Article

John Walter Jones

Published Online February 18, 2008

Last Edited December 14, 2013

John Walter Jones, farmer, politician, premier of PEI (b at Pownal, PEI 14 Apr 1878; d at Ottawa 31 Mar 1954). An unsuccessful Progressive candidate in the federal election of 1921, Jones was first elected to the provincial legislature as a Liberal in 1935.

Jones, John Walter

John Walter Jones, farmer, politician, premier of PEI (b at Pownal, PEI 14 Apr 1878; d at Ottawa 31 Mar 1954). An unsuccessful Progressive candidate in the federal election of 1921, Jones was first elected to the provincial legislature as a Liberal in 1935. In 1943, following Premier Thane CAMPBELL's appointment as chief justice, he became premier. A student of agricultural science and a successful farmer, "Farmer Jones" championed rural interests. As premier he took on the powerful PEI Temperance Federation when in 1945 he favoured strict government regulation of intoxicants rather than PROHIBITION. When the lieutenant-governor, a prohibitionist, refused assent to the necessary legislation, Jones, characteristically, proceeded by order-in-council. During a 1947 Canada Packers strike, his government, claiming to "protect the farm interest," seized the plant, employed scab labour and outlawed unions affiliated with national or international labour organizations. Colourful, outspoken and popular, Jones was appointed to the Senate in 1953.