Crerar, Thomas

Thomas Krerar was born in (now the district of the municipality of , Ontario ). In his youth he moved to Manitoba .

He gained fame as a politician in the 1910s, when he was the leader of . On October 12, 1917, he occupied the post of Minister of Agriculture in the unionist Robert Borden . Although he had no experience as an elected official, he was appointed Minister of Agriculture at Robert Laird Borden . In the held in December of the same year, he was elected a deputy to the House of Commons from County. On June 6, 1919, Crerar left the ministerial post in protest against the high customs duties imposed by the unionist government on foreign, particularly American, goods. As a defender of the interests of agricultural circles in Western Canada , he was a staunch supporter of free trade with the United States , which, in his opinion, would contribute to the well-being of Western Canadian farmers.

In 1920, Crerar, who left the Unionist Party, created his own party, called the . In Progressive Party won an impressive victory in Western Canada. At the national level, she also showed a fairly good result, receiving 65 of 235 seats in the House of Commons. However, in 1922, Crerar was forced to resign from the post of party leader because of internal party differences. After that, the party quickly fell into disrepair, and in 1930 was finally disbanded. Crerar, reelected in 1921 in his district of Marquette, remained a member of parliament until the next which did not run. After that, he left politics

In 1929, Crerar returned to politics, entering the government of the liberal William Lyon MacKenzie King as . At the time of his appointment, he, like his first appointment as minister, was not a member of the House of Commons — it was not until February 1930 that he won the by-election in the district and became a deputy. However, in July 1930, the , in which he was defeated in his district. The King’s Liberal Party, which had gone into opposition, also lost the election.

In Liberal Party won again, and Crerar was elected to the House of Commons as a deputy from County in northern Manitoba. He re-entered the King government, from October 23, 1935 to November 30, 1936, occupying the posts of , , and . On December 1, 1936, all the posts that Crerar occupied were consolidated into a single post of , on which she remained until April 17, 1945 .

On April 18, 1945, Crerar was appointed to the Senate of Canada , where he worked until his resignation on May 31, 1966 . In 1973 he was awarded the Companion of the Order of Canada .

Thomas Crerar died April 11, 1975 in the city of Victoria , British Columbia

• Biography on the official website of the Parliament Channels
• About the award of Krerar Order of Canada