William Horace Temple - Political Career

Political Career

In 1943, Flying Officer Temple, took leave, to become the Ontario CCF's candidate in the west-end Toronto constituency of High Park in the provincial election. He was narrowly defeated by George Drew, leader of the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party, by a mere 400 votes. Drew became Premier of Ontario as a result of the election.

Temple ran in the June 1945 federal election as the CCF candidate in High Park. He placed third. Undeterred by his previous electoral defeats, he ran again in the High Park constituency, this time at the provincial level, in the 1948 Ontario election. Temple castigated Drew for softening Ontario's liquor laws, claiming the Premier was the captive of "liquor interests" due to the government's decision to allow liquor sales in cocktail bars. While Drew's party swept to victory across the province, Drew himself was defeated by Temple, and decided to resign as premier and move to federal politics.

He continued to hound Drew after being elected. In the fall of 1948, Drew become the leader of the federal Progressive Conservatives. He needed a seat in the federal parliament and contested a by-election in the Ottawa-area electoral district of Carleton in order to win a seat in the House of Commons. The federal Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (CCF) was determined to defeat him, so they ran Eugene Forsey as their candidate. Temple was brought up from Toronto to appear at a political meeting in Richmond, Ontario's Town Hall, where Forsey and Drew were speaking. He accused the Tory leader of being "a tool of the liquor interests" and also made suggestions about Drew's sobriety. Throughout the evening Drew grew more red-faced and explosive, every time Temple spoke. Finally, after Drew misheard Temple calling him dishonest, the two men were restrained before they could come to physical blows with each other. A riot was barely averted, and the meeting had to be terminated. However, on 20 December 1948 Drew soundly defeated Forsey, and went on to sit in Parliament.

As a Member of Provincial Parliament (MPP), Temple fought for temperance and for housing for World War II veterans. He was elected CCF Caucus chairmain shortly after he defeated Premier Drew. His temperance crusades in the legislature put him at odds with the party establishment, including national secretary, David Lewis. The following year, he was not re-elected Causus Chairman. Temple remained in the Ontario legislature until his defeat in the 1951 election. After his defeat, he returned to the clothing import business until his retirement in the late 1960s.

Temple remained an activist in the CCF. In the early 1950s he was a leader of the "Ginger Group", a group of dissident CCFers who argued that the party's poor performance in the 1951 provincial election was due to the party moving away from taking clear socialist stands on issues and instead focussing too much on organizational issues. The group opposed what they saw as the "bureaucratization" of the CCF with salaried organizers and a greater emphasis on fundraising taking the place of grassroots volunteers and political education and discussion. Temple and his supporters also argued that power was being increasingly concentrated in the hands of the party executive instead of the grassroots resulting in the squelching of democratic discussion and grassroots policy development and sought to rectify this by curtailing the powers of the provincial secretary. On April 12, 1952, at the 18th annual provincial convention, Temple nearly ran for leader against Ted Jolliffe but withdrew at the last minute allowing Jolliffe to be acclaimed. Temple then ran for party president against establishment candidate Ted Isley, but was defeated 112 to 85. Temple and one other member of the Ginger Group, True Davidson, were then subsequently elected to the executive as vice-presidents.

He remained a member of the CCF's successor, the Ontario New Democratic Party, for much of his life but resigned from the NDP in 1987, stating that he "cannot possibly accept the liquor policy of the party."