John Edward Brownlee - Later Political Career

Later Political Career

In the months after his resignation, Brownlee kept a low profile, though he was still MLA for Ponoka. He returned to the public eye with a speech to the January 1935 UFA convention attacking Aberhart's plans to implement social credit in Alberta alone: "I would impress you that nothing but disillusionment, loss of hope and additional despair can follow any attempt to inaugurate a system of that kind, because the Province has no jurisdiction in these matters." Despite hearing directly from Aberhart, the convention defeated by a wide margin a motion to endorse his version of social credit.

Reid's government made Brownlee its chief strategist against Aberhart and social credit. One tactic he adopted was C. H. Douglas to serve as a consultant to the Alberta government on economic reconstruction. In doing this, Brownlee hoped both to co-opt the promise of social credit for the benefit of the UFA and to discredit Aberhart by demonstrating how widely his interpretation of social credit differed from Douglas's. This effort failed because Albertans, confronted by the contrast between the fiery, charismatic Aberhart and the aloof, technocratic Douglas, preferred the former. Brownlee also invited Aberhart to come to Edmonton and prepare proposals on which the government could act; this was an attempt to force him to take specific positions that could be attacked rather than relying on vague assurances of economic salvation, but was foiled by Aberhart's continued evasiveness.

Brownlee himself toured southern Alberta attacking Aberhart's policies as vague and unconstitutional. In April 1935, he gave a series of radio speeches designed to counter Aberhart's popular radio program, Back to the Bible Hour. When his customary appeals to logic did not work, Brownlee resorted to attacking Aberhart personally, comparing him to the Pied Piper of Hamelin. Aberhart did not resist the comparison, retorting that the pied piper had "rid the capitol of all the rats"; Brownlee responded that, after doing that, he had led its children to their destruction. In May 1935, after Aberhart announced that his social credit movement would contest the next provincial election, Brownlee ridiculed its candidate-selection process—in which Aberhart personally interviewed and selected more candidates for each riding than could ultimately run—as one in which the candidates would be "wrapped in cellophane and carefully hidden away so they will not dry out on, until the day he calls out the fittest and discards the rest".

The 1935 election took place August 22. Brownlee spent most of the campaign trying to retain his own riding of Ponoka. Despite the respect he commanded, his constituents were in desperate economic straits and tired of the UFA's orthodoxy, which had failed to raise their condition. As Brownlee later recalled:

One man got up and said, "Mr. Brownlee, we have listened to you with a great deal of attention and the answers you have given seem pretty hard to meet. But I have one more question…I'm selling my wheat at 25 cents a bushel. If I tried to sell a steer tomorrow I'd probably hardly get enough to pay the freight. I get 3 cents a dozen for eggs. I'm lucky to get a dollar for a can of cream. Will you tell me what I've got to lose?" and a cheer went over the audience. I knew then what the result of the election was going to be.

On election day, every UFA candidate in the province was defeated, as Aberhart's Social Crediters won 56 of 63 seats. In Ponoka, Social Credit's Edith Rogers defeated Brownlee 2,295 votes to 879. After this election, Brownlee never sought political office again.