"A Despotic Lieutenant Governor"

Meddle no more thou busy imposers for we now have it in our power to make you curse the hour when you dared interfere with the Constitution.

Thomas Robert McInnes, the 6th Lieutenant Governor of British Columbia, was one of the most controversial vice-regals in British imperial history. After reading his turbulent biography, one wonders if his former position as superintendent of the provincial Lunatic Asylum (what they called institutions for the mentally disabled in the politically incorrect year of 1878) had any impact on his subsequent political career, especially his time as Lieutenant Governor.

While the political situation in BC at the time of his governship was turbulent (the Legislative Assembly of British Columbia was made up of factions rather than organized political parties), McInnes believed it to be his role to arbitrarily dismiss and appoint premiers without the support of the legislature or the people. The Dominion Government warned McInnes not to meddle in provincial politics, but "the Governor was not a man who cared to be dictated to by eastern capitalists concerning western political situations."

The first premier to experience the swing of McInnes' axe was John H. Turner, whom McInnes removed from office 8 August 1898. Although Turner was having difficulties forming a government amidst all the political turmoil, his dismissal was widely criticized. McInnes appointed Robert Beaven to replace Turner, but as Beaven did not even have a seat in the House, McInnes was forced to appoint his second choice, Charles Semlin as the new premier on 15 August 1898. However, when Semlin began to have problems in the House, McInnes demanded he call elections. When Semlin refused, McInnes abruptly dismissed him, and appointed his opponent, the unpopular Joseph Martin. Martin's term as premier was the shortest in BC history and he was ousted with a vote of non-confidence, which overwhelmingly passed 30-1 on 14 June 1900.

Wide public discontent with McInnes was apparent. After Martin's appointment as premier, McInnes arrived to prorogue the assembly and every MLA, aside from Martin and the speaker, walked out. The next premier, James Dunsmuir wrote to Sir Wilfred Laurier, the Dominion Prime Minister, condemning McInnes' actions as "contrary to the principles, usages, and customs of constitutional government." The Provincial Rights Association published a decree (it is worth reading the entire complaint) in which they wrote:

The People's complaints to the Provincial Rights Association

Decree No. 37
Published for the information of the People
The council of the Provincial Rights Association of British Columbia by virtue of the power vested in it by the constitution, has presented to the world a strong case against Thomas R. McInnes, Lieutenant Governor of the Province, and the Association has already been instrumental in calling the attention of the Dominion Government to the devious methods of government adopted by the said Thomas R. McInnes and his paid personal representatives.

Thomas R. McInnes has committed a series of outrages on the constitution of this Province, and therefore, on the people, beginning in 1898 and not having ended at the present hour. The man that has been his chief adviser for some time past, how long it has not yet been ascertained, is Joseph Martin a hare brained political conspirator, a modern Macduff who claims to be the Premier of this province, but who is not Premier, since this a position that belongs to the legislative assembly to confer, and no man, under responsible constitutional government, can be declared such by any autocrat, but must be so declared by the voice of the people through a majority of the legislature in session assembled. It is perfectly true that some time ago, the time not yet being a known quantity, Thomas R. McInnes selected Joseph Martin to be his chief adviser, but Joseph Martin was unable to get any members of the then existing Legislature to join his political menagerie, and he was compelled to go into the highways and the by-ways for timber, with the result that he has formed a museum of political curiosities that are in no way responsible to the people of whom the said Joseph Martin is alleged to be great friend. Thus by the royal mandate of Thomas R. McInnes, illegally and unconstitutionally exercised, Joseph Martin and his irresponsible and incapable associates are in no way the choice of the people of the great questions affecting the welfare of the Province, but are a cabal set above the heads of people who are now asked to acquiesce in a proceeding which was taken and carried out without their consent.

No man who is the subservient tool of a despotic Lieutenant Governor, who is not responsible to the people, can be a true or sincere friend of the people. The people's rights have been grossly invaded and trampled upon by Thomas R. McInnes, Lieutenant Governor of this Province and by his co-conspirators.

The Prime Minister of the Dominion, Sir Wilfred Laurier has refused to assist Thomas R. McInnes, the head, and Joseph Martin, the tail of this rump creation, and the Provincial Rights Association which steadfastly opposes all tyrants, be they representatives of the Crown, or of the people, will hunt them from post to pillar until avenging justice shall have secured their political strangulation.

Never since the days of Sir Francis Bond Head, since the later perverse folly of Sir Charles Metcalf in 1843, has there been in Canada such a bold, desperate and shame faced attempt to trample on the rights and liberties of the people as there is presented at the present hour, and each hour adds darkness to the fraud, and new attempts are being made to purchase entire constituencies wholesale by these usurpers and pretenders.

It has now, indeed, "become necessary to instruct the throne in the language of truth, "and we must if possible, dispel the delusion and the darkness that envelope it and display in its full danger and genuine colors the ruin which it has brought to our doors."

Certainly, "the people are not so dead to their dignity and duty as to acquiesce in men and measures that have thus been obtruded and forced upon them, men and measures that have reduced this fine Province to the scorn and contempt of the intelligent world. The people are asked to support men on whose records are written despotism, madness, tyranny, mis-government, misrepresentation, fraud, deception, demagoguism, ex post facto legislation, bigotry, usurpation and wrong. The horrifying banner is a fragment torn from midnight and the voices are not those of patriots and liberators, but the appeals of irresponsible adventurers skilled in the smoothness of flattery and deception and proficient in the art of political jugglery. Their legislative enactments will be a series of infamous contributions to the "statutes of fraud," while the ultimate result of their political chicanery will be certain death to Provincial credit and prosperity already on the verge of ruin, unless checked by the voice of reason and of patriotism which let us sincerely hope will receive the approval of Him, who created a system out of a "spacious void, and whose blessing we sincerely believe will not be bestowed on a tyrant like Thomas R. McInnes or a professional wrecker like Joseph Martin, assisted by Smith Curtis, the Oily Gammon of this Comedy of Errors.

We warn these three men especially, in the immortal language of Junius- "meddle no more thou busy imposers for we now have it in our power to make you curse the hour when you dared interfere with the Constitution."

HORACE F. EVANS Executive officer

Rossland, B.C., April 26th, 1900.

In response, Laurier advised McInnes to resign on 19 June 1900 and when McInnes refused, Laurier unprecedentedly advised the governor general to dismiss him from office the following day and appointed the fascinating French-Canadian from Quebec, Henri-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière as his replacement.