministry further lost a member before Ferguson resigned three months after the acrimonious shuffle. , a minister without portfolio, died unexpectedly in November 1930.