Harris, Walter E.
Federal Politician ~ 1904-1999
Born in 1904 in Kimberly, Ontario, Walter moved with his family to Toronto. At age 17, about to enter Osgoode Hall, where Harris heard an impassioned and eloquent speech by William Lyon Mackenzie King. So inspired by this orator, he decided to one day enter public life as a member of the Liberal party. He was called to the Bar in 1926 and practised law by himself. That same year, he became secretary of the Ward Six Liberal Association in Toronto and held that post until 1931. He moved to Markdale to a law partnership. From 1934 to 1939, he was secretary of the Grey Bruce Liberal Association. In 1940, he defeated Agnes Macphail, the first woman M.P. who had held a secure grip on that post since 1921. During the 1945 and 1946 sessions of parliament, Harris served as co-chairman of the Senate House Committee to choose a distinctive design flag for Canada. In 1947, Prime Minister W.L.M. King named Harris as Parliamentary Assistant to Louis St. Laurent, Secretary of State for External Affairs. When St. Laurent became Prime Minister in 1948, he kept Harris as his Parliamentary Assistant. Harris served on the committee negotiating the historic entry of Newfoundland into Confederation and made detailed arrangements for the ceremony on Parliament Hill. In Cabinet, as Minister of Citizenship and Immigration, he added the Indian Affairs Branch and the National Gallery of Canada to his portfolio. In 1950, he introduced a bill that practically rewrote the Indian Affairs Acts of 1876 and 1872. He set up a Senate-Commons committee which became constituted as a Royal Commission and introduced a bill that substantially increased expenditures on Indian education and health and extended opportunities toward native self-government. He was appointed Minister of Finance in 1954. In 1957, the Conservatives under John Diefenbaker, defeated the Liberals. Harris retired from politics in 1958 returning to law practice in Markdale. He became a Director of the Victoria and Grey Trust Company, and was later elected President, and Chairman of the Board. In 1972, he was appointed Honorary Colonel of the Grey and Simcoe Foresters Regiment, the regiment in which he served as a commissioned officer during the Second World War.
Additional information: Mildred Young Hubbert Ed. Markdale the Crossroads of Grey, Markdale Historical Society, Stan Brown Printers, Owen Sound, Ontario, 1988.
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