George Stewart Henry
George Stewart Henry (1871-1953) was a farmer, businessman and politician who was first elected to the Ontario legislature in 1913 as a Conservative. From 1923 to 1930 he served as Minister of Highways in the Ferguson government expanding on the highway system that was initiated by the previous government of Ernest C. Drury. When Ferguson stepped down in 1930, barely a year into the Great Depression, Henry succeeded him as Conservative party leader and Premier of Ontario. As such, Henry kept building roads extending Ontario's highway system from 670 km to 3888 km and beginning construction of Canada's first four lane, controlled access, divided superhighway, the Queen Elizabeth Way (as it was eventually named), from Toronto to Niagara Falls. Henry's close ties to business left him ill-equipped to deal creatively with the economic crisis and, aside from building roads, his government did little to alleviate public suffering whether it be unemployment in the cities or the collapse of prices for farm products in the country. Henry's government, like the federal government of R.B. Bennett established work camps for jobless men less as a means of social welfare than social control in order to evacuate this potentially radical element from the cities (as well as a source of labour for the construction of Henry's highway system).
When it came time for an election in 1934 (Henry's first as Premier) the government had little to offer, except for more road construction, and the Tories were soundly defeated (dropping from 90 seats in the legislature to a mere 17) by the Ontario Liberal Party led by Mitchell Hepburn.
